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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

#191

Post by systemvoltage »

lnxg33k1 wrote: post #190

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

I am not going to engage with your glib, bigoted and uninformed take; but instead, ask you to consider watching, with an open mind, a brilliant presentation by Luckey Palmer (Anduril) about what happens when society gets a wake up call for defense: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nK0NfL2M5L4

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

#192

Post by urthor »

alistairSH wrote: post #42
urthor wrote: post #31

Out of the loop, exactly why does the USAF still fly this? Is it really a better alternative to putting some bomb bay doors on a modern Boeing? Without dismissing the entire field of aircraft design... the mind is definitely attracted to the concept of buzzsawing some doors onto the bottom of civilian airliner.

Mainly it's relatively low operating cost compared to modern bombers. Also it's readiness ratio is much higher than anything more modern (75% for B-52 vs 50% for the B-2 Stealth Bomber). I'm not sure how retrofitting bomb doors (plus any other military requirements) onto a modern wide-body Boeing would be any better than a major refit of an existing B-52. Heck, we can't even build new tankers for in-flight refueling…

Oh I'm sure I'm wrong and there are good reasons... but it's just hard to quantify them exactly.

The speed/"B52 is actually structurally designed to take enemy fire" points someone mentioned were immensely informative.

I'd never, ever thought of those. But it makes sense. The B52 carries a lot of bombs and has the structural design and other attributes for being in a combat zone.

Designing a NEW B52 is prohibitive because in reality, in a war with Russia/China, the B52 is non-viable against modern AA.

But for carpet bombing Afghanistan, the B52 is perfect.

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

#193

Post by [deleted] »

gigaflop wrote: post #51
urthor wrote: post #31

Out of the loop, exactly why does the USAF still fly this? Is it really a better alternative to putting some bomb bay doors on a modern Boeing? Without dismissing the entire field of aircraft design... the mind is definitely attracted to the concept of buzzsawing some doors onto the bottom of civilian airliner.

Civilian airliners are closer to shuttle buses than weapons platforms. With all of the design work that would be required to gracefully transform the luggage compartment into a bomb bay (not to mention the armor, extra tech), it may just be easier to have a purpose-built plane. But, I'd totally love to see a civilian aircraft retrofitted in some kind of post-apocalyptic movie.

[deleted]

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

#194

Post by urthor »

thedebuglife wrote: post #98
urthor wrote: post #31

Out of the loop, exactly why does the USAF still fly this? Is it really a better alternative to putting some bomb bay doors on a modern Boeing? Without dismissing the entire field of aircraft design... the mind is definitely attracted to the concept of buzzsawing some doors onto the bottom of civilian airliner.

> Is it really a better alternative to putting some bomb bay doors on a modern Boeing? From what I've been told, the B52 has relatively low operating cost and can stay up in the air pretty much indefinitely by being refueled in air by KC-135s. source: I was an air traffic controller in the US Air Force

I think the most insightful points were from those who actually mentioned that the capabilities the B52 requires are extremely different.

Mid air refueling, electronic warfare & military technology integration, speed in combat zone, integrity while under enemy fire.

They are are very different points than I ever imagined you would have to consider for a bomber.

The B52s gigantic wings make a ton more sense now. They're incredibly large so they produce vastly more lift/other specifications than required in case holes are shot in the bomber.

Lesson I've learnt today is listen more to the experts.

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

#195

Post by urthor »

dghlsakjg wrote: post #48
urthor wrote: post #31

Out of the loop, exactly why does the USAF still fly this? Is it really a better alternative to putting some bomb bay doors on a modern Boeing? Without dismissing the entire field of aircraft design... the mind is definitely attracted to the concept of buzzsawing some doors onto the bottom of civilian airliner.

The most obvious reason you can’t do that is that modern airliners have pressurized fuselages. The other answer would be that they would have to expend a huge engineering effort and am mount of money to end up with an aircraft that does what the b-52 already does.

Pressurized Fuselages?

