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drzrma posted:The thing that makes this so great for me is it goes all the way back to the Wright brothers. It may be apocryphal, but their response to a question in one of their meetings with the Army was something along the lines of "Give us an engine with enough power and we can make a kitchen table fly." They knew what they were talking about. Not to dismiss Orville and Wilbur’s achievements in crafting the airframe, but it’s not a coincidence that heavier‐than‐air flight took off when it did. People had been experimenting with gliders for years. The Wrights were the first mate a sufficiently powerful engine to a sufficiently light craft. Platystemon fucked around with this message at 06:09 on Feb 9, 2016 |
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Feb 9, 2016 05:47
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The original question talked about “human‐powered”. Is that to be taken only as “birds, bats, and bugs don’t count”?
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Feb 9, 2016 06:11
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4dy8MwLXBA
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Feb 9, 2016 08:43
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Blistex posted:Given that aluminium was being produced in usable ways back in the late 1800's, there is even a chance (if your guys are really knowledgeable) that your "Camel MK 2.0" could have an aluminium frame with a stressed skin. So you could theoretically have a frame that is equal to late WWII aircraft frames in a lot of ways, with designs that take into account post-war advances in weigh-savings and aerodynamics. Yeah, aluminium was tricky stuff to work with back then, but if you already know how it behaves because you’re from the future, you could probably make a plane out of it.
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Feb 10, 2016 07:25
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Kemper Boyd posted:One issue with aluminium from a late 19th-early 20th century POV was that it was incredibly expensive. For instance, the pride of the Russian court in St. Petersburg was an aluminium dining set. Electrochemistry, and specifically the Hall–Héroult process, changed that beginning in 1888. For some time after that, aluminium was affordable enough, at least for a prototype, but things like “not understanding metal fatigue” remained serious issues. The first all‐metal plane flew in 1915 (Junkers J‐1). I don’t think it’s in the spirit of the question to establish your own aluminium smelters, but I think you could do better than 1915 (and certainly better than the J‐1). Platystemon fucked around with this message at 09:54 on Feb 10, 2016 |
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Feb 10, 2016 09:46
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Kemper Boyd posted:While the process was invented in 1888, it took a while for production levels to rise though and it was WW1 that really got it going. USGS’ Metals Prices book lists $8.00/lb in 1887. By 1898, it’s $0.306/lb. That’s a pretty big deal. It doesn’t go consistently below $0.20/lb till the 1940s. That’s roughly twenty times as dear as steel (hot‐rolled bar), declining to ten times as dear by 1940.
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Feb 10, 2016 12:02
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Buttcoin purse posted:He was behind the accidental destruction of the B-29 "Kee Bird" though, I think in this thread or Aeronautical Insanity I remember reading suggestion that that work was probably rushed way more than it had to be. The documentary makes the job look super sketchy, but who knows how much of that is creative editing and hamming it up for TV? There are a lot of things that could go wrong on a plane that’s been sitting for fifty years, but “the B-29's auxiliary power unit's jury-rigged fuel tank began to leak gasoline into the rear fuselage” seems like the sort of thing that is entirely preventable.
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Feb 11, 2016 11:30
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RandomPauI posted:But why would the subordinate be angry about not being told the information earlier by the c/o if it was the c/o's call either way? Without watching the scene in question, I'm thinking the subordinate spotted the submarine and reported it to his CO, but the CO refused to radio it in till they had confirmation. A heated discussion ensued.
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Feb 13, 2016 10:12
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I’m just surprised they didn’t have to go up to lead, tungsten, or uranium.
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Feb 20, 2016 00:31
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It makes me sad that the Thunderscreech doesn’t hold the propeller‐driven speed record.
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Mar 13, 2016 02:50
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ALL-PRO SEXMAN posted:Was this before or after Apollo? Because that would be amazing in two entirely different ways. EDIT: It was during. He almost got thrown out of the program but Deke Slayton insisted he stay in. The guy who tried to get him canned quit in protest. Remember, no matter how secure your job is, it will never compare to “crash helicopter while showing off, go on to command the most powerful and most expensive vehicle man ever built”. Platystemon fucked around with this message at 17:19 on Mar 15, 2016 |
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Mar 15, 2016 17:08
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Godholio posted:I remember hearing about someone crashing the mission computer on JSTARS by plugging in a mouse because they didn't like the trackball or whatever. I wonder if that was a software issue, something particular to the hardware (like using a special pinout), or just the fact that the port isn’t hot‐swappable.
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Mar 16, 2016 00:06
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From Wikipedia’s article on cloud seeding: Those clouds won’t know what hit ’em.
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Mar 16, 2016 10:18
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The A‐10 doesn’t even have to dispense a nucleating agent. It just fires a warning burst from its main gun and the clouds wet themselves in fear.
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Mar 16, 2016 17:06
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Craptacular posted:Chinese South China Sea island claim map 
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Mar 18, 2016 01:43
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Nebakenezzer posted:So speaking of, is there a Tom Clancy book where NATO decides it's had enough of some terrorist group and tries to activate its alliance to fight against it? Too pedestrian for Clancy.
