AIRPOWER/Cold War - Its literally the first two lines of their hymn

The Something Awful Forums > Archives > Comedy Goldmine > The Goodmine > AIRPOWER/Cold War - Its literally the first two lines of their hymn

«‹›1991 »

Crab Dad: Dec 28, 2002; behold i have tempered and refined thee, but not as silver; as CRAB

mllaneza posted:

For a submarine you'd want to call it the Lewinsky.

I think a troop transport ship would be better suited. Full of

# ? Feb 3, 2013 00:07

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? Jun 3, 2024 18:25

Groda: Mar 17, 2005; Hair Elf

LingcodKilla posted:

I think the BJ Clinton would be a great name for a Submarine.

Or an aircraft carrier exclusively staffed by F-35's and A-7's.

# ? Feb 3, 2013 00:40

Crab Dad: Dec 28, 2002; behold i have tempered and refined thee, but not as silver; as CRAB

Groda posted:

Or an aircraft carrier exclusively staffed by F-35's and A-7's.

Is this a tailhook joke?

# ? Feb 3, 2013 01:21

Agustin Cienfuegos: May 7, 2008

Do y'all have any kickin' rad Su-25 pics? I need some for just because. Spaciba.

# ? Feb 3, 2013 04:17

Koesj: Aug 3, 2003

LingcodKilla posted:

Is this a tailhook joke?

I think he was going after the Boeing JSF.

# ? Feb 3, 2013 04:18

iyaayas01: Feb 19, 2010; Perry'd

Koesj posted:

I think he was going after the Boeing JSF.

Especially given the A-7's nickname...SLUF, Short Little Ugly Fucker.

# ? Feb 3, 2013 04:32

PhotoKirk: Jul 2, 2007; insert witty text here

NerdyMcNerdNerd posted:

This is the Yak-38, NATO designation 'Forger'. According to the program I was watching, many in the Soviet Union's military didn't feel there was a need for carriers. They saw flying boats and long range bombers as a viable alternative for naval airpower. This plane would be paired with the Soviet 'It isn't an aircraft carrier, it's a cruiser that carries aircraft!' Kiev. The Forger is a pretty chill looking plane.

Ah, the Forger. Here's an article about the auto-eject system. http://www.flightglobal.com/FlightPDFArchive/1986/1986%20-%200458.PDF

If it rolls too far while in VTOL mode, it kicks out the pilot automatically.

# ? Feb 3, 2013 05:56

hannibal: Jul 27, 2001; [img-planes]

iyaayas01 posted:

Now, they've kind of shredded even that fig leaf with the Giffords, but at least a LCS isn't a carrier. I still don't see there ever being a USS William Clinton or a USS George W Bush. I predict that most of the Ford class will reuse names from the Forrestal and Kitty Hawk classes.

For what it's worth, Giffords' astronaut husband is a naval aviator and O-6.

# ? Feb 3, 2013 06:13

Cyrano4747: Sep 25, 2006; Yes, I know I'm old, get off my fucking lawn so I can yell at these clouds.

hannibal posted:

For what it's worth, Giffords' astronaut husband is a naval aviator and O-6.

Somehow I doubt they named the ship after him.

# ? Feb 3, 2013 06:14

Craptacular: Jul 11, 2004

Cyrano4747 posted:

Somehow I doubt they named the ship after him.

It's the USS Gabrielle Giffords, not the USS Giffords.

vvvvvvvvvv that too

# ? Feb 3, 2013 06:27

Alaan: May 24, 2005

Especially since he has a different last name.

# ? Feb 3, 2013 06:28

hannibal: Jul 27, 2001; [img-planes]

Well, my point was that she has a connection to the Navy that the Navy can use as some sort of justification. (not that they need one, or really care)

# ? Feb 3, 2013 07:03

Force de Fappe: Nov 7, 2008

Pimpmust posted:

I want a Kitty Hawk in action, such a awesome name

Also, Iran unveiled its next gen fighter today. The F-313 Qaher.
It looks about 50-75% to scale though, that cockpit is *tiny*.

It's probably intended as a subsonic trainer and attack aircraft, apparently with STEFF TEKKNOLOGEE to whatever degree that term means anything. They were working with the Russians on a new line of domestic fighter aircraft a decade back, and this is one of the things that came out of that programme.

