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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:Son delta still flies a ton of DC-9-51s out of ATL n0tqu1tesane posted:And it looks like I've got a flight on one of them in June. I was making a joke that riding on the MD-80/DC-9 series is "going there on a towering pillar of smoke and noise" compared to more modern airplanes with higher-bypass engines. MrYenko posted:"I may be going to Atlanta for the umpteenth time to make a connection, but I'm going there on a towering pillar of smoke and noise."
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Oct 25, 2013 02:42
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Cocoa Crispies posted:I was making a joke that riding on the MD-80/DC-9 series is "going there on a towering pillar of smoke and noise" compared to more modern airplanes with higher-bypass engines. The MD-90 has engines that also go on A320s. The DC-9 has the same engines as a 727.
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Oct 25, 2013 02:48
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Linedance posted:If ever there was a company that would cut off its nose to spite its face, it's AC. That company acts with utter disdain and contempt for its customers worse than all others. It's like it's mandated company policy to be awful from the top all the way down. I genuinely feel bad for some of the employees that I am sure the company has hosed over royally, but jesus christ.
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Oct 25, 2013 02:50
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Boeing  Lockheedhttp://ca.news.yahoo.com/boeing-lockheed-team-u-bomber-program-sources-155130167--sector.html quote:WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Boeing Co and Lockheed Martin Corp will team up to bid on a new U.S. Air Force long-range bomber program, a multibillion-dollar project that U.S. Air Force officials have described as a top acquisition priority. I had no idea there was even a new long rang bomber program on the horizon.
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Oct 25, 2013 20:43
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slidebite posted:Boeing This way, they can charge the entire GDP of the United States for six years just to build two prototypes, and there won't be anyone else to go to. Excellent!
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Oct 25, 2013 20:57
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I think Bombardier should design a long range bomber/maritime patrol plane. Here's the thing: it should have the same performance envelope as the late model B-52/Tu-142. You can make it better than that, but the ironclad rule is that it has to have the same operational readiness/ease of maintenance as the aforementioned aircraft. Yes, you can use your usual production methods to use it, Bombardier: build the wings in China. Hell, China is apparently going to put their clone of the Tu-16 back into production; they'd probably be a big customer. I know it is very silly. But I honestly do think 1) it'd be a good airplane, and 2) it would be a big export success. And much later, 3) After many other countries bought them Canada would buy a few after massive loving around, and we'd have a Canadian-esque build succsessor to the Argus.
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Oct 25, 2013 20:58
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slidebite posted:Boeing And one with no competition. Awesome, I guess after the F-35, they decided "Eh, gently caress it, there is only one contractor anyway, so lets skip the time-wasting 'does it work' part, and get right to the building robots to shovel cash directly into the furnace...if you'll build the robots in my district"
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Oct 25, 2013 20:58
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slidebite posted:Boeing For at least a decade now. It keeps getting pushed back in the earliest stages.
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Oct 25, 2013 21:02
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StandardVC10 posted:This way, they can charge the entire GDP of the United States for six years just to build two prototypes, and there won't be anyone else to go to. Excellent! They could always go Northrop-Grumman, right? I mean, it's not like Boeing will sue the Federal Gov't/USAF for not picking their plane, right?
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Oct 25, 2013 21:16
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Here's a video I took a few years ago when Texas was burning to the ground of the P-2 dropping phoschek fire retardant on top of us: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rS-RNNNyqgc
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Oct 25, 2013 21:26
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slidebite posted:Boeing 2014: Some concept art comes out. 2015: Canceled Later 2015: Announcement that the B-52 will continue in service until 2080. 2016: Announcement that the newly merged Lockeing Boheed Corporation will be building a new long range bomber to enter service sometime before 2030. ApathyGifted fucked around with this message at 23:54 on Oct 25, 2013 |
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Oct 25, 2013 23:51
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slidebite posted:Boeing I'm surprised Northrop didn't try to get in on that airframe action. I bet we'll build the Radar. e: Also NGB had been bouncing around defense industry circles for a while. Pretty sure that they'll try to do the flying wing thing again.
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Oct 25, 2013 23:57
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Nebakenezzer posted:I think Bombardier should design a long range bomber/maritime patrol plane. I'm imagining the worst performing, most uncomfortable aircraft on the planet.
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Oct 26, 2013 00:08
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quote:The Air Force has said it plans to buy as many as 100 new bombers for no more than $550 million each. Wait. What?
