I’ve not had the best two or three weeks. I kinda expected that I’d filled today’s quota of suckitude when I opened the freezer to find that it has apparently lost all its coolant and all my frozen chow has thawed. Then I looked at the road in front of my house, and found that things had gotten even worse. No more sisters.
Gah. GAHHHHHRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
An inboard top view, showing the substantial ductwork.
Note that on their own, the turbojet “gas generators” mounted above the fuselage would seem to be too small to provide vertical lift for the loaded cargo aircraft. But the exhaust from the turbojets would not be used directly for vertical thrust; instead, the high velocity gas jets would blow past turbines, mechanically linked to large-diameter multi-stage fans embedded within the wings. These fans would in turn be used to move a much large volume of air. The velocity of the air would be lower than the gas generator exhaust, but the increased mass flow rate would nevertheless provide an increased thrust. This is, in effect, a somewhat more complicated version of what happens in a standard high-bypass turbofan engine as used on modern jetliners… the high velocity exhaust from the combustors is used to drive the large diameter fans up front. It is a means to obtain higher thrust and higher fuel economy. But in the case of the V-460, the process is somewhat more complicated due to the mass of ductwork. Every inch of duct extracts energy – both via friction/drag, and by taking heat from the gas – from the exhaust, lowering the total amount of mechanical energy available to drive the fans.
According to our friends at NewsBusters, on June 25th, a pro-life group called Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust were peacefully protesting outside of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in Hollywood when a crew from the Jimmy Kimmel Show arrived to do some filming. The pro-life youth activists weren’t in the film crew’s way – whatever they were shooting was across the street – but then for no reason other than to be ideologically sadistic, the crew turned a hot spotlight on Ryan Bueler, one of the young protesters. Bueler refused to be intimidated and for 15 minutes stood under a light hot enough to partially melt a bracelet he was wearing.
Let me see if I’ve got this straight:
1) A film crew was doing their job, legally and (presumably) with all the appropriate permits
2) An anti-abortion group comes along and decides to interfere with the film crew’s job (which apparently had nothing to do with abortion)
3) Someone in the film crew turns a light on one of the protestors
4) After fifteen minutes of *willingly* staying put in front of the light, the bracelet worn by the protestor was starting to melt
Ummm… How is this anything other than “crazy protestor is friggen’ CRAZY?”
The film crew was doing their job with legally approved tools. When a group of nuts descended upon them and interfered with their work – i.e. their ability to feed their families. So they pointed a light at ’em. And at least one of the protestors was nuts enough to *willingly* stand in front of it.
Look, typically I’d be right up front with the “Union thugs” accusation. But you *don’t* mess with someone’s livelihood. And unless you are a MORON, you *don’t* stand in front of a lamp like this. And if you’re one of the protestor’s buddies, you hustle his ass out away from under the lamp.
But from the comments at “Big Hollywood” and elsewhere, apparently the film crew are all monsters, and the protestor *isn’t* a brain-damaged whackjob retard.
What am I missing here?
This one should be easy to guess. However, I’m firing up the ol’ “contest machine” for this one. Anyone who can (and does) provide *verifiable* hard data on this (and I mean more than just the one reasonably well-known painting… I mean reports, diagrams, three-views, etc) gets a Perpetual APR Subscription… all previously published APRs plus all that the future will see.
UPDATE:
All the major bits and pieces are in place, but a fair amount of detailing is left (control surfaces, panel lines, landing gear, attachment pins, etc.). The modeler will be able to fix the wingtip fins in either up or down positions.
UPDATE: probably final, or close to it:
UPDATE: Final parts layout.
Once again, it seems the WordPress blog system automatically and arbitrarily decided that commenters need to be logged in before they can comment. This seems to happen two or three times per year. I’ve no friggen’ clue as to why. *Hopefully* I’ve got it reset. If you try to comment from here on and it gives you any trouble, let me know:
Inboard profile side view. Again via Mark Nankivil.
This morning I got a call from a neighbor: a largish raptor had landed in the back yard sometime during the night, and was still there. So I wandered over (my lungs aren’t up to spec by a long shot, but they’re good enough to allow for a brief hike) with my camera and took a bunch of closeups. I don;t know… the bird was stunned or stupid or something. Humans poked and prodded it, the homeowner even picked it up bare-handed and it didn’t attack. I figured I’d wind up with lots of photos of bloody stumps, but the bird just… let it happen. It did, eventually, and of its own volition, fly away. It is, I think, a juvenile, and not a good flyer… probably got itself good and lost, and had to gin up the courage to take to the air again.
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap100701.html
Neato! The kind of photo I’d like to be able to take. I’ve got the skillz and the camera… I just need someone to lob my ass 220 nautical miles straight up.
One relatively simple idea for extending the usefulness of the Saturn V was to add an existing high-energy upper stage above the S-IVb stage. The use of a Centaur as a fourth stage would not increase Low Earth Orbit payload any, but it would allow the Sautn V to launch some impressive deep-space payloads, including:
7,000 pound payoad to Saturn in 2 years (Cassini-Huygens took nearly 7 years, and weighed about 5400 pounds, plus another 6900 lbs of propellant)
7,000 pound payload to Pluto in 10 years (“New Horizons” will take about 9 years, but only weighs 1,000 poounds)
7,000 pound (Solar explorer) payload to 1/10 A.U. in 150 days
More on Douglas concepts for Centaur equipped Saturn Ib and Saturn V launch vehicles can be found HERE and HERE.