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You know, as practical and cost effective as the Combat Caravan probably would be, I have to think that at some point the 5 year old mentality that infects the armed forces is going to get the project shitcanned.
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Mar 12, 2010 05:38
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Caveat: I got this information from a movie*, so the accuracy may not be perfect. When I was a kid, I never understood what the deal with the Spruce Goose was. All I knew was that it was gigantic, and considered a boondoggle and only ever made a single flight. According to the movie, Howard Hughes designed and built the thing under contract from the military during WWII, but unfortunately was not able to finish it until after the war was finished. It was also made out of wood because Aluminum was needed on the front lines and couldn't be spared. After the war, he gets hauled into Congress on charges of War Profiteering by the Senator from Pan Am and promptly owns the Senator by explaining how he lost a whole bunch of money he personally invested in the deal because the AF basically screwed him. Then he takes the thing out just to show them that yes, it would have worked, and that single flight was basically a giant middle finger to Congress and the Air Force. I don't know how close to reality that is, but it makes the plane a lot more interesting in my mind. [*] The Aviator
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Mar 12, 2010 22:41
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In the US, that is correct. All you need is a Driver's License and a fair bit of moxie. Note that the twin engine plane above may not qualify because it has two engines, I'm not entirely sure, but you may need to get a Light Sport Pilot license, which as I understand it, is not terribly difficult or expensive to acquire unless you're a 500 lb retarded chain smoker or something.
jandrese fucked around with this message at 21:00 on Mar 15, 2010 |
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Mar 15, 2010 20:58
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You can't talk about the SR-71 without talking about Bill Weaver's account of high altitude breakup of an early SR-71. I especially like the part where he goes: quote:I have vivid memories of that helicopter flight, as well. I didn't know much about rotorcraft, but I knew a lot about "red lines," and Mitchell kept the airspeed at or above red line all the way.
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Mar 17, 2010 18:47
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I always thought that the "weird triangular aircraft" that the  types harped on about were sightings of the F117 before it became public knowledge. It's not like conspiracy nuts have ever been able to stop beating dead horses before, why should they stop just because the facts get in the way?
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Mar 17, 2010 22:16
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Just looking at the controls on that thing makes my arm tired. The foot pedals are fine, but having to pull down on a bar to manage the cyclic sounds like a unfun way to fly. Would it have really been that difficult to make it a lever like every other helicopter? Requiring your pilot to hold his arm out in front of him for a long time is not good ergonomics.
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Mar 18, 2010 16:15
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It looks like you have to pull down constantly on it though, you can't just rest your arm on the control like you can by gripping a wheel or a yoke.
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Mar 18, 2010 16:50
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There was talk earlier in this thread now the military has gotten far too cozy with the aerospace contractors, and it has created and environment where any new aircraft is almost guaranteed to run horrendously over budget and years behind schedule, and then not deliver on half of its promises. There's also just the factor that aircraft have gotten so complex that it's pushing the limits on what humans can reasonably manage. You see this with commercial aircraft too, like the notoriously late 787. Back in WWII the planes were really just not that complicated, they couldn't be, people were designing them with pencils on drafting boards. A single person could become an expert on pretty much the entire airplane if they tried. With a modern aircraft you can't do that, there is just too much for a single person to comprehend, and computer aided tools only help so much.
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Mar 19, 2010 05:37
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The F22 has 3 major problems: 1. It's a maintenance headache. That's never good for a planes long term prospects. See: the F-14 2. It's incredibly expensive, but then this was expected. The fact that we don't export it however only makes this problem that much worse. Having a lot of its jobs taken over by inexpensive (relatively speaking) drones is the real kick to the nuts. 3. It's designed to fight a war we are unlikely to find ourselves in for the foreseeable future. This is the killer. It's not like Al-Qaeda or Hamas are flying 4th generation fighters that we need to counter. Even China and Russia, cool as our relations may be at the moment, aren't going to start up a full on ground/air war with the US. We don't even have the cold war arms race excuse that gave us the F-15. The F22 is an incredible fighter, but in a lot of ways it seems like a cold war relic. Like the war ended, but the people who were making the profit off of it didn't want to stop. At some point we're going to have to really start to think about shrinking some of these defense contractors back to more affordable sizes, even though it's going to be politically difficult as they start firing people in various senator's districts.
