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A Pentagon-funded contest spawned many of today’s self-driving startups

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Re: A Pentagon-funded contest spawned many of today’s self-driving startups

#91

Post by drzaiusapelord »

rjsw wrote: post #89
drzaiusapelord wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Turboprops were developed in the 20's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turboprop#History and used in popular prop airliners like the Lockheed Electra: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_L-188_Electra I'm guessing you're thinking of turbofans.

The Electra flew after the Comet.

and the DC-3 and Boeing 247 and 307 before the Comet.

I don't know why you're arguing we had jet airliners before propliners. In general, props greatly predate jetliners for civil aviation.

Re: A Pentagon-funded contest spawned many of today’s self-driving startups

#92

Post by rjsw »

drzaiusapelord wrote: post #91
rjsw wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Electra flew after the Comet.

and the DC-3 and Boeing 247 and 307 before the Comet. I don't know why you're arguing we had jet airliners before propliners. In general, props greatly predate jetliners for civil aviation.

The DC-3 wasn't (originally) a turboprop.

Re: A Pentagon-funded contest spawned many of today’s self-driving startups

#93

Post by Merad »

ptero wrote: post #22
bmcusick wrote: post #5

It was 13 years from the Wright Flyer to the first commercial fixed-wing aircraft. And that was still very dangerous. Jet engines (which really introduced the safety we are used to in airlines) took 50 years.

Jet travel brings improved speed and comfort, not really improved safety. Prop planes, as a technology, are very safe. It is a lot easier to land a prop with a failed engine or another part -- due to is low speed one can land small props with a high chance of no injuries on unprepared surfaces such as grass fields. For jets, if you have a failed engine and no landing strip you are likely toast (although there are som…

You're not really looking at an apples to apples comparison. The last generation of piston engine airliners (the only ones really comparable to the jets that replaced them) used massive turbocharged radial engines that were notoriously complex and unreliable because of all the power being squeezed out of them. Today the vast majority of "prop planes" used in commercial airlines are actually turboprops. Piston engines are basically relegated to small private planes.

Re: A Pentagon-funded contest spawned many of today’s self-driving startups

#94

Post by vkou »

rjsw wrote: post #88
lostlogin wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your bit about Germany isn't correct and is a common misconception. Britain was more powerful than Germany, had a considerably larger GDP, had a vast empire which could be asked (and told) what to do in ways its own population couldn't. The population of the empire is what mattered, not Britain’s. By this measure it was roughly 60 million versus somewhere north of 450 million. Britain had a colosal and distributed in…

The German army was still using horses plus the trucks left behind at Dunkirk to transport stuff throughout WWII.

That's partly because railroads in the Soviet Union were of a different gauge then those in Europe - and because the Soviets, as much as they could, pursued a Russian classic - scorched-earth policy.

Mechanized armies needed enormous amounts of supplies. If you can't transport them by rail, and you don't have the diesel to run trucks (the only source of oil the Germans had access to was Romania,) you have to do it by horse.

Re: A Pentagon-funded contest spawned many of today’s self-driving startups

#95

Post by grkvlt »

Retric wrote: post #3
guicho271828 wrote: post #2

27 years. The first famous "proof of concept" autonomous driving is Navlab (Thorpe, 1990). (Are there any prior projects?)

A little more than that. Navlab 1 was built in 1986 using a Chevrolet panel van.[2] The van had 5 racks of computer hardware, including 3 Sun workstations, video hardware and GPS receiver, and a Warp supercomputer.[2] The vehicle suffered from software limitations and was not fully functional until the late 80s, when it achieved its top speed of 20 mph (32 km/h).[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navlab

The Warp supercomputer is interesting [0] as it's apparently a 'systolic array' computer. Never heard of that architecture before...?

0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WARP_(systolic_array)

Re: A Pentagon-funded contest spawned many of today’s self-driving startups

#96

Post by abalone »

hueving wrote: post #77
abalone wrote: post #70

Ahhh DARPA, that state controlled, taxpayer funded, centrally planned bedrock of free market capitalism.

Even if the government entity is taxpayer funded and centrally planned, this is a competition structured like a market. They set out a bid (the winning amount for the goal) and people can compete however they see fit and spend what they want. Similarly, the Army doing RFPs to buy a bunch of toilets is still a free market to compete in as a toilet supplier.

Didn't say it wasn't "like a market" in some ways. But DARPA is very much not free market capitalism. It is state capitalism. Silicon Valley is the product of massive government investment.

Re: A Pentagon-funded contest spawned many of today’s self-driving startups

#97

Post by rjsw »

vkou wrote: post #94
rjsw wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The German army was still using horses plus the trucks left behind at Dunkirk to transport stuff throughout WWII.

That's partly because railroads in the Soviet Union were of a different gauge then those in Europe - and because the Soviets, as much as they could, pursued a Russian classic - scorched-earth policy. Mechanized armies needed enormous amounts of supplies. If you can't transport them by rail, and you don't have the diesel to run trucks (the only source of oil the Germans had access to was Romania,) you have to do it by…

Horse-drawn armies need enormous amounts of supplies, the energy density of animal feed is a lot lower than that of oil. The British Army learned this lesson in WWI and was totally mechanized by 1939.

Re: A Pentagon-funded contest spawned many of today’s self-driving startups

#98

Post by vkou »

rjsw wrote: post #97
vkou wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's partly because railroads in the Soviet Union were of a different gauge then those in Europe - and because the Soviets, as much as they could, pursued a Russian classic - scorched-earth policy. Mechanized armies needed enormous amounts of supplies. If you can't transport them by rail, and you don't have the diesel to run trucks (the only source of oil the Germans had access to was Romania,) you have to do it by…

Horse-drawn armies need enormous amounts of supplies, the energy density of animal feed is a lot lower than that of oil. The British Army learned this lesson in WWI and was totally mechanized by 1939.

Yeah, but you can grow animal feed in the fields of occupied France, or take it from Ukranian peasants. You can't really grow petrol on those fields. (Although you can produce synthoil out of coal - which the Germans did.) The UK, the USSR, and the USA were, on the other hand, controlled something like 90% of all of the world's known oil reserves.

Fuel shortages for the fascists in WWII were so bad, in the later years of the war, they used horses to pull fighter planes from their hangars, to their runways. They did not have enough fuel to taxi under their own power.

Re: A Pentagon-funded contest spawned many of today’s self-driving startups

#99

Post by vlehto »

rjsw wrote: post #97
vkou wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's partly because railroads in the Soviet Union were of a different gauge then those in Europe - and because the Soviets, as much as they could, pursued a Russian classic - scorched-earth policy. Mechanized armies needed enormous amounts of supplies. If you can't transport them by rail, and you don't have the diesel to run trucks (the only source of oil the Germans had access to was Romania,) you have to do it by…

Horse-drawn armies need enormous amounts of supplies, the energy density of animal feed is a lot lower than that of oil. The British Army learned this lesson in WWI and was totally mechanized by 1939.

Depends where you are located and how large formations of troops you have concentrated on single location. Finnish Defense forces pretty much completely relied on horses during WWII and with great success. There are lot's of tales how Finns were able to supply very hard to get places and also had successful practice to bring back all the dead to be buried in their home towns.

They had to give up horses in the 60's because you could no longer find young men who could drive horse carts. The good mobility of horse in boggy and snowy terrain was only matched in the 80's with Bandvagn 206 carrier.

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