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

#196

Post by [deleted] »

systemvoltage wrote: post #191
lnxg33k1 wrote: post #190

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

I am not going to engage with your glib, bigoted and uninformed take; but instead, ask you to consider watching, with an open mind, a brilliant presentation by Luckey Palmer (Anduril) about what happens when society gets a wake up call for defense: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nK0NfL2M5L4

[deleted]

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

#197

Post by lnxg33k1 »

systemvoltage wrote: post #191
lnxg33k1 wrote: post #190

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

I am not going to engage with your glib, bigoted and uninformed take; but instead, ask you to consider watching, with an open mind, a brilliant presentation by Luckey Palmer (Anduril) about what happens when society gets a wake up call for defense: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nK0NfL2M5L4

But what bigoted and uninformed, how could a question about an article be uninformed, I could get a wake up call for defense and still understand that destruction is destruction and that there are some people like me under those bombs and talk about it with a bit of sadness, instead of acting like I am talking about coffee machines. You should just play less the victim considering sufference you've caused to the world, and be a bit more human and understanding that once the powerful in both sides are taking out, what's left is people like you, so that's where my "sick in the brain" comes from, you show no remorse whatsoever

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

#198

Post by aj7 »

chasil wrote: post #160
jabl wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm, I'm not familiar enough with jet engines to say whether that is expected or not. 15% doesn't sound like a huge improvement, I agree. But I'll note the F130 is a medium bypass business jet engine producing 'only' around 75kN. 8 of those is about 600kN, which could be achieved with two of those newest generation civilian high bypass turbofans used e.g. in the B787 or A350. I suspect the motivation was to choose a…

So what happens if four newest-generation high-bypass turbofans are installed on a B-52? Is the airframe at risk in doubling the thrust at full throttle?

Of great importance was not rewiring or modifying all the engine controls: the new engines had to slide right in and attach to the controls the old engines used. This alone demanded 8 small engines. Read about how they solved the flutter problem on the 747 and you’ll appreciate how important it is not to change the aerodynamics of the wing in any way. Finally, competition for the contract was fierce as there were many different engines that approximately fit the profile: it was very close to competing business jet designs with successful production histories. Rolls Royce, I think, was a surprise winner.

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

#199

Post by justsomehnguy »

p_l wrote: post #183
justsomehnguy wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ab…

> Buran

> 27. Alternative projects considered at the stages of the preliminary design and preliminary design: attempts to create OK "Buran" on the basis of OK "Spiral" - what was proposed (options and technical solutions) and what was accepted, what was not accepted, how and why.

> Orbital vehicle "Buran" in landing configuration

> Answer: We (NPO Molniya) worked on an alternative variant in a guise that mimics that of the Spiral orbital plane, but General Designer Glushko considered that by that time there were few materials that would confirm and guarantee success at a time when Shuttle flights proved that the Shuttle-like configuration works successfully and there is less risk when choosing a configuration, therefore, despite the larger useful volume of the Spiral configuration, it was decided to carry out the Buran in a configuration similar to the Shuttle configuration. Although the absence of sustainer engines on the Buran noticeably changed the centering, the position of the wings, the configuration of the influx, and a number of other differences.

> 28. Was the copying of "Space Shuttle" in a larger or smaller volume during the creation of Buran deliberate or were there "directive instructions"?

> Answer: Copying, as indicated in the previous answer, was, of course, completely conscious and justified in the process of those design developments that were carried out and during which, as already indicated above, many changes were made to both the configuration and the design. The main political requirement was to ensure that the dimensions of the payload compartment were the same as the payload compartment of the Shuttle.

https://www-buran-ru.translate.goog/htm/archivl.htm?_x_tr_sc...

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

#200

Post by p_l »

justsomehnguy wrote: post #199
p_l wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ab…

> Buran > 27. Alternative projects considered at the stages of the preliminary design and preliminary design: attempts to create OK "Buran" on the basis of OK "Spiral" - what was proposed (options and technical solutions) and what was accepted, what was not accepted, how and why. > Orbital vehicle "Buran" in landing configuration > Answer: We (NPO Molniya) worked on an alternative variant in a guise that mimics that…

Thank you for finding more!

I guess I was wrong on that part. Interesting that Spiral had greater capacity, I thought the opposite based in some of the sketches - possibly I mixed up sketches of another MiG space plane.

Wish someone manages to one day do a definitive history translated into English

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