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Mar 19, 2010 18:26
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They tried that once, it didn't work because nobody likes Sonic Booms and expensive airline tickets. Besides, NY to LA is what? 6 hours? 8-9 if you include the time in the Airport. Going supersonic would shave off maybe 2 hours but cost you several hundred extra in fuel. IMHO, the Concorde was a failure in the end because regular Joes couldn't afford to fly on it, and the ticket prices were high enough that most businesses would only let executives fly on it. That's the majority of people who fly. Given the maintenance costs associated with it and the fact that it could only fly over the ocean it's no wonder that nobody is rushing to repeat the experiment.
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Mar 19, 2010 19:01
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That would suggest a high profit margin on the tickets. If that's the case, why stop flying them? "Yeah, we had to shut down this division, it was just too profitable."
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Mar 19, 2010 19:10
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NathanScottPhillips posted:
That goes beyond balls of steel to outright insanity. Who in the world thought this was a good idea? Edit: It's a wonder the refueling guy isn't smoking a cigarette while doing this. jandrese fucked around with this message at 17:16 on Mar 24, 2010 |
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Mar 24, 2010 05:00
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Basically: more stuff == more stuff to break
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Mar 25, 2010 15:38
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You know, even though I've seen the pictures, if I'm ever in a 787 that has wing loading like that, I think I'm going to freak out.
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Mar 31, 2010 17:46
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It's an advantage up until the point where you're loitering somewhere and get a call to fire and realize that it's going to take a 15 minutes to get your slow rear end halfway across the county.
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Apr 1, 2010 19:43
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The plane might be cheap, but the pilots aren't, nor are the ground crews.
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Apr 1, 2010 19:46
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VikingSkull posted:Honestly, with the advent of more technology that removes risk from warfare (such as pilotless aircraft) I'm a bit worried that low intensity conflict is going to become the norm. As opposed to any other time in history? Low intensity conflicts happen every day all over the world, and that's been true for all of recorded history.
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Apr 7, 2010 01:48
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~9g is right on the edge of what the human body can take with a g-suit. 13g is defiantly pushing it, although if the maneuver is short enough you can probably get away with it.
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Apr 9, 2010 18:15
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It's kind of a shame that nobody really built a scramjet. Impracticality be dammed, it would be awesome!
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Apr 20, 2010 22:48
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A single experimental aircraft does not make something "in use". I was hoping more for a followup to the SR-71. Too bad satellites pretty much killed off manned recon even though they don't do as good of a job in many cases. They're a lot cheaper than some brand new scramjet equipped aircraft though.
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Apr 20, 2010 23:08
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MrChips posted:If satellites killed off the SR-71, then loitering HALE (high altitude, long endurance) UAVs like Global Hawk made damned sure that it would never be revived. With near real-time satellite datalinks, speed to and from the target is of little importance. The ability to loiter for hours on end is what really sets apart Global Hawk from anything before it. Well, that and that fact that we're not fighting the Soviets in Russia. Slow moving UAVs probably wouldn't last long against a first world nation's anti-air defenses, but since we're fighting small groups of people hiding in dirty third world nations these days it does a great job.
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Apr 21, 2010 21:38
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Although it wouldn't fly, so to speak, on commerical aircraft, I could see military aircraft where you have two cameras mounted some distance apart to give you some depth perception at range. You would have to wear a helmet with a pair of screens over your eyes though. You could even have several pairs of cameras with varying degrees of separation (including maybe a pair on each wingtip) for different conditions.
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May 6, 2010 04:53
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People are still working on SSTs?
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May 6, 2010 14:25
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Wait, those aren't built by the same company that builds the SMART car are they?
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May 11, 2010 16:39
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Looking at the website, I'm starting to wonder if that twin turbo V-8 thing is some kind of insane gyrocopter? The only reason I think so is that the guy's website has a bunch of gyrocopter pictures and that would explain the stubby little wings.
