Dubious Metrics

 AARRRGH, blather, dumbassery, Gah., politics  3 Responses »
Jul 182011
 

One thing that irks me is the use of misleading statistics in order to score politicl points. I don’t mean flat-out lies (although that’s certainly irksome), I mean statistics that sound great but do not back up the point they are supposed to be backing up. Take this story about the performance of the pro-Sarah palin documentary “The Undefeated:”

“The Undefeated” Opening Day Ground Report

Victory Film Group’s The Undefeated opened on Friday July 15, 2011 and ended up having an average gross of $6570 per theater. If that wasn’t enough to convince the dwindling sceptics: The Undefeated was ahead of EVERY movie except Harry Potter!

Sounds impressive, yes? A documentary second only to Harry Potter! But… one small issue. “The Undefeated” opened in a grand total of *ten* theaters. Ten. 10. X. Deca.

I’ve no doubt that a “per theater average” is a useful number in some calculation or other. But come on… comparing “The Undefeated’s” sixty-seven grand first-weekend take with “Harry Potters” one-hundred-sixty-seven MILLION dollar first-weekend domestic take seems disengenuous at best.

I’ve seen this sort of thing before in politics. One that keeps cropping up during debates about the government takeover of healthcare is that “such-and-such country has socialised healthcare and a longer average lifespan, thus meaning that their socialized healthcare is doign a better job of keeping them alive.” Since this ignores cultural factors such as choices of foods, bevarages, behaviors and differences in methods of keeping statistics, it’s a truly useless metric.

FYI: According to Boxofficemojo.com, Harry Potter raked in $481 Million in its first two *days,* counting non-US ticket sales.

 Posted by at 6:02 pm

Dyna Soar/Titan III

 aircraft, drawings, history, projects, rockets, spacecraft  6 Responses »
Jul 182011
 

I have spent fifteen years trying to find a good layout drawing of the final Dyna Soar design atop the Titan IIIC booster. Since the Dyna Soar prototype was approximately 40% complete when the program was cancelled, and the Titan IIIC spent several decades launching payloads, it would seem obvious that such diagrams *must* have been created and at a whole bunch of levels of detail. Sadly, diagrams of the Dyna Soar/Titan IIIC air vehicle are few and far between and generally of small size and low detail. Below is the best I’ve got… pretty good, but obviously not fully detailed. If anyone happens to know of better, I’d be very interested.

 Posted by at 10:59 am

“From RAINBOW to GUSTO:” A-6-5 configuration

 aircraft, awesomeness, drawings, history, projects, RAINBOW to GUSTO  2 Responses »
Jul 162011
 

Sixteenth in the series of reconstructed drawings from Paul Suhler’s book “From RAINBOW to GUSTO.” This is the Lockheed A-6-5 design as drawn by Dan Zuck in January 1959. This particular drawing has a Source Grade of four:

“RAINBOW to GUSTO” is available from Amazon:

To download the high-rez version of the A-6-5 drawing, simply click THIS LINK. You will be prompted for a username and a password. For the A-6-5 drawing, use these:

Username: the FIRST word in the body of the text on page 134

Password: the LAST word in the body of the text on page 134

(Remember: Case Sensitive!)

ALSO NOTE: if all you get is a “red X,” that means the image is too large for your browser to display (I’ve not ahd a problem with Firefox, but have had with IE). In that event, simply hit the Back button to this page, and right click on the link above and save the image directly to your computer and view from there.

Up next: A-6-6 configuration

 Posted by at 11:38 am

Jet Pack Fail LIVE

 AARRRGH, aircraft, awesomeness, dumbassery, humor, youtube  8 Responses »
Jul 162011
 

You know, some things probably should either not be done live, or with a bit more practice beforehand. Stuff like flying a water-shooting “jetpack” while trying to be too cute by half.

[youtube qRVspuAJyAY]

At least we learn that if you accidentally hit the kill switch and fall directly into the ocean, the jetpack still works and you can fly out again.

 Posted by at 8:40 am

Space Drawing 24: Dyna Soar/Titan II part 1

 aircraft, drawings, drawings&documents, new products, projects, rockets, spacecraft  2 Responses »
Jul 152011
 

New Space Drawing: part one of a set of diagrams showing the Dyna Soar spaceplane and it’s Titan II suborbital booster.

You get:

1: Martin Drawing 388-0400000: An inboard profile & section view of the Titan II booster with Dyna Soar. A grayscale scan of an “artistic” presentation of the diagram, airbrushed. 11,525 X 2268 pixels.

2: Martin Drawing 388-0400000: An inboard profile & section view of the Titan II booster with Dyna Soar. A grayscale scan of  the basic engineering line diagram. 17,275 X 3300 pixels.

3: Martin Model 388-1: An inboard profile & section view of the Titan II booster with Dyna Soar. A black-and-white scan of  the basic engineering line diagram. 17,067 X 3358 pixels.

4: Booster – Complete, Martin drawing 388-1000000. A grayscale scan of a complete overview of the Dyna Soar/Titan II booster air vehicle. 4750 x 2756 pixels.

5: Structural Configuration, Martin drawing 388-1000000. A black & white scan of the internal structure of the Dyna Soar/Titan II booster air vehicle. 20,154 x 3367 pixels.

All drawings come in JPG format and GIF format, as well as “halfsize” and “quartersize” versions for easier viewing & printing.

Space Drawing 24 is a 41 megabyte ZIP file, and is available for $5