Aeronautical Insanity: switching to secondary tolerances

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Automotive Insanity > Aeronautical Insanity: switching to secondary tolerances

«‹›17 »

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

cloudstrife2993 posted:

Those pilots are pretty ballsy.

I've always been partial to the STOL comp outtakes, featuring people who got on the brakes just a little too hard on the landing (see the latter half of this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YuE2cW8NMx8)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSFjhWw4DNo

The ST part comes at 1:10, the 'getting on the brakes a little too hard' part comes at 1:25.

# ¿ May 13, 2011 17:55

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 5, 2024 02:51

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

Mr.Peabody posted:

This is awesome. Was there ever a second edition printing of this book?

I didn't mean to suggest that that story's in the book (I don't own a copy myself, I don't have that kind of money), I was just trying to say "This story's from the pilot who wrote _Sled Driver_".

# ¿ Jun 3, 2011 21:18

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

ack! posted:

I met some of the guys who do the Stearman restorations, too. A classmate has a hanger on the East end he built a RV-8 I helped with so we got to know a few folks there at that field.

Mid-Atlantic Air Museum up in Reading just had their WWII airshow this weekend. I skipped it, since I went last year and drinking beer was just a higher priority this time around.

But your Stearman comment reminded me of this:

They're in the process of restoring a P-61. It's a very long process, they started it back in the early 90s. But here's what the thing looked like when they went to haul it out of the New Guinea crash site:

They were fortunate in that it crashed onto a pile of rocks, and wasn't directly in contact with the jungle floor. When they went to assess it, it still had air in the tires and hydraulic fluid in the lines, and corrosion was actually inhibited by the vegetation growth.

Now, a while ago, the US government basically signed away any interest to any wrecked aircraft, and said that anything lost during the war was a spoil of war, owned by the country on whose soil it rests. So this aircraft belonged to Indonesia, and Indonesia wanted to get paid. Payment in this case took the form of a fully restored, flying PT-13 Stearman.

MAAM's been offered $6 million for the P-61, and that was a couple years ago before they even had the engine nacelles on. They (rightly) said no.

Here's a cow orker in his PT-19:

And here's this thing:

# ¿ Jun 6, 2011 17:52

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

They just got done restoring that not too long ago, that's such a damned shame.

# ¿ Jun 13, 2011 21:36

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

Chase plane at Boeing Mesa just went down:

http://www.kold.com/story/14948352/boeing-helicopter-crashes-in-mesa-two-people-survive

Looks like the pilots are alive.

# ¿ Jun 21, 2011 18:11

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

Slo-Tek posted:

And an F-100 picture I took some while back but may not have posted 10 times already

f-100 by RReiheld, on Flickr

What are you taking these with? Jesus, that's great.

# ¿ Jun 24, 2011 23:28

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

Slo-Tek posted:

8 year old Nikon D70 and a 20 year old 70-300 lens. Set it for Auto-focus-Continuous, shutter priority at 1/160 or so for props, and auto-everything for jets and push the button when it looks right. If you take 600 pictures in an afternoon, 3 or 4 are likely to turn out pretty cool.

There is a hell of a lot more that people are serious about it do in post processing. Nothing I do stands up to acceptable for airliners.net or anything along those lines.

Looks good enough to post at 800x600 on a forum though.

Seriously, they're great, I'm not sure how you get that sharpness out of that lens, but nice job.

Same camera, same lens:

Just Pretending by Phanatic, on Flickr

B-17 by Phanatic, on Flickr

# ¿ Jun 25, 2011 16:45

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

grover posted:

F-35 and V-22 don't require special pads for takeoff and landing, just for tests where they run the engines at full power for extended times, and that's fairly economical to address.

There's a bit more to it than that, and it involves more than just running the engines at full power.

Here's the RFP:

DARPA posted:

The deployment of the MV-22 Osprey has resulted in ship flight deck buckling that has been attributed to the excessive heat impact from engine exhaust plumes. Navy studies have indicated that repeated deck buckling will likely cause deck failure before planned ship life. With the upcoming deployment of the F-35B Short Take Off and Vertical Landing (STOVL) Joint Strike Fighter (JSF), it is anticipated that the engine exhaust plumes may have a more severe thermo-mechanical impact on the non-skid surface and flight deck structure of ships.