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Oct 26, 2013 00:10
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Slo-Tek posted:And one with no competition. Plinkey posted:I'm surprised Northrop didn't try to get in on that airframe action. Nowhere does it say that Boeing/LM will be the *only* bidders on this project. On the contrary, a more involved source would have told you that Northrop will be the second player. Which is what everyone even remotely following NGB/LRS-B has suspected for years now. Yes, defense acquisition is hosed up, but there's no need to draw low-info conclusions.
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Oct 26, 2013 00:15
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Koesj posted:Nowhere does it say that Boeing/LM will be the *only* bidders on this project. Ah, didn't realize it was actually a competition. I read the first article as Boeing/Lockmart basically saying 'we're going to build this.'
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Oct 26, 2013 00:21
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Back in the day when there were like 5-10 potential contractors lined up to take the lead on big defense/space projects you'd see this kind of teaming up all the time, but industry consolidation has gotten to the point where it's just weird that a single company couldn't do it all by themselves. It's very politically inexpedient to not have some kind of run-off where you can at least pretend that some kind of optimal decision was made.
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Oct 26, 2013 00:28
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Tide posted:Wait. What? That actually sounds pretty reasonable -- a 767 costs ~$180m, for example, and there's over 1000 of them built. Of course an estimate of $550m is probably a reality of $2b 
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Oct 26, 2013 00:35
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Thats probably just the parts, they didnt put labor in yet.
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Oct 26, 2013 00:43
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Nebakenezzer posted:2) it would be a big export success. The US doesn't really export long range bombers.
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Oct 26, 2013 00:46
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VikingSkull posted:The US doesn't really export long range bombers. Yeah, the soviets just steal our designs. 
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Oct 26, 2013 00:48
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VikingSkull posted:The US doesn't really export long range bombers. Right. Which is why the market is going unserved 
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Oct 26, 2013 00:55
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Plinkey posted:Yeah, the soviets just steal our designs. Disappointed by the lack of a Tu-4 picture.
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Oct 26, 2013 00:57
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hobbesmaster posted:Disappointed by the lack of a Tu-4 picture. The Blackjack is something like twice the size/weight of a Bone, heaviest, fastest bomber in the world (XB-70 was bigger, but not by that much).
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Oct 26, 2013 01:21
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Yeah, the blackjack is loving huge.
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Oct 26, 2013 01:24
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Plinkey posted:Yeah, the Whoa you were at an OKB? Myasishchev M-18 
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Oct 26, 2013 01:26
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polpotpotpotpotpot posted:That actually sounds pretty reasonable -- a 767 costs ~$180m, for example, and there's over 1000 of them built. Yeah, it's probably reasonable if the new jet isn't a stealth plane. But good loving luck getting the AF to agree to that. Besides, what's the cost for the B-2? Something like $2b a plane?
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Oct 26, 2013 01:43
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hobbesmaster posted:MD-90s are fine, but if you get a DC-9-50 don't sit in the exit row unless you like obnoxious high pitched sounds. My first project as an intern was to measure noise levels on a dc-9 cause the company was getting sued and the lawyers wanted to know just how loud the thing was. We settled out of court. That one particular airplane/set of engines was louder than everyone else in the fleet at the time. She's beer cans now.
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Oct 26, 2013 02:26
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ChickenOfTomorrow posted:
Sounds like KCLE!
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Oct 26, 2013 03:47
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Slo-Tek posted:The Blackjack is something like twice the size/weight of a Bone, heaviest, fastest bomber in the world (XB-70 was bigger, but not by that much). The XB-70 was faster, too - by over 600mph.
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Oct 26, 2013 04:06
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XB-70 was faster than pretty much anything, short of the SR/A12 family.
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Oct 26, 2013 05:43
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pkells posted:Yeah, it's probably reasonable if the new jet isn't a stealth plane. But good loving luck getting the AF to agree to that. Yeah about that.