# ? Feb 3, 2013 07:28

mlmp08: Jul 11, 2004; Prepare for my priapic projectile's exalted penetration; Nap Ghost

I'm guessing it's intended as a set piece rather than anything that actually flies at all.

# ? Feb 3, 2013 16:09

Duckboat: May 15, 2012

This thread needs more Apache pictures. Post the Apache-est pics you got!

Duckboat fucked around with this message at 17:11 on Feb 3, 2013

# ? Feb 3, 2013 17:06

Koesj: Aug 3, 2003

Duckboat posted:

This thread needs more Apache pictures. Post the Apache-est pics you got!

Since your pic is broken I'm assuming it's either been shot down over an Iraqi field or it's cartwheeling across a snow-covered mountainside in the Afgh.

# ? Feb 3, 2013 17:24

iyaayas01: Feb 19, 2010; Perry'd

hannibal posted:

Well, my point was that she has a connection to the Navy that the Navy can use as some sort of justification. (not that they need one, or really care)

Yeah, hence why I said "kind of" shredded that fig leaf, since they can still make an argument (and IIRC the SECNAV said as such as part of his justification when he got called on it), it's just quite a bit more of a stretch.

Koesj posted:

Since your pic is broken I'm assuming it's either been shot down over an Iraqi field or it's cartwheeling across a snow-covered mountainside in the Afgh.

Or crashing into mountains in the Balkans while contributing nothing to the war.

# ? Feb 3, 2013 19:13

NerdyMcNerdNerd: Aug 3, 2004

iyaayas01 posted:

Or crashing into Florida while contributing nothing to the war.

FUTURE WEAPONS

# ? Feb 3, 2013 19:35

Godholio: Aug 28, 2002; Does a bear split in the woods near Zheleznogorsk?

The ones in Florida are at a training squadron so yeah they'll never be in a war effort.

# ? Feb 3, 2013 20:14

ToyotaThong: Oct 29, 2011

Duckboat posted:

This thread needs more Apache pictures. Post the Apache-est pics you got!

No Apache here. Have a classic Cobra

# ? Feb 3, 2013 21:30

iyaayas01: Feb 19, 2010; Perry'd

Some pretty cool pictures here of Canadian troops playing hockey on the Imjin River in the middle of the Korean War.

# ? Feb 3, 2013 21:35

Mike-o: Dec 25, 2004; Now I'm in your room
And I'm in your bed; Grimey Drawer

I read all of the AI thread a couple months ago, and now I've read this one all the way through. Now where will I go to get my airplane fix :ohdear:

?
Maybe I'll finally start reading all those manuals for all the flight sims I have, sitting on the shelf not being played. Guess I should start reading all these book suggestions I have now thanks to both threads.

# ? Feb 4, 2013 04:02

Memento: Aug 25, 2009; Bleak Gremlin

A Tall Tail by Charles Stross| Tor.com

Interesting little anecdote from the time when the Cold War was getting warmer. Chemistry people will have jaws drop a few times while reading.

# ? Feb 4, 2013 04:09

Phanatic: Mar 13, 2007; Please don't forget that I am an extremely racist idiot who also has terrible opinions about the Culture series.

Memento1979 posted:

A Tall Tail by Charles Stross| Tor.com

Interesting little anecdote from the time when the Cold War was getting warmer. Chemistry people will have jaws drop a few times while reading.

Unlike a lot of stuff in that story, the notion of dimethylmercury as a propellant is actually true and was actually looked at. The story's in "Ignition!"

quote:

All sorts of efforts were being made, during the late 50's, to increase propellant densities, and I was responsible (not purposely, but from being taken seriously when I didn't expect to be) for one of the strangest. Phil Pomerantz, of BuWeps, wanted me to try dimethyl mercury, Hg(CH3)2, as a fuel. I suggested that it might be somewhat toxic and a bit dangerous to synthesize and handle, but he assured me that it was (a) very easy to put together, and (b) as harmless as mother's milk. I was dubious, but told him that I'd see what I could do. I looked the stuff up, and discovered that, indeed, the synthesis was easy, but that it was extremely toxic, and a long way from harmless. As I had suffered from mercury poisoning on two previous occasions and didn't care to take a chance on doing it again, I thought that it would be an excellent idea to have somebody else make the compound for me. So I phoned Rochester, and asked my contact man at Eastman Kodak if they would make ahundred pounds of dimethyl mercury and ship it to NARTS.