Harriers routinely rip up the antiskid, but this is heating the deck enough for it to buckle. It's not just full-power run, it's even at idle; on Bataan it was happening in as little as 20 minutes. Interim fixes include heat-spreaders that need to be laid on the deck under the nacelle, and parking the aircraft with the engine you're going to run out over the water, but that latter's not always an option. DARPA's looking for more permanent solutions, especially for the F-35 which will be worse for the decks than the V-22 by a long ways.

# ¿ Jul 26, 2011 19:27

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

benito posted:

There is Memphis Belle, which is decent if not terribly accurate, and honorable mention goes to Dr. Strangelove. And maybe we can squeeze in Flight of the Intruder. I wonder if you could shoehorn a Crimson Tide story into the crew of a B-52.

Story is that after Top Gun came out, the attack guys started wearing T-shirts that said "Fighter pilots make movies, attack pilots make history."

Then when Flight of the Intruder was released, the fighter pilots had shirts made up that said "Fighter pilots make movies, attack pilots make bad movies."

# ¿ Jul 31, 2011 01:42

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

VikingSkull posted:

Where's the bar? I hate flying under the best circumstances, when I heard that I was already walking towards the bar we had just left while my boss was trying to process what just happened.

I've had the opportunity to fly BA business class twice now, and while it's still flying and it's not exactly something pleasant that you'd jump at the chance to do, this sort of exchange makes an 18-hour flight go by a lot faster:

"Would you like some wine?"
"Yes, I'll have the malbec."
"Would you like more wine?"
"Yes please."
"Would you like more wine?"
"Yes please.
"Would you like more wine?"
"Yes please."
"Would you like more wine?"
"Yes please.
"Would you like more wine?"
"Yes please."
(repeat as necessary)

# ¿ Aug 12, 2011 22:00

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

Lobster God posted:

Boomerjinks posted:
Mother of God.

61-7962 SR-71A Imperial War Museum Duxford

61-7976 SR-71A, National Museum of the USAF

# ¿ Aug 22, 2011 23:21

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

Epic Fail Guy posted:

There is nothing inherently bad about turboprops. They are used frequently here in the northeast, as our cities are pretty close together.

And I hate when I get a ticket that puts me on one of them, because they don't have the crosswind tolerances. Having your flight home from Nashville be one of *two* flights that are being canceled because of the storm outside when all the 737s and A320s are still taking off nonstop sucks a wet goat.

# ¿ Sep 12, 2011 20:50

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

slidebite posted:

Jesus christ that GBS thread

The guy who said that one wing is half the size of the other wing had to be trolling. I just...he *had* to be.

# ¿ Sep 17, 2011 17:59

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

VikingSkull posted:

C-5's don't need that much space, either.

He must be thinking of the IL-76:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7q3j69-SHM

Of course, then there's the king of cargo aircraft short takeoffs:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSFjhWw4DNo

# ¿ Sep 23, 2011 02:13

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

iyaayas01 posted:

Still doesn't compare to the C-17 I took back home, which was completely empty. Throttle up....and we're airborne.

The most amazing thing to my mind about that airplane's the goddamned air conditioning. We're sitting on an Indian air force base in Chandigarh, and the C-17 comes in delivering the Chinook we're going to demo for the IAF. They open the ramp and the guys go about unloading the whole thing, took a couple of hours. All while they're doing it there's just this solid stream of freezing air blasting out of the open ramp, you could have flown a kite with it.

I almost felt bad about flying home BA business class while some of our maintenance guys had to ride the C-17 home and ended up stuck on the ground at Ramstein for something like 3 days because some German got a bug up his rear end about HAZMAT documentation for the extra hydraulic fluid they'd brought along. Almost.

# ¿ Sep 23, 2011 02:17

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

ursa_minor posted:

Dear GOD. 22 Gs? He was a puddle.

I find it difficult to believe that the airframe could take 22 Gs without coming apart. The ultimate load factor for the F-15 is 11 Gs

# ¿ Sep 24, 2011 15:38

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

Preoptopus posted:

I refuse to believe that you can lower something from space by thrust power.

You're not lowering it all the way by thrust power.

Anyone know how fast, say, a Soyuz RV is traveling when it pops its chutes? I looked for a specific figure for the Apollo RVs but couldn't find anything.

# ¿ Sep 30, 2011 22:55

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

Aero737 posted:

This huge rear end helicopter, I guess it is an Mi-26?

