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Saw this in the many tributes to the great man: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDI8SQ2fmLA&sns=em Bad rear end.
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Aug 25, 2012 20:59
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McNally posted:Neil Armstrong is dead. This must be what growing up is like. Seeing the news that one of your childhood heroes is dead.
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Aug 26, 2012 02:36
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Aug 26, 2012 05:21
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McNally posted:Neil Armstrong is dead. yeah, rip
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Aug 26, 2012 05:33
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Minto Took posted:This must be what growing up is like. Seeing the news that one of your childhood heroes is dead. Man I love this being an adult poo poo. 
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Aug 26, 2012 06:11
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Totally TWISTED posted:Man I love this being an adult poo poo. Armstrong was cool and all, but the dude was 82. He was awesome, but his famous poo poo happened a decade and change before I was even concieved. Now this, this is why I'm nursing a bottle tonight:  One, two, three, three glasses of Woodford ah ha ha ha ha!
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Aug 26, 2012 06:37
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The Russian's had the best martial music. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=myg8Q0r8JnQ
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Aug 26, 2012 06:40
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grover posted:A Nike missile radar was mounted atop Battery Benson of Fort Worden, a pre-WWI defensive fortification North-West of Seattle. The NIKE missile radar station (S-93 R) was operational there from 1957 to 1961. Was rather disappointing compared to the fort itself. My photo of the mount turned out like crap, unfortunately: I know I'm a little late to PNW fort chat but we visited Fort Casey during the first weekend I lived here in Seattle. Did you visit the little lighthouse museum while you were there? When I was there they had volunteers giving informal tours (very old veterans in very serious hats). The PNWs coastal defense forts were made obsolete by the gun technology of ships by the time they had finished construction, way before airpower was a factor. Still very cool place to visit. I grew up in Revolutionary War territory so old forts are kind of nostalgic for me, my grandfather used to take me to Fort Stanwix every summer.
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Aug 26, 2012 09:23
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8th-samurai posted:I know I'm a little late to PNW fort chat but we visited Fort Casey during the first weekend I lived here in Seattle. Did you visit the little lighthouse museum while you were there? When I was there they had volunteers giving informal tours (very old veterans in very serious hats). The PNWs coastal defense forts were made obsolete by the gun technology of ships by the time they had finished construction, way before airpower was a factor.  You do bring up a good point, though; even the largest guns at the PNW forts were inferior to battleship guns of the era, and would be unable to fight back if a battleship would stand off at greater range. Still, it would have forced any invading enemy to commit their largest capitol ships into the restricted waters in the Straight of Juan de Fuca, which would then be vulnerable to torpedo boats and other attacks. Whereas, vs aircraft, they were utterly useless.
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Aug 26, 2012 13:39
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I was in Omaha, NE for a friend's wedding this past weekend and had just enough time to go by the SAC Air and Space museum. It was incredible since I'd never seen a B-36 or B-58 in person. Nothing is really roped off so you can walk all around and under each aircraft. Only wish there was a way to go inside some. I was a bit sobered since I had just come across the DVD for The Day After and watched it last week remembering much of it vividly it's airing in my childhood. So seeing some of these aircraft that were designed to carry nuclear weapons with that imagery in my head was humbling, for lack of a better word, thinking of what potential those aircraft had to inflict upon the world that sort of damage. There's a B-52 trainer cockpit you can sit in I found thrilling and wish I had one to play flight sim in. I've some simple pictures from my $40 digital camera, but haven't uploaded them yet. The B-1, Vulcan, and SR-71 display of course were highlights as well.
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Aug 27, 2012 14:56
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AzureSkys posted:Only wish there was a way to go inside some. Way back in the day (like early-mid '90s), back when all the aircraft were outside on a patch of tarmac next to Offutt next to a tiny indoor facility with most of the exhibits, they used to do this once a year. They'd have "walk-through" day and pop all the aircraft open and let people crawl around inside them. It owned. Of course, the aircraft were outside so that meant that there were birds' nests in the engines, dry rot eating the tires, and all the paint was completely faded, so I guess I'll take the tradeoff of the current facility with indoor storage.