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May 12, 2010 01:34
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I've heard of people having success with Subaru engines in light aircraft. It's more complex, but you get advantages like heat for the cockpit and reasonably priced parts, not to mention improved fuel consumption figures and HP.
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May 12, 2010 14:02
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My first thought is: what's the fuel consumption on a contraption like that? It looks cool, but the practicality is a big question mark for me.
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May 31, 2010 19:02
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They'll probably consider it again when the pile of spare TF33s starts to run down.
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Jun 2, 2010 15:18
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According to Wikipedia, the TF-33s in the B-52 put out about 17,000lbs each, for a total of 136,000lbs. A single GE90-115b puts out 115,000lbs of thrust. Mounting 4 of them on a B-52 would count as gross overkill. Even just two of them is going to be a bit much, although there are lower rated variants that may be more appropriate. A pair of the lowest end models (GE90-76b) would still give you about 12% more thrust than the old 8xTF-33 configuration.
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Jun 2, 2010 21:01
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Well, if you install just two of the -115 models, you could have one engine blown completely off and still have more than enough thrust to keep flying. Shoot, you could take off with one engine with a most of a load of fuel and bombs. That single GE90 is producing 85% of the thrust of all 8 TF-33s. Actually fitting the engines under the B-52 is an exercise left to the reader.
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Jun 2, 2010 21:21
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MrChips posted:Having Volvo design a special afterburner for the engine also allowed the inclusion of a truly unique feature in a fighter aircraft - reverse thrust. The Viggen is one of the only fighters ever to have this feature, but it was necessary to meet runway requirements. Interesting. I wonder if there was any thought to tactical use of Reverse Thrust? "Oh poo poo, bogey on my six, lets see if he can stay there if I slam it in Reverse!" (eyeballs pop out).
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Jun 3, 2010 05:39
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 Someone may have mentioned this earlier in the thread, but I still like it.
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Jun 10, 2010 20:34
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That picture was a little unfair. That picture should have had at least one of the engines on fire. That's when it looks the most 
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Jun 10, 2010 21:30
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Sorry, I just made that off of the picture on Wikipedia. I'm sure there are some higher rez photos available if you go looking.
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Jun 11, 2010 04:26
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Octoduck posted:Why only 3 seconds? Because G-Suits had not yet been invented. The blood rushes out of your head, the brain starves for Oxygen, and out you go.
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Jun 14, 2010 18:10
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Was that $1M 1945 dollars though? FYI: $1,000,000.00 in 1945 had the same buying power as $12,131,966.29 in 2010[1]. [1] http://www.dollartimes.com/calculators/inflation.htm
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Jun 20, 2010 20:06
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That's less than a quarter of the cost of a Predator drone!
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Jun 20, 2010 20:43
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$1 million is a bit less than a quarter of $4.5 million last time I checked.
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Jun 21, 2010 01:47
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To save a bunch of gas mostly. Turboprops are are considerably more efficient than turbojets at low and moderate altitudes. The downside is that your efficiency drops off considerably at higher altitudes and it's not practical to go above 500 knots or so. Of course you can combine some of the best aspects of the Turboprop and the Turbojet to get the Turbofan, which is what pretty much all airliners use. Turboprops are still more efficient for small commuter aircraft though, since they never get up to the altitude where Turbofans really start to win out on fuel efficiency. As to why they don't just use older style reciprocating engines, the answer is that Turboprops have fewer parts and less required maintenance, so they're cheaper to operate over the long run (even if they do cost more up front).
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Jun 23, 2010 02:55
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IMHO, it's going to take massive technological breakthrough to make space travel affordable to the average person. You just need too much energy to get the mass into orbit, and that energy has to come from fuel, which costs money. About the best you can do is what Rutan and others are trying: use relatively cheap air breathing engines to get you as far as you can, then light off the rockets to finish off the last 90% of the journey (it does get the rockets out of the area where they are least efficient at least). What we really need is cheap and efficient antigravity. That's the key to getting into orbit at low cost. As long as you're burning chemical rockets, it's going to cost an arm and a leg to get there, and there is no way in hell any government in the world is going to approve of a nuclear rocket design. RTGs are hard enough to get into orbit.
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Jun 28, 2010 20:20
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