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Oct 26, 2013 05:46
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 Apparently the Lansen was weird-big? I think of it as P-80 sized, but it isn't, at all. Slo-Tek fucked around with this message at 06:18 on Oct 26, 2013 |
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Oct 26, 2013 06:11
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Myasishchev M-50 Bounder; Or, Vladimir’s Bureau Writes a Cheque Nobody Could Cash In 1954, the Soviet Union was hard at work building and flying their first generation of truly intercontinental bombers. The turboprop-powered Tupolev Tu-95 “Bear” was not far from entering service, and its pure-jet-powered rival, the Myasishchev M-4 “Bison” was, well, demonstrating firsthand just how wholly inadequate it was as a long-range bomber.  The Myasishchev M-4 “Bison” – a flawed aircraft that met few of its performance goals. Clearly, we should get them to build us another aircraft! Undeterred, the ever-forward thinking Soviet government issued a request for a successor to both the Bear and the Bison; a jet-powered bomber capable of flying at Mach 1.6 for nearly 9,000 miles and delivering a single, five-ton free-fall hydrogen bomb. This was an audacious request; at the time, nobody had delivered a fighter aircraft capable of that kind of speed (though prototypes were being tested in several countries that could), to say nothing of a bomber designed to cruise at such a speed...never mind for the distance specified. In fact, no contemporary Soviet bomber was capable of flying that far period, supersonic or not. Not Just Long-Range...SUPER Long-Range! Unlike the program that spawned the Tu-95 and the M-4, the Soviet government realised the challenge of this specification and began the “Sverkh-Dahlniy Bombardirovshchik” (Super Long-Range Bomber Project, or SDB for short), in which all the leading design bureaus of the Soviet Union were invited to participate. Intelligence from the West claimed a number of supersonic medium- and long-range bomber projects were in development as well, so there was a considerable amount of pressure to produce an aircraft...and a considerable amount of prestige at stake for the designer who succeeded in this task. Naturally, Myasishchev jumped at the prospect of leading the SDB program. For several years beforehand, he conducted a number of internal studies within his design bureau on the possibility of building a supersonic bomber. This head-start, combined with his ever-stronger desire to prove himself over his mentor-turned-rival, Andrei Tupolev, made Myasishchev’s bureau the natural leaders of this project. Working with the Central Aero-Hydrodynamics Institute (TsAGI) for aircraft design and the Central Institute of Aviation Motorbuilding (TsIAM) and both Dobrynin and Turmansky (then the leading design bureaus for jet engines in the Soviet Union) for engines, Myasishchev’s concepts soon started to take shape. However, it wasn’t entirely clear what or how these lofty goals were to be achieved. Ducks and Drop Tanks One of the largest problems facing the SDB program was that of engines; up to that point, the Soviets (or anyone else, for that matter) had not built a jet engine large enough nor powerful enough for a bomber-sized aircraft to cruise supersonically, yet with low enough specific fuel consumption to allow such an aircraft to strike deep into the United States and return to the Soviet Union. As a result, some highly unorthodox ideas were considered. One of the first serious concepts was a composite aircraft known as the “Duck”:  The “Duck” – A fowl concept indeed. The “Duck” consisted of two parts; a large, disposable carrier aircraft, and the piloted front section, which carried the single nuclear weapon and completed the mission once the carrier had expended its fuel. The issues with the “Duck” concept are almost too numerable to mention; throwing away an otherwise perfectly serviceable aircraft is bad enough, but how do you test both aircraft separately, or as a whole system? Structural performance was poor (lots of extra weight by being effectively two separate aircraft), and supersonic performance was shown to be far worse than a single aircraft would be. Also, the design required a launch sled capable of accelerating the combined “Duck” to a launch speed of nearly 400 mph (!!!) This meant that the “Duck” was dead in the water, but not before wasting almost 18 months and trainloads of rubles on the concept. Undeterred by this failure, the eggheads at TsAGI recommended instead that two separate aircraft be built, with yet another large, disposable and unmanned “refueller” stage towing a smaller “strike” stage like a towplane pulling a glider. Needless to say, this concept was abandoned as well. Encouraging news from the engine designers meant that it might *just* be possible to design one aircraft to maybe meet this specification. This new concept would be much larger than the “Duck”, and in fact much larger than either the Bear or the Bison. However, the engines that the designers came up with, while powerful enough, were still not efficient enough for the job. Therefore, two gigantic drop tanks, fitted with two engines themselves, would be fitted to a large, twin-engine delta-wing aircraft:  ”Tanks and Engines” concept; a novel means of delivering jet engines to belugas. While this idea had more merit than the cooked “Duck”, it was still incredibly wasteful to jettison two engines just because you had to; plus, it was found that the remaining two engines would not have been powerful enough to maintain supersonic speed. Some bright light then thought, “why not keep the drop tanks but mount their engines to the fuselage?”, which seems like a good idea until it was found that this version would have less range than if no tanks were fitted, and it wasn’t capable of supersonic flight with them.  ”Tanks and Engines” second concept; a good idea, were it not for how bad it was. So, yet another concept goes down the drain. A Winner Emerges From the Muck By the end of 1955, good news from the engine side of the program meant that it might be possible to not only design a single aircraft capable of meeting the specification, but allow it to do so without littering the Arctic with bits of itself! By this point however, Myasishchev had lost patience with both Dobrynin and Turmansky and summarily dismissed them from the project, bringing in Zubets instead with his M16-17 turbojet. However promising this engine was, it was a very long way from being built, so Myasishchev was forced to use Dobrynin VD-7 turbojets (the same “improved engine” used in his 3M Bison version) in the prototypes. Finally, the aircraft, now known as the M-50, took shape and on paper at least, looked pretty special.  The Myasischev M-50 “Bounder” The long, slim fuselage, combined with the very large and efficient delta wing was a necessity to meet speed and range requirements. Added to that, the adoption of several automated flight control and navigation systems allowed the required number of crew members to be reduced to two (which, for a Soviet aircraft, is nothing short of incredible), thereby allowing the carriage of more precious fuel internally. The bicycle landing gear arrangement was very similar to the M-4, with the front bogie doing the steering and the rear bogie doing the braking (mercifully, with conventional hydraulic brakes, unlike the pneumatic brakes found on the M-4). This arrangement was a bit of a problem in the M-4 and turned out to be a major problem in the M-50. The far-aft position of the rear gear severely limited elevator authority, which seriously hampered takeoff performance. In fact, without the assistance of rocket motors and the hydraulic “jump cylinder” on the front landing gear bogie, combined with a rotation speed of nearly 200 mph, the M-50’s required takeoff roll was calculated to be roughly 20,000 feet!  M-50 forward landing gear; note the ski brake on the nose gear. Nothing like giving up your only steering with an acre of drag parachutes behind you... The landing gear also caused issues on landing too. While triple braking parachutes were fitted (like the M-4), the aforementioned but the non-braked front bogie was fitted with a ski brake, where a metal ski would be lowered to the runway surface, stopping the aircraft in a shower of sparks. Seeing as the front bogie was the only steering landing gear on the aircraft, one has to wonder what effect the ski brake would have had on directional control... The Inevitable Sets In  The second M-50 under construction at Experimental Aircraft Factory 23. Note the first M-50 in the background. By the end of 1957, it was becoming clear that there was, at least in the near future, no way that the M-50 would ever be able to meet the original specification; even with the definitive Zubets engines, the M-50 only had a range of 6000 miles, rather than the desired 8800 miles. Undeterred, Myasishchev sought approval to build and fly the M-50 anyway, as its performance was nonetheless unprecedented anywhere in the world and would represent a propaganda coup for the Soviet government. The go-ahead was given and by July of 1958, the prototype M-50 was rolled out for ground testing.  M-50 undergoing ground testing The desire to get the M-50 into the air was very high...so high, in fact, that instead of the interim VD-7M engines, Myasishchev fitted much less powerful, non-afterburning VD-7A engines instead; an interim engine for the interim engine. As is expected for such an advanced aircraft, numerous problems cropped up in ground testing and initial taxi runs. Myasishchev and TsAGI threw considerable resources at the problem; at any given time, four teams of engineers worked tirelessly with the aircraft, back at TsAGI and at the factory to find and remedy these issues. To their credit, the aircraft was deemed ready for advanced testing by October of 1958, and was dismantled and shipped by barge to the Flight Research Institute at Zhukovsky. With the aircraft reassembled by the start of 1959, the test program was in full swing. An M-4 was allocated to the program to help test engines, flight control systems and other equipment, while the pilots assigned to the program were busy at TsAGI working with a novel new tool; a flight simulator. More problems were ironed out, and finally on October 27, 1959, the M-50A took to the skies for the first time, with the crew declaring it a surprisingly forgiving and easy aircraft to fly.  