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Aug 27, 2012 21:19
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iyaayas01 posted:Of course, the aircraft were outside so that meant that there were birds' nests in the engines, dry rot eating the tires, and all the paint was completely faded, so I guess I'll take the tradeoff of the current facility with indoor storage. I've always wondered this: how hosed are those airplanes? Of course we're ignoring the instances of the things that are just hulks that were retired because they weren't flyable any more, but if you park an operational aircraft on a tarmac and just leave it there to slowly rot away how long does it take before it really becomes a write-off? Now let's say you had something that had been mistreated like that. Say an F-14 that was retired while still in OK condition and just parked to be a display and left to slowly rot. At what point would it still be restorable and at what point would it more or less just be an F-14 shaped sculpture? I'm guessing that there's lots of wiring, seals, etc. that would need to be replaced, but past that is there anything that's just going to fall to poo poo from not seeing annual maintenance?
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Aug 27, 2012 21:52
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Cyrano4747 posted:I've always wondered this: how hosed are those airplanes? Are we talking like "Restored to Flyable" or "Restored to sit in a Museum and look pretty"? I'd imagine it's a lot like cars. It's all a matter of what you want to do with it, and how much money you have. I feel like I've read some stories if old WWII planes that were restored from a pretty much wrecked hunk of metal to something that can fly, now. E: On something modern like an F-14, I think it'd just depend on what parts are salvageable. Something simple like cockpit glass is probably not a huge (relatively speaking) issue. Flight computers/engines/radar on the other hand... Akion fucked around with this message at 21:59 on Aug 27, 2012 |
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Aug 27, 2012 21:56
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Akion posted:Are we talking like "Restored to Flyable" or "Restored to sit in a Museum and look pretty"? Restored to flyable. gently caress, you can take a gutted aluminum shell and restore it to look pretty. Don't even need an engine or really even a cockpit in it for that. And yeah, there have been some WW2 airplanes that were "restored" from basically an airframe dredged out of a swamp into a flyable aircraft. Those are more rebuilt than restored, though. Kind of the airplane equivalent of finding a stripped, sporterized, rusty barreled action in the basement and doing a ground-up rebuild with a mix of old and new parts to make it look like a K98k or whatever again. edit: ^^^^^^ yeah, computers and poo poo was part of what I'm getting at. Does leaving those airplanes on the tarmac for 20 years just gently caress the avionics straight to hell? Assuming it's in a desert or someplace so water damage isn't an issue, but part of me wonders if there might be problems with old cloth wrapped computer cables from the 60s or something decaying away and not having good replacements for them.
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Aug 27, 2012 21:59
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Cyrano4747 posted:
I'd expect at the least you'd have to replace a few miles of cables from things nesting in/eating them. But it's also worth keeping in mind that most of those systems weren't really designed to be left alone without maintenance/upkeep for a long time. That said, electronics can be surprisingly resilient. One of our techs had a piece of DDR1 on his keychain for 2 years that he thought was dead. We got bored and plugged it into a test bench one day and it fired right up. This is after being handled all the time, going through the washer, etc... That's kind of the funny thing about a lot of solid-state stuff. You can beat the unholy poo poo out of it, and it'll still work... but if you hit it with just a bit of static in the wrong spot, it's hosed. So I think it really comes down to whether the core "I can't replace this without the men in suits asking questions" systems are still viable. If they are, you could probably do it with the right combination of time/money. Cabling is pretty universal, and probably something you can work backwards from what you pull out. The radar/FCS... that's not really something you are going to have an easy time getting. I'd imagine most of the avionics systems could be restored with the proper knowledge (engines rebuilt, surfaces repaired, and the bits and pieces that make it all work together). It'd be pretty neat to have the opportunity to try, though. I'm going to feel old as gently caress when I see some group of guys restore an F-14 they found buried in the desert like it's a P-51.
Akion fucked around with this message at 22:11 on Aug 27, 2012 |
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Aug 27, 2012 22:09
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Akion posted:I'm going to feel old as gently caress when I see some group of guys restore an F-14 they found buried in the desert like it's a P-51. gently caress, you want to feel old right now? The Gen 1 Glock first came out in 1982 and started hitting it big with Euro militaries in 1983. The gold standard, the iconic design of the modern era of handguns is 30 loving years old. When I can finally buy a first gen glock as a C&R firearm, THEN I will feel truly, and forever, old. (of course it won't hurt that I'll be 50 that year too).
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Aug 27, 2012 22:19
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Cyrano4747 posted:gently caress, you want to feel old right now? The Gen 1 Glock first came out in 1982 and started hitting it big with Euro militaries in 1983. Wow, I never realized the Glock was born one year before me. I was also born in the only year they didn't make a Corvette. I turn 29 in exactly one month.
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Aug 27, 2012 22:23
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According to Twitter, the most reliable source: 'Apparently Neil Armstrong used to tell unfunny jokes about the Moon, and follow them up with "Ah, I guess you had to be there."' I want this to be true so much.