I heard a horrified gasp, and then a tightly controlled voice (I could hear the grinding of teeth beneath the words) informed me that if they were silly enough to synthesize that much dimethyl mercury, they would, in the process fog every square inch of photographic film in Rochester, and that, thank you just the same, Eastman was not interested. The receiver came down with a crash, and I sat back to consider the matter. An agonizing reappraisal seemed to be indicated.

This rocket was to be test-fired in the middle of New Jersey. After they realized how insane using DMM would be they switched to nice, safe, inorganic elemental mercury, and built a whole complicated scrubber system to capture all the mercury vapor that would be released. Then minds were changed and they instead went out west and fired it in the middle of the desert, with no scrubber system.

Phanatic fucked around with this message at 04:39 on Feb 4, 2013

# ? Feb 4, 2013 04:35

Magni: Apr 29, 2009

Ignition! also had a few choice bits about them trying out flourine elements in their rockets, including chlorine triflouride. Short version on chlorine trifluoride for those not knowing about the stuff: The Nazis actually tried weaponising it for about five minutes before concluding that it was too unstable and unsafe to work with. That should probably tell you everything you need to know.

Longer version, quoted from Ignition!:

quote:

It is, of course, extremely toxic, but that's the least of the problem. It is hypergolic with every known fuel, and so rapidly hypergolic that no ignition delay has ever been measured. It is also hypergolic with such things as cloth, wood, and test engineers, not to mention asbestos, sand, and water-with which it reacts explosively. It can be kept in some of the ordinary structural metals-steel, copper, aluminium, etc.-because of the formation of a thin film of insoluble metal fluoride which protects the bulk of the metal, just as the invisible coat of oxide on aluminium keeps it from burning up in the atmosphere. If, however, this coat is melted or scrubbed off, and has no chance to reform, the operator is confronted with the problem of coping with a metal-fluorine fire. For dealing with this situation, I have always recommended a good pair of running shoes.

They actually had a one-ton spill of the stuff at a chemicals factory sometimes back in the 50s. It burned itself through a foot of concrete floor and then through another meter of sand and gravel. :stare:

Magni fucked around with this message at 00:39 on Feb 5, 2013

# ? Feb 5, 2013 00:17

Zorak of Michigan: Jun 10, 2006

Copies of Ignition! appear to go for $400 and up. I hate you guys.

Edit: Then I found out there are PDFs out there. We can still be friends.

# ? Feb 5, 2013 01:48

Wibbleman: Apr 19, 2006; Fluffy doesn't want to be sacrificed

and here is the MSDS for it.

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B_i-eoNwpf0_My0tU3VOc0VUMFk/edit?pli=1

Love the pictures of the burning chicken.
But one of the comments from here http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2008/02/26/sand_wont_save_you_this_time.php is pretty funny.

quote:

36. Eric on March 18, 2009 11:39 AM writes...

How, pray tell, did they figure out that ClF3 is toxic? I mean, besides the whole catching-fire-to-raw-flesh-or-water thing.

# ? Feb 5, 2013 02:14

Nebakenezzer: Sep 13, 2005; The Mote in God's Eye

Memento1979 posted:

A Tall Tail by Charles Stross| Tor.com

Interesting little anecdote from the time when the Cold War was getting warmer. Chemistry people will have jaws drop a few times while reading.

Doing a wikipedia search on FOOF lead me to a chemist's blog where he wrote an article called "Things I Won't Work With: dioxygen diflouride."

In it he not only talks about FOOF (which makes liquid oxygen look like particularly unreactive sand) but also linked to a chemestry article a professor wrote in the 50s. Not only did he experiment with it, his job was to take this already terrifying substance and see what would react "best" with it:

quote:

Genuine Mad Scientist posted:
"Being a high energy oxidizer, dioxygen difluoride reacted vigorously with organic compounds, even at temperatures close to its melting point. It reacted instantaneously with solid ethyl alcohol, producing a blue flame and an explosion. When a drop of liquid 02F2 was added to liquid methane, cooled at 90�K., a white flame was produced instantaneously, which turned green upon further burning. When 0.2 (mL) of liquid 02F2 was added to 0.5 (mL) of liquid CH4 at 90�K., a violent explosion occurred."

