71–80 of 146 posts
I love stories about America violating sovreign airspace, especially when they use such a cool plane. The entire world is truly their own backyard!
The world hates that the US is the world police, but then constantly demands the US be the world police.
Que?
Indeed, Mach 3.5 is the declared top speed in this story, but higher speeds are implied. The Mach eases to 3.5 as we crest 80,000 feet... Screaming past Tripoli, our phenomenal speed continues to rise... I realize that I still have my left hand full-forward and we're continuing to rocket along in maximum afterburner... The TDI now shows us Mach numbers, not only new to our experience but flat out scary. He mentions u…
Adrian Newley is aerodynamist and the current chief designer of Red Bull (current champions and top of the season). He has won more F1 champions than any other designer. He draws his cars on paper. Granted, I'm sure someone digitizes his designs and runs them through a CFD suite, if for no other reason that wind tunnel time rule limited. Still.
Sure concepts to try can be sketched out on paper. Things like wing arrangements, rough intuitive ideas about where the clean and dirty air is. But everything in F1 is an iterative loop between a lap time simulation, vehicle dynamics, and aerodynamics.
Vehicle performance is largely a trade off between Cornering dynamics (typically demanding more downforce) and straight light speed (typically demanding less drag) which is why different tracks have different setups.
Basically balanced between cornering sections and straight line sections to figure out the optimal balance of lift/drag and the dynamic behaviour of the rest of the car in response to those aero set up effects.
I love stories about America violating sovreign airspace, especially when they use such a cool plane. The entire world is truly their own backyard!
The days of America violating sovereign airspace are drawing to a close, thankfully. “The United States-initiated aerial bombing of targets inside the borders of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriyah which took place on April 15, 1986, was met with substantial and immediate criticism by the world community. The positive reaction from the U.S. congress and the American public was not shared by much of the world. Arab nations de…
It's a shame that the book that this story came from - Sled Driver by Brian Shul - is out of print. The SR-71 speed check story is another good read: https://www.thesr71blackbird.com/Aircraft/Stories/sr-71-blac...
You can get a digital copy of the book easily https://www.google.com/search?q=Sled+Driver+pdf
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Titanium is very common in the Earth's crust. But turning titanium minerals into pure, ductile titanium metal is more energy intensive and complex than making most other metals: https://chem.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Inorganic_Chemistry/... At the time, the USSR had already invested significant resources into making titanium for submarines. Buying titanium under false pretenses was easier than increasing the domesti…
Related: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Losos-class_submarine
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Fastest official is Mach 3.43. I would note that that isn't likely the full story. The US Gov has famously been deceptive about the plane, both overselling or underselling its abilities. (Notably, I do not believe that the US Government ever 'officially' admitted to overflying the USSR.) It is very possible that for a short period of time, they sustained over mach 3.5 or 3.6, what affect that would have/had on the ai…
> At that speed, the engines are assumed to have been scraped after each flight. > One could make assumptions that the ram-jet elements of an SR-71's J-58s could allow for a few minutes...far beyond that I would expect the SR-71 to stay at speed longer and for the engines to be capable of higher power (assuming the airframe and intake can handle it). US engines were generally higher quality, while Soviet engines were…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Which is really odd, as Titanium is not that rare. Are we sure that story about the Titanium coming from the USSR is accurate?
https://mentourpilot.com/sr-71-when-cia-used-soviet-titanium...
In the alpine climbing world Soviet climbers used titanium gear that was considered very good and light. Some of it was from scraps and spare material, but they had access to titanium.
The dates in the story are confusing me. > My first encounter with the SR-71 came when I was 10 years old in the form of molded black plastic in a Revell kit. > Twenty-nine years later, I stood awe-struck in a Beale Air Force Base hangar, staring at the very real SR-71 before me. > In 1962, the first Blackbird successfully flew, and in 1966, the same year I graduated from high school, the Air Force began flying opera…
When I launched it (vertically of course), the plane seemed to hover forever on the launchpad before finally overcoming gravity and taking off. It did not achieve Mach 3.5 or anything significant for a rocket of its size. When it reached the ejection stage, it popped off the front cabin "nosecone", looking very ungainly as it fluttered to the ground on a parachute.
I still have that model somewhere downstairs.
[0] https://www.rocketreviews.com/estes-industries-sr-71-blackbi...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The days of America violating sovereign airspace are drawing to a close, thankfully. “The United States-initiated aerial bombing of targets inside the borders of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriyah which took place on April 15, 1986, was met with substantial and immediate criticism by the world community. The positive reaction from the U.S. congress and the American public was not shared by much of the world. Arab nations de…
Ah yes, because surely when the US stops patrolling the seas and skies of this planet, nobody else will try. We will finally have our peaceful utopia once that pesky United States is out of the way!
See? Strawmaning an argument is very easy to do, I can do it too!
I love stories about America violating sovreign airspace, especially when they use such a cool plane. The entire world is truly their own backyard!
The world hates that the US is the world police, but then constantly demands the US be the world police.