M-50 after the first flight, with the pilots making the perilous descent to the ground. Notice the downward ejection seats, similar to the Tupolev Tu-22 "Blinder". Flight testing continued at a steady pace, interrupted for three months in May of 1960 when the M-50A was involved in a serious ground accident when it jumped its wheel chocks during an engine test, colliding with a parked M-4 Bison. The M-50A was repaired and in September of 1960, reached supersonic speed, Mach 1.01, for the first time. This was the absolute limit of what the M-50A was capable of doing, and over the winter of 1960-1961 it was decided to replace the two inboard VD-7A engines with the much more powerful “definitive interim” VD-7MA engines, which gave the M-50A a calculated top speed of Mach 1.35. Sadly, the M-50A would never achieve this speed in testing... The End of Myasishchev By the beginning of 1961, it was becoming clear to every nuclear-armed nation that an aircraft-based deterrent using free-fall bombing was no longer viable, between the advent of intercontinental ballistic missiles and the widespread deployment of sophisticated air defense networks. The Soviets were no different; it was decreed that all manned bombers would be either be scrapped and replaced with ICBMs, or repurposed as "missile carriers"; a task that the M-50 and upcoming M-52 variant were not well suited to at all. Unfortunately for the M-50, this meant the cancellation of the program, and unfortunately for the Myasishchev design bureau, it also meant they got reassigned to missile development; Vladimir Myasishchev himself was “kicked-up” to head TsAGI (and where he couldn’t waste any more resources building aircraft he couldn’t deliver upon). One M-50 was built, and but for fitment of engines, a single, improved M-52 variant was built as well.  Artist’s concept of the improved M-52 variant. Notice the double horizontal stabiliser and greatly revised wingtips. Also, the Soviets’ love affair with the tail-mounted gun turret shows no bounds! The M-50 flew nineteen times from 1959-1961 in testing, but had one last hurrah, when it flew over the Aviation Day parade at Tushino airport in July of 1961, flanked by a pair of MiG-21s. The Soviets then leaked that the M-50, which NATO soon dubbed the “Bounder”, was in fact the long-rumoured nuclear-powered bomber that the West had feared the Soviets were working on. In short order, this caused every Western intelligence analyst to crap their pants simultaneously...at least, until they found out the truth behind the Bounder. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhDnMA5OUYU&t=57s Let’s make the West crap their pants again! Today, the sole M-50A can be found at the Central Air Force Museum at Monino, just outside of Moscow. Though the program itself was a victim of politics as much as it was of technical hurdles, the M-50 program gave the Soviets a considerable amount of experience building large, supersonic aircraft which would come to benefit them for years to come, such as in... COMING SOON: An Even More Agonizing Soviet Bomber Project MrChips fucked around with this message at 06:24 on Oct 26, 2013 |
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Oct 26, 2013 06:19
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I love you, MrChips.
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Oct 26, 2013 06:58
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MrChips posted:Today, the sole M-50A can be found at the Central Air Force Museum at Monino, just outside of Moscow. Though the program itself was a victim of politics as much as it was of technical hurdles, the M-50 program gave the Soviets a considerable amount of experience building large, supersonic aircraft which would come to benefit them for years to come, such as in... BLINDER
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Oct 26, 2013 17:15
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T-4 MORE LIKE
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Oct 26, 2013 17:31
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You'll all just have to wait until next Friday to find out! E: The Blinder is not included, but if you all want it, I'll make a post about it; just have to figure out where to put it amongst the sixteen-odd posts I have already planned out. MrChips fucked around with this message at 18:23 on Oct 26, 2013 |
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Oct 26, 2013 18:15
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So, in Vancouver, WA there was an air museum called Pearson Air Museum. It was privately owned by a trust or something, and had some cool planes in it. The National Park Service apparently took it over at the beginning of the year, and the old people took their toys and went home, leaving it with basically nothing but the following:      (is that racist?)  Talking to one of the people that used to run the thing before it was taken over, he said "Well, they wanted an air museum... and that's just what they got. A museum filled with nothing but air." So, the other day I saw a flyer for a thing at the airport where the museum is located. I swear I thought it said "sit inside a T-38!" and I was beyond excited to get in one. Well, turns out it was a T-28, but I'm not complaining. Here are the pics I got from that:         T-28 front seat   Apparently this thing flys. "Like a turd" said one of the old guys, but hey.   [/url]
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Oct 26, 2013 23:32
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Here's a little painting I did for my Dad and his buddies last night - He and his friends all own little Cessnas, Aroncas (AERONCA), Satabrias (Citabria)and whatnot, and they call themselves the Hundred Horse Air Force, so I thought it'd be funny to do a little series of their imagined exploits. I'm really just using it as something to learn on, I'm extremely new to digital painting.  EDIT: The elevator is down on the Chief, something I need to fix in a repaint, haha. SPELLING FIX ursa_minor fucked around with this message at 00:36 on Oct 29, 2013 |
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Oct 27, 2013 01:10
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