Nope, that's not even close to as big an Mi-26. If you're standing at the chin of a -26, and you reach up your arm, you can touch the cockpit. You sure can't look into the window while you're standing on the ground.

I don't know what the hell that thing is. Looks like an Mi-17, but what's that wing? And it looks like it's been stretched. Maybe a Chinese equivalent of the Boeing 347.

Edit: Oh, hurr. it's an Mi-6.

Phanatic fucked around with this message at 19:01 on Oct 4, 2011

# ¿ Oct 4, 2011 18:58

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

Tsuru posted:

Wasn't there at some point the idea to replace the BUFF's 8 engines with 4 bigger turbofans?

It was originally an unsolicited proposal from Boeing to pull off the TF-33s and replace them with 4 RB211-535s (the ones on the 757). Range, speed, and fuel burn would all have been improved.

Every once in a while it seems there's a new proposal, some of them just replace the 8 old engines with 8 new engines. PW2000, PW6000, CFM56-3 JT8D-200, and BR715 have all been suggested/considered, but they don't really go anywhere because of the point already made above: there are shitloads of spare TF-33s laying around.

Godholio posted:

That's come up many times. Sadly, the USAF has hundreds of TF-33s just waiting to be refurbed as necessary. Same reason AWACS and JSTARS will never get new engines. Too many spares available from old KC-135s, C-141s, B-52s, etc to justify the massive up front costs, even though the performance gains and maintenance and fuel savings will make up the difference down the road.

That's not what GAO said.

GAO said "Boeing claims this will save the government 4.7 billion dollars. We calculate that it will actually cost the government 1.6 billion dollars. So don't do it."

Phanatic fucked around with this message at 16:25 on Nov 7, 2011

# ¿ Nov 7, 2011 16:23

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

Godholio posted:

GAO is retarded. They also don't give a poo poo about mission ready rates. TF-33s are tired loving engines.

Yeah, you're right, Boeing wouldn't tweak the numbers to present its case in the most optimistic light or anything like that. It's a business proposal, you can trust it.

How tired's an engine going to get sitting around full of preservative with no hours on it?

# ¿ Nov 7, 2011 22:21

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

Spitfire dug out of a peat bog in Ireland, where it crashed in 1941:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-15652440

In remarkable condition considering it crashed 70 years ago, mainly due to the anoxic conditions of the bog.

Page has video of them cleaning up and firing one of the Browning .303s.

# ¿ Nov 13, 2011 06:10

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

So there's this new sculpture in Philly they put up right by the convention center. I think it's kind of sad:

vvvv
It's an S-2, that looks to have been airworthy in '07. I wonder what happened to it.

Phanatic fucked around with this message at 03:19 on Nov 14, 2011

# ¿ Nov 14, 2011 03:06

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

BSAKat posted:

Unfortunately, Yankee Lady, Yankee Warrior, and Yankee Doodle Dandy are staying at Detroit Metro for the time being.

Hey, I was on that first one.

# ¿ Nov 15, 2011 23:29

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

Hot F-1 engines:

# ¿ Nov 19, 2011 04:31

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

Slo-Tek posted:

040315-F-9999G-008 by RReiheld, on Flickr

LeMay.jpg

# ¿ Nov 22, 2011 22:00

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

Epic Fail Guy posted:

Airbus flight control systems remove control from the pilots, by design, and only uses flight control inputs to influence one of several "control laws". Each of these "laws" has its own motives, and they are not necessarily pitch + power. This frightens me more than you could ever imagine.

Boeing's interpretation of FBW is much more straightforward, and while it doesn't have the fancy features like autotrim, I would rather give more power to the guys with epaulets than millions of lines of computer code.

Every flight control system removes control from the pilots, by design. If you don't think there are FCS on Boeing commercial aircraft that do things for the pilots you are very, very, very wrong. You think the pilot is controlling every aspect of what the engines do on an aircraft with a FADEC? What do you think the 'FA' stands for in that system's name?

It's true that Airbus institutionally designs FCS that don't allow the pilots to do some things that Boeing trusts them to do, but the entire *point* of modern FCS is to have the computers do things for the pilots. If you were flying an MH-47G during aerial refueling operations, you'd consider the DAFCS on the newer ones a good thing, especially in bad weather.

