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The B-52 was designed in a hotel room over one weekend

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Re: The B-52 was designed in a hotel room over one weekend

#181

Post by ThinkBeat »

and so far, every enormously expensive next generation bomber meant to replace the B52 have not been able to do so.

The B52 Stratofortres was introduced in 1955 qty 744 The B-58 Hustler was introduced in 1960. (not to replace B52). qty 116 The FB-111A / F-111G was introduced in 1968 * qty 76 The B-1 Lancer was introduced in 1986 to replace the B-52. qty 104 The B-2 Spirit was introduced in 1997 to replace the B-52. qty 21 The B-21 Raider to be introduced in 2025 to place the B1 and B52. qty 6 +??

* The FB-111A was a strategic bomber version of the F-111 for the USAF Strategic Air Command. With Air Force's Advanced Manned Strategic Aircraft program proceeding slowly, and concerns of fatigue failures in the B-52 fleet, the service needed an interim bomber quickly

Re: The B-52 was designed in a hotel room over one weekend

#182

Post by justsomehnguy »

p_l wrote: post #178
justsomehnguy wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I checked the Wiki article on it, just to be sure. I just don't understand how it could look any way different (at least significantly), this is a classical case of the function dictating the form.

Essentially, the Buran orbiter had different function, and thus different forces on its form. US' STS shape was ultimately dictated by its cross range requirements combined with cargo capacity. Explicit case of function leading to specific form. Buran didn't require the same huge cargo capacity in the orbiter , because Soviets had already tested and verified self-assembly of space station in orbit from multiple launc…

Ah, that clears some things for me, I thought more about the aerodynamic form.

> the command to make it look like US STS came pretty early in the projec

I never heard anything about that, AFAIR.

Any ideas where to look abou that?

Re: The B-52 was designed in a hotel room over one weekend

#183

Post by p_l »

justsomehnguy wrote: post #182
p_l wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Essentially, the Buran orbiter had different function, and thus different forces on its form. US' STS shape was ultimately dictated by its cross range requirements combined with cargo capacity. Explicit case of function leading to specific form. Buran didn't require the same huge cargo capacity in the orbiter , because Soviets had already tested and verified self-assembly of space station in orbit from multiple launc…

Ah, that clears some things for me, I thought more about the aerodynamic form. > the command to make it look like US STS came pretty early in the projec I never heard anything about that, AFAIR. Any ideas where to look abou that?

I wish I was more diligent in noting back then, but essentially I went on a long walk on google, encyclopedia astronautica, checking russian pages with google translate etc. trying to read as much about the project - at the time it was still running we had more information published in Poland about Shuttle (including accurate drawings and system descriptions) than about Buran, and thus I was always left fascinated about this space plane that, compared to STS, I had only a blurry photo and maybe A4 page of description.

Re: The B-52 was designed in a hotel room over one weekend

#184

Post by Forgeties79 »

gladiatr72 wrote: post #101
daveslash wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Heh, exactly. Succinctly put. Here's a longer-winded version: I'm an R&D Software Engineer. In a workplace setting years ago we had a Software Architect who would advise management and the implementation engineers. Me and my team were really struggling with a difficult implementation problem relating to some federated identity stuff. Management told us to go to the architect. We explained our problems and he waved th…

Or perhaps more in-line with a favorite of mine: The secret to mankind achieving unpowered flight is for someone to throw themselves at the ground and simply miss..

Whelp guess it’s time to bust out the guide

Re: The B-52 was designed in a hotel room over one weekend

#185

Post by Forgeties79 »

BitwiseFool wrote: post #115
Someone wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The iPod also fitted easier in the typical hand (and, probably more important, in the typical pocket). Dimensions of that Archos: 3.1 in x 4.4 in x 1.2 in = 16.4 in³ Dimensions of the first iPod: 4.02 in x 2.43 in x 0.78 in = 7.62 in³. That’s less than half the volume. (Weight-wise, the difference is smaller (10.2 vs 6.5 oz)

I invite people to look at a photo of the thing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archos_Jukebox_series#/media/F... It looks so quintessentially late 90's, yet hideous at the same time.

Jesus wow. That is…yeah you nailed it.

Re: The B-52 was designed in a hotel room over one weekend

#186

Post by [deleted] »

acidburnNSA wrote: post #71
Forgeties79 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“I want all my music to fit in the palm of my hand.” Steve Jobs created the iPod in just one day

Meh, the Archos Jukebox was doing that well before Steve Jobs. Steve's genius concept was "I want all my music to fit in the palm of my hand, but with a way better UI than Archos Jukebox" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archos_Jukebox_series

[deleted]

Re: The B-52 was designed in a hotel room over one weekend

#187

Post by fuzzfactor »

froidpink wrote: post #100
lelandfe wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was genuinely an overnight success, though. They got approval on the strength of this design. And the broad strokes design of the aircraft seemingly stayed intact through the subsequent processes. This entire comment chain is bewildering, we're attacking strawmen. Did anyone read this article and leave assuming no further work was done after approval? Was this HN comment chain enlightening to anyone ? Who are we…

It was a strong conceptual design, yes. For my aerospace engineering undergrad we also had to create a conceptual design for a new aircraft. And of course, as university projects go, we basically did it in five days. But I won't tell you how many iterations we would've had to go through until we had an optimum configuration ready to be sent to detail design The headline makes it look like their design was a definite…

Exactly.

Ask yourself, how long does this normally take to go from A to B?

One day you've got top engineers with a contemporary concept, but the military says nah we've got to have something way better.

So they really go to work on it until they can confidently deliver a 33-page futuristic well-engineered proposal with a prototype scale model and then the military says yes right away.

What's normal here, weeks, months, even years?

That's what's impressive in 48 hours, nobody could expect a complete set of blueprints, they had to first determine if prints would even be realistically possible.

You know their slide rules were flying like few could do.

With engineers like this why would you use anyone else?

Re: The B-52 was designed in a hotel room over one weekend

#189

Post by nradov »

Maursault wrote: post #158
nradov wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The YF-23 was better in some ways, worse in others. Compared to the YF-22 it was faster, longer ranged, and (probably) more stealthy. But it had a smaller weapons bay and was less maneuverable. Both aircraft met the ATF program technical requirements. The final selection was based primarily on the Air Force having greater confidence in Lockheed over Northrop in being able to run the program on schedule and budget. Th…

> The final selection was based primarily on the Air Force having greater confidence in Lockheed over Northrop in being able to run the program on schedule and budget Unexpected. The Lockheed YF-23[1] looks like it would fall apart if you breathed on it wrong, while the Northrop YF-23 is such a slick design it looks like it's moving while standing still. [1] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f1/YF-22.j…

Well the Lockheed YF-22 prototypes didn't fall apart through an extensive flight test program including multiple supersonic flights and weapon launches.

Re: The B-52 was designed in a hotel room over one weekend

#190

Post by lnxg33k1 »

I think Americans are slightly sick in the brain, the guy was talking about dropping bombs like normal people would talk about putting two cubes of sugar in a coffee

What has to happen in a human brain that you get so detached from the reality that you can talk so normally and in a chitty chat way about means of destruction

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