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Mar 22, 2016 17:14
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xthetenth posted:Pounds, not kilos. slugs
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Mar 24, 2016 05:30
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Why would you disguise a tender as a fishing boat? I don’t think Vietnam likes fishing boats hanging out in their waters, either. Because it’s a more valuable target? I guess if you seize the tender, you put who‐knows‐how‐many fishing boats out of commission. Still, it seems like an unusual precaution to take unless Vietnam has already made a habit of seizing Chinese tenders.
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Apr 4, 2016 11:28
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Mortabis posted:I wonder if little quadcopter drones will lead to troops getting issued with skeet shotguns to shoot them down. In my mind's eye I'm picturing a dude running around in tacticool gear carrying a 28" o/u. Germany won’t stand for it.
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Apr 12, 2016 11:49
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I don’t think it’s satire.
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Apr 14, 2016 14:51
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BIG HEADLINE posted:Just play Pussy Riot over the Guard channel. Ruskies don’t listen to that anyway. See: Turkey’s shootdown last year
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Apr 14, 2016 16:27
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B‐21 Precision Carpetbomber
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Apr 15, 2016 14:04
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B‐21 Hodor
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Apr 15, 2016 16:10
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B‐21 Gun Salute
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Apr 16, 2016 05:04
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B‐21 Things You’ll Never Believe the Pentagon Bought
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Apr 16, 2016 08:24
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B‐21 Scandium
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Apr 16, 2016 23:10
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B‐21 Bottoms Up
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Apr 16, 2016 23:13
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B‐21 Troll
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Apr 17, 2016 00:54
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You don’t need to be good when you’ve got the Genie.
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Apr 19, 2016 04:49
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Most of 58-0787’s parts were still airworthy, too, but they didn’t reproduce.
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Apr 19, 2016 05:02
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Concordat posted:Thank God God Hates For Feds Wolf 359. DONT DEAD OPEN INSIDE
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Apr 28, 2016 23:12
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Fojar38 posted:"Bomb China" hasn't been a viable foreign policy option since the Korean War and that was even before the Chinese acquired nuclear weapons. They don't need ASBM's to take this option off the table. Unleash Chang!
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May 4, 2016 04:19
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Six‐week hike through the jungle. 
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May 6, 2016 05:54
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May 13, 2016 04:21
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May 18, 2016 13:57
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Is there any truth to this tale?quote:During World War II, BBC News was broadcasted to Nazi occupied Europe. Each news program opened with a live broadcast of Big Ben tolling the hour—the magical sound of freedom. Ingenious German physicists found a way to determine the weather conditions in London based on tiny differences in the tone of the broadcasted ding-dongs. This information offered invaluable help to the Luftwaffe. When the British secret service discovered this, they replaced the live broadcast with a set recording of the famous clock. It sounds implausible, though not impossible, that telling comes from a kooky‐rear end blog, and I a quick Web search doesn’t turn up anything substantial corroborating it. It also seems like the kind of thing I should have heard already if it’s true. Certainly someone here would have. If it’s true, it’s a good story. But you know what would be a better story? Manipulating the broadcast to give false information, and it’s precisely the sort of thing the British would have tried during the war. That’s another reason to doubt it.
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May 23, 2016 12:40
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Cat Mattress posted:That seems highly unlikely. If such a thing is even possible it'd require modern computers to pull all the number crunching that this kind of advanced signal analysis requires. And even then I strongly doubt that the quality of the signal was good enough to make said tiny differences really noticeable in the noise. Even oscilloscopes were pretty crude back then. Self‐triggering wasn’t available on commercial units till after the war. I think you could reasonably infer the temperature of the bell, for whatever that’s worth. It has a large thermal mass and it’s in a semi‐sheltered location, so probably not much The rate of the clock is affected by various factors weather, but there’s too little information given by this to be useful. If they could wring enough detail from the harmonics to tell them about atmospheric pressure or humidity, that would be something. But for all that this, u‐boats and Nazi‐occupied France exist. Could Big Ben really tell the Nazis something they didn't already know? TTerrible posted:A lot of this happened. Mis-reporting the location of bombing raids to slowly walk german targeting away. I know. That’s what makes me suspect they would have done the same thing with the chimes. It’s an obvious ploy for a counterintelligence service that’s already manipulating damage reports. What I would more readily believe is that the British came up with the notion that it may be possible to infer meteorological data from a live chime broadcast, and played recorded chimes as a precaution. e: This book says live chimes were suspended “to prevent the sound of the [V‐1] explosions broadcast with the chimes over the air giving the enemy an advantage in locating their targets.” It gives dates so I’m inclined to believe it. Platystemon fucked around with this message at 13:55 on May 23, 2016 |
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May 23, 2016 13:41
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 See that box near the top of the frame? That’s where the microphone is. There’s not a lot of fog ’twixt that and the bells.
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May 24, 2016 04:43
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Five thousand years of yurt kneelings
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May 29, 2016 08:50
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Concordat posted:What causes this cartoon poo poo? I expect it was intentionally made non‐functional with an explosive charge, perhaps to prevent it from falling into enemy hands.
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May 29, 2016 09:18
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