# ¿ Dec 2, 2011 01:27

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

http://www.eaavideo.org/video.aspx?v=1143348987001

David Oliver, 29, takes us behind the scenes as he and other crew members fly the world's only airworthy B-29, "FIFI," to Oshkosh for AirVenture 2011. Take a quick tour of the plane, learn how it flies, and watch four P-51s escort the bomber to OSH.

# ¿ Dec 2, 2011 15:56

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

BSAKat posted:

He's 29, and he flies a B-29.

Good thing they didn't restore an He-111.

# ¿ Dec 2, 2011 16:37

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

KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:

finnish Morane-Saulnier 406. built by socialists, delivered by nazis, re-engined by communists and rearmed with a mixture of whatever the gently caress was on hand and flown by alcoholics

The Lada Riva (car) was a Fiat 124, which the Soviets redesigned (removing the disc brakes and replacing them with drum brakes which barely worked, adding a *manual fuel pump* and a *starting handle* instead of the fancy Fiat ignition, and making the bodywork out of light tank armor). The car is still being produced today, under license, in *Egypt*.

Clarkson said it best: "Imagine that. A 40-year-old Italian car, improved by the Russians and now built by a bunch of Egyptians. I can't think of anything worse than that.

# ¿ Dec 2, 2011 18:33

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

Ridge_Runner_5 posted:

Should just paint the rotor hubs instead. Fuckin classy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tq21MLP8gYI

Tip lights show up better under NVGs.

# ¿ Dec 3, 2011 17:39

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

KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:

how is x or y more comforting when x or y is statistically equivalently safe?

I keep hearing that but I don't know that it's true.

http://www.airdisaster.com/statistics/

Model Rate Events No. Flights Rank
Airbus A300 1.13 9 8.0 Million 12
Airbus A310 1.85 5 2.7 Million 13
Airbus A319/320/321 0.67 4 6.0 Million 7
Boeing 727 0.66 46 70.0 Million 6
Boeing 737 0.62 47 76.0 Million 5
Boeing 747 1.62 24 14.8 Million 14
Boeing 757 0.56 4 7.2 Million 4
Boeing 767 0.46 3 6.5 Million 3
Saab 340 0.33 3 9.0 Million 1

That's only considering events with fatalities.

Edit:

quote:

In conclusion, gently caress you.

Dear Lord, man, what crawled up your rear end and died?

Phanatic fucked around with this message at 19:00 on Dec 4, 2011

# ¿ Dec 4, 2011 18:09

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

dissss posted:

In the case of the A300 that also appears to include the Iran Air flight that was shot down and some hijackings that resulted in fatalities. Pretty significant when we're talking about 9 events.

Says right in the page: "Hijackings are excluded."

dissss posted:

Okay then where did the other 3 fatal events come from?

http://www.airdisaster.com/cgi-bin/view_manu_details.cgi?aircraft=A300
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus_A300#Accidents_and_incidents

That's a good question. Maybe they're double-counting incidents in which people died on another plane, but that would be dumb.

Phanatic fucked around with this message at 22:24 on Dec 4, 2011

# ¿ Dec 4, 2011 22:07

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

KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:

so you're using questionably validated data to support a not-mathematically sound thesis

I think you're confusing me with someone who's arguing a particular case. Maybe if you scroll back up, you'll see where I mentioned that Boeing FCS aren't all that different from Airbus. Calm down, have some dip.

# ¿ Dec 5, 2011 00:30

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

KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:

your thesis is "maybe there is statistical significance"

No, it's not. I don't have a thesis. I'm not making an argument. What I said was that "Everyone says this thing, but I haven't actually seen data to support this claim." Why are you so pissed off about this? This is the way things are supposed to work, if you have a claim, and are asked to support it, then support it, I'm really not seeing what's got you so upset.

# ¿ Dec 5, 2011 03:08

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

smooth jazz posted:

I'm in line maintenance and head our station's safety committee and have never heard of that lol (sez something about our safety committee, I guess).

We all wear company issued hats and come to think of it do manual starts after pushback on a regular basis and it's always windy as gently caress out there.

Anyone here work for an airline that has a "no hats" rule in their SOP?

It's standard in the military. No hats on the flight line. Every base I've been on even has a sign somewhere to that effect (they're also generally 'no salute' areas because of the lack of hats).

About the only exception is for dog-and-pony shows like if a VIP arrives to a ceremony right on the ramp. I mean, if Air Force One lands at Edwards with the President onboard, people are wearing hats.

Ear protection doesn't count as a hat, though.