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Aug 27, 2012 22:27
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Psion posted:According to Twitter, the most reliable source: 'Apparently Neil Armstrong used to tell unfunny jokes about the Moon, and follow them up with "Ah, I guess you had to be there."' Ahahahaha, oh my god, he is even more awesome in my book now. Just picturing the  after "you had to be there" puts a poo poo eating grin on my face.
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Aug 27, 2012 22:33
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Pictured: A Cool Dude X-15s are awesome.
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Aug 28, 2012 00:20
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8th-samurai posted:Still very cool place to visit. I grew up in Revolutionary War territory so old forts are kind of nostalgic for me, my grandfather used to take me to Fort Stanwix every summer. I get this too. I lived my whole life near West Point, Washington's Cantonment and some other smaller forts/ruins. West Point is amazing if people have never been. Looking out over the Hudson, seeing the placement of it all, and getting up close with the massive chain links, the British would have been absolutely insane to try and sail any farther north. Benedict Arnorld would have really hosed things up had he escaped with the defense plans, and once you've been there in person it's patently obvious why. Goddamn is that place the absolutely most perfect spot for a Revolution era fort, there's no way in hell the British could have taken it otherwise.
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Aug 28, 2012 02:30
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priznat posted:Pictured: A Cool Dude I love that in the midst of the most advanced technology the early 60s had to offer, there's a regular old plastic bucket sitting there under the fuselage, collecting fluids or something.
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Aug 28, 2012 05:37
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I was going to say it was collecting leftover alcohol (fuel) for the partay but they had switched to the ammonia/liquid oxygen engine by then I think.
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Aug 28, 2012 06:48
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It's amazing that in fifty years no one has managed/bothered to make a faster manned plane.
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Aug 28, 2012 07:23
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Alaan posted:It's amazing that in fifty years no one has managed/bothered to make a faster manned plane. I'd like to think that someone has, and that they just haven't told anyone.
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Aug 28, 2012 11:59
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Shifting priorities. I think back then, we had a healthy mix of "We're America, so you're god-damned right we're going to build the fastest plane ever" combined with "We can also use this to fly over there and stick our dick in your eye before you blink". I mean, we're still building crazy-fast stuff (or trying, if DARPA could stop blowing them up). It's just that the focus is shifting to un-manned stuff. Why spend all that extra money adding life support and whatnot when you can spend a lot less on an air-conditioned trailer in the desert for a roughly similar effect?
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Aug 28, 2012 12:23
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Also, UAV pilots are a lot more tolerant of hypersonic test vehicle mission briefings that end with "... and then turf it into the middle of the Pacific."
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Aug 29, 2012 07:55
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Alaan posted:It's amazing that in fifty years no one has managed/bothered to make a faster manned plane. You could make a pretty good argument for the Space Shuttle (and Buran) in that role. They're all capable of controlled hypersonic flight.
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Aug 29, 2012 08:48
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Space Gopher posted:You could make a pretty good argument for the Space Shuttle (and Buran) in that role. They're all capable of controlled hypersonic flight. By that definition, then the Apollo RVs count. An offset center of mass caused a sideways lift, and rotating the capsule changed the direction of the lift vector, so the thing could be steered as it fell. If the space shuttle's an airplane, so's that RV.
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Aug 29, 2012 17:02
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Does this make ICBMs the first drones then?
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Aug 29, 2012 17:05
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Cyrano4747 posted:Does this make ICBMs the first drones then? Wouldn't the V1s count?
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Aug 29, 2012 19:20
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Oxford Comma posted:Wouldn't the V1s count? I think the German radio operated glide bombs would be the first drones
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Aug 29, 2012 19:23
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Oxford Comma posted:Wouldn't the V1s count? No steerable guidance. It was all pre-programed (in the sense of "fly that direction for X hours, run into ground") with no in-flight correction or adjustment. About as dumb a bomb as you can find. edit: ^^^^ forgot about those fuckers. Yeah, those guys would probably qualify.
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Aug 29, 2012 19:23
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Cyrano4747 posted:No steerable guidance. It was all pre-programed (in the sense of "fly that direction for X hours, run into ground") with no in-flight correction or adjustment. About as dumb a bomb as you can find. Pure airism. Radio-controlled torpedoes debuted during WWI.