And he's just getting warmed up, if that's the right phrase to use for something that detonates things at -180C (that's -300 Fahrenheit, if you only have a kitchen thermometer). The great majority of Streng's reactions have surely never been run again. The paper goes on to react FOOF with everything else you wouldn't react it with: ammonia ("vigorous", this at 100K), water ice (explosion, natch), chlorine ("violent explosion", so he added it more slowly the second time), red phosphorus (not good), bromine fluoride, chlorine trifluoride (say what?), perchloryl fluoride (!), tetrafluorohydrazine (how on Earth. . .), and on, and on. If the paper weren't laid out in complete grammatical sentences and published in JACS, you'd swear it was the work of a violent lunatic. I ran out of vulgar expletives after the second page. A. G. Streng, folks, absolutely takes the corrosive exploding cake, and I have to tip my asbestos-lined titanium hat to him.

As chemistry is probably my worst subject, I find all of this stuff fascinating, and would like to know if Streng's paper is as insane as this chemist makes it out to be.

# ? Feb 5, 2013 03:09

grover: Jan 23, 2002; PEW PEW PEW

Tried to track that down, but could only find a couple unrelated papers dealing with liquid ozone. Tried to pull down "Flourine-steam flame and its characteristics", but my university isn't cool enough to have access to it, apparently.

This was a loving letter to the editor of J. Chem Physics. Guess it didn't meet their rigorous demands for publishing?

J. Chem Physics posted:

Miscibility of Liquid Ozone with Fluorine and Oxygen
C. S. STOKES AND A. G. STRENG
The Research Institute of Temple University,
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
(Received March 21, 1962)

LIQUID fluorine-ozone-oxygen mixtures have attracted attention as a high-energy combination with a potential use as a component of a powerful propellant or explosive systems. The miscibility of this combination has never been determined experimentally. In earlier work,2 it was found that the generally very useful concept of solubility parameters8 does not always predict correctly the solubility behavior of liquefied gases at cryogenic temperatures. The miscibility and solubility of the ozone-fluorine and the ozone-fluorine-oxygen was therefore determined experimentally.

Pure 100% liquid ozone, cooled to n.4�K, was mixed with liquid fluorine in a Pyrex-brand glass apparatus in which all the stopcocks were greased with Kel-F grease. The ozone was prepared and purified as previously described.4 It was then distilled into a graduated cylinder and measured volumetrically in the liquid state at n.4�K. The fluorine was added to the ozone by distilling it into the same vessel from a cylinder.5 The mixing of the liquids was achieved by simple shaking or by means of a hand-operated magnetic stirrer.

The miscibility was investigated in the composition range, 20 to 82 wt. % ozone. The temperature of the mixtures varied from n.4� to 79.3�K. It was found that at these temperatures liquid ozone mixes with liquid fluorine in all proportions. In the same manner it was found that liquid oxygen also mixes homogeneously with liquid fluorine in all proportions over the temperature range of nO-900K.

The behavior of the triple-component liquid ozonefluorine- oxygen system is more complicated due to the fact that the liquid ozone does not mix homogeneously with liquid oxygen in all proportions,6-8 at temperatures below 93.2�K. Below this point the ozone and oxygen form two phases. At n.5�K homogeneous mixtures may be obtained only in the limits of 0-6.9 and 84.3-100 mole % ozone, or 0-10 and 89-100 wt. % ozone.

The investigation of the triple-component liquid ozone-fluorine-oxygen system was made for the limited purpose of obtaining the miscibility data needed for a series of combustion experiments utilizing a microrocket motor. The experimental technique used was the same as with the ozone-fluorine system. Figure 1 shows the preliminary phase diagram of the liquid ozone-fluorine-oxygen system at n.4�K. The authors wish to thank Dr. A. V. Grosse for his helpful suggestions in performing this work.