# ¿ Dec 5, 2011 22:53

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

slidebite posted:

Well, I just read one of the most heartbreaking things I've read in a while, the cockpit transcript of AF447.

Seems like a bit of icing, a whole shitload of confusion and forgetting how to fly a plane and just coming to grips with it seconds before it was too late was the root of it.

I can't figure out how Bonin was able to tie his shoes without a full-authority digital Shoelace Control System.

# ¿ Dec 10, 2011 03:46

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

Ridge_Runner_5 posted:

That is utterly terrifying. It sounds like Bonin's mind shut down and he didn't think enough to realize he needs to push forward.

This should have been obvious once he regained his airspeed readings. The human brain does strange things under intense stress, though. Sadly, many people had to die because Bonin froze up.

There's more to it than that. First, you should never ignore a stall warning. Second, they shouldn't have such rock-solid faith that the normal-mode FCS won't let the pilot stall the airplane that it honestly doesn't even occur to them that the warning's a legitimate alarm. Third, the notion of a stall warning if the FCS is in normal-mode and will actually prevent a stall doesn't make a whole lot of sense from the standpoint of user interface design: "Stall! *chirpchirpchirp* Stall! *chirpchirpchirp*" shouldn't mean "Hi there! This is just a friendly reminder that you're doing something really dumb with the stick, and the plane would be falling out of the sky right now if I hadn't overridden your control inputs. Have a nice day!" Fourth, the pilots should be *able* to stall the aircraft in normal law; they might not ever want to actually do so, but they should still have to consider "Will what I'm about to do cause a stall?" Fifth, nobody in that cockpit knew how the damned FCS worked, they didn't understand that, hey, without airspeed, they're not in normal law anymore, and *all kinds of lights* go on when you're in alternate law. Sixth, the lack of cross-feedback between the sidesticks, the fact that the guy in the right seat can be pulling the nose all the way the hell up and the left-seater doesn't even feel it; if there was any sort of link between the two, left-seat is going to notice right away that right-seat's pulling on his stick for all it's worth. Hell, on a plane with yokes, he'd have the yoke jammed into his stomach, which would be a clue (yes, it's really not tractable to mechanically-couple sidesticks in a reliable fashion the way you can with a conventional yoke or a center stick. You could implement an electrically-driven force-feedback system but that likely causes additional places for poo poo to break; this might be an indication that conventional control mechanisms are superior to sidesticks as a UI).

I'm curious about how much time these guys had in-type, even the veteran with 11,000 hours who was taking a nap until a couple of minutes before the plane hit the ocean.

# ¿ Dec 10, 2011 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.

Tsuru posted:

The airplane initially thought it was overspeeding, so the flight directors commanded a nose-up attitude, which the pilots followed.

That's not what the article says.

quote:

Just then an alarm sounds for 2.2 seconds, indicating that the autopilot is disconnecting. The cause is the fact that the plane's pitot tubes, externally mounted sensors that determine air speed, have iced over, so the human pilots will now have to fly the plane by hand.

Note, however, that the plane has suffered no mechanical malfunction. Aside from the loss of airspeed indication, everything is working fine.

[...]

Perhaps spooked by everything that has unfolded over the past few minutes�the turbulence, the strange electrical phenomena, his colleague's failure to route around the potentially dangerous storm�Bonin reacts irrationally. He pulls back on the side stick to put the airplane into a steep climb, despite having recently discussed the fact that the plane could not safely ascend due to the unusually high external temperature.

# ¿ Dec 10, 2011 21:48

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

VikingSkull posted:

Yeah the -23 is pretty wild looking. Which made me think of the SR-71 and how it still looks sci-fi.

It's one of a small number of reasons that I wouldn't be surprised if the government actually was lying about aliens. Some of the stuff the US has built over the years is just mind boggling.

The loving amazingest thing about that airplane is that the engine's from the 1950s. Car engines still took well more than a cubic inch to deliver 1 horsepower, and we built a friggin' variable-cycle ramjet capable of Mach 3+. Blows my mind.

# ¿ Dec 15, 2011 22:43

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 5, 2024 02:51

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

In an Airbus?

Boeing's got its own distorted-looking giant cargo aircraft to haul other aircraft parts around in:

# ¿ Dec 18, 2011 21:20

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Automotive Insanity > Aeronautical Insanity: switching to secondary tolerances

«‹›17 »