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Aug 29, 2012 19:53
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Phanatic posted:By that definition, then the Apollo RVs count. An offset center of mass caused a sideways lift, and rotating the capsule changed the direction of the lift vector, so the thing could be steered as it fell. If the space shuttle's an airplane, so's that RV. Apollo capsules could be steered in the sense that they could reliably come down in a couple-hundred-square-mile patch of ocean. The Space Shuttle had identifiable wings that generated appreciable aerodynamic lift (rather than just an offset center of mass and some lifting-body effects), and it could reliably land on a specific runway. It built on the X-15 program's research into making an airplane that was safe and controllable at hypersonic speeds. As for why the X-15 seems like a dead end - we got the data we needed from that kind of program. Once we were able to get into space, just "going really fast through the atmosphere" is easy: you use your preexisting space launch infrastructure, then drop into the atmosphere. Orbital re-entry speeds are far faster than anything the X-15 ever had to deal with. And, for stuff that stays in the atmosphere, rocket planes really aren't much of a research interest any more; again, that's more the domain of spaceflight now. If you're going to stick around down low in a reusable aircraft, where there's all that free oxidizer right there for the taking, air-breathing engines are much more interesting and useful.
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Aug 29, 2012 20:04
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Flikken posted:I think the German radio operated glide bombs would be the first drones I think you are right...maybe we need to distinguish between guided munitions and UAVs (which in my mind are meant to be reusable.) The HS 293 was a pretty interesting piece of work. A 500 lb. bomb strapped to a guided rocket, it was a common weapon in the later Battle of the Atlantic. Initially it was radio-guided, but the allies figured out pretty quickly how to jam the signal. Then, it was wire-guided, which is a pretty big innovation in of itself. Unlike the even more revolutionary Fritz-X anti-shipping missile, it had no armor-piercing capability, and was used on merchant ships and their escorts. Even the Fw 200, by this time obsolete, was upgraded to carry the HS 293 to provide some extra firepower on anti-shipping strikes. It had a few flaws. First, it was subsonic, so it could be still shot down by flak. And so could the attacking plane: because it had to be guided in visually, the launching plane had to be visible nearby. (The Germans did develop a primitive TV system for the HS 293 so it could be launched and then guided in remotely - but this was never operationally deployed.) Still, unlike the Fritz-X for some reason, the HS 293 was used until the end of the war. (Also, it's kinda weird how the Nazi tactical missiles were so much more worthwhile and effective compared to the V-1 and the V-2 missiles, which got much more funding. According to the wikipedia, the V-2 by itself cost something like a billion dollars more [in ww2 money] than the friggin' A-Bomb program did.)
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Aug 29, 2012 21:17
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Nebakenezzer posted:I think you are right...maybe we need to distinguish between guided munitions and UAVs (which in my mind are meant to be reusable.) Yeah I'm gonna have to agree - I don't think something like a TOW counts as a UAV just because there's a dude technically controlling it from the launcher.
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Aug 29, 2012 21:36
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The difference is a drone can launch other weapons? Gotta work recon-only UAVs into there somehow though.
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Aug 29, 2012 21:38
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Nebakenezzer posted:
I'll never stop being amused at how outlandish Nazi weapons became in the closing days of WW2, until they reached near-comic book levels of silliness. "We could work on fixing the suspensions of our tanks and maybe making them less complicated so they don't break down as often. OR WE COULD WORK ON BUILDING THE MAUS!"
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Aug 29, 2012 21:43
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Oxford Comma posted:I'll never stop being amused at how outlandish Nazi weapons became in the closing days of WW2, until they reached near-comic book levels of silliness. "We could work on fixing the suspensions of our tanks and maybe making them less complicated so they don't break down as often. OR WE COULD WORK ON BUILDING THE MAUS!" On the one hand, it kinda makes sense, as the losing side had a really strong motive for technological innovation. Some of the late war fascist inventions are somewhat like cold war innovations minus electronics. The Japanese had that Kamikaze cruise missile, the Oka, and deployed the world's first strategic submarine - only it launched airplanes and not missiles. Similarly, everybody's favorite Nazi rocket plane, the Me 163, was kinda like a SAM: it was deployed near important industry and was a rocket powered air defense, erm, thing, but was piloted and reusable. On the other hand, I'm 100% with you. The Nazis loved things that made good propaganda, even at the expense of effectiveness, and the more hopeless the situation, the more technological wunder-waffen straws they were willing to grasp at. The idea of a Locomotive-sized invincible super-tank may have been unbelievably dumb in real life - but it made for a hell of a story. Same thing with the V-2: "so what if it takes 40 tons of potatoes to make the alcohol for a single V-2? We will take our vengeance for allied bombings with hot rocket death!"
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Aug 29, 2012 22:41
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