# ? Feb 5, 2013 03:23

ought ten: Feb 6, 2004

Derek Lowe, the author of that post and a whole series of entertaining "things I won't work with" posts, definitely knows what he's talking about. If he says that paper is crazy, you can bet its pretty nuts.

# ? Feb 5, 2013 03:24

Memento: Aug 25, 2009; Bleak Gremlin

Nebakenezzer posted:

As chemistry is probably my worst subject, I find all of this stuff fascinating, and would like to know if Streng's paper is as insane as this chemist makes it out to be.

It sure is a thing check your PMs

# ? Feb 5, 2013 03:26

Snowdens Secret: Dec 29, 2008; Someone got you a obnoxiously racist av.

Nebakenezzer posted:

The great majority of Streng's reactions have surely never been run again. The paper goes on to react FOOF with everything else you wouldn't react it with: ammonia ("vigorous", this at 100K), water ice (explosion, natch), chlorine ("violent explosion", so he added it more slowly the second time), red phosphorus (not good), bromine fluoride, chlorine trifluoride (say what?), perchloryl fluoride (!), tetrafluorohydrazine (how on Earth. . .), and on, and on. If the paper weren't laid out in complete grammatical sentences and published in JACS, you'd swear it was the work of a violent lunatic. I ran out of vulgar expletives after the second page. A. G. Streng, folks, absolutely takes the corrosive exploding cake, and I have to tip my asbestos-lined titanium hat to him.

...

As chemistry is probably my worst subject, I find all of this stuff fascinating, and would like to know if Streng's paper is as insane as this chemist makes it out to be.

Sure is an awful lot of Dr Streng love in this post

# ? Feb 5, 2013 03:29

Memento: Aug 25, 2009; Bleak Gremlin

Snowdens Secret posted:

Sure is an awful lot of Dr Streng love in this post

No one ever learned to stopped worrying and love O2F2. I promise.

# ? Feb 5, 2013 03:32

Smiling Jack: Dec 2, 2001; I sucked a dick for bus fare and then I walked home.

Snowdens Secret posted:

Sure is an awful lot of Dr Streng love in this post

Welp, wrap it up folks, it's all downhill from here

# ? Feb 5, 2013 03:42

Alpine Mustache: Jul 11, 2000

Nebakenezzer posted:

Doing a wikipedia search on FOOF lead me to a chemist's blog where he wrote an article called "Things I Won't Work With: dioxygen diflouride."

That guy has a whole bunch of posts about more chemicals like that here:
http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/things_i_wont_work_with/

# ? Feb 6, 2013 06:22

StandardVC10: Feb 6, 2007; This avatar now 50% more dark mode compliant

Alpine Mustache posted:

That guy has a whole bunch of posts about more chemicals like that here:
http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/things_i_wont_work_with/

This guy is already making me wish I spent more than two years of high school doing chemistry.

quote:

When we last checked in with the Klap�tke lab at Munich, it was to highlight their accomplishments in the field of nitrotetrazole oxides. Never forget, the biggest accomplishment in such work is not blowing out the lab windows. We're talking high-nitrogen compounds here (a specialty of Klap�tke's group), and the question is not whether such things are going to be explosive hazards. (That's been settled by their empirical formulas, which generally look like typographical errors). The question is whether you're going to be able to get a long enough look at the material before it realizes its dream of turning into an expanding cloud of hot nitrogen gas.

# ? Feb 6, 2013 07:37

Vincent Van Goatse: Nov 8, 2006; Enjoy every sandwich.; Smellrose

StandardVC10 posted:

This guy is already making me wish I spent more than two years of high school doing chemistry.

I'm not a chemist, but I'm impressed by a substance that explodes when you try to get an infrared spectrum of it. It sounds very like something Dr. Krieger would come up with on a lazy Sunday.

# ? Feb 6, 2013 08:11

The Flipperbaby: Jun 21, 2012; "hey man, wanna see a M3 Grease Gun made entirely out of BUTT-FUCKING CLOUDS?! Shazaam!"

poo poo, I wish I'd nosed this way earlier... I have a lot of nifty Cold War pictures on film, but at my parents' house. I've a bunch of photos from the Cold War up to about 2003, taken from England, Germany, Egypt, and Libya.

Since I don't have those photos to scan, here are a few MiGs from Evergreen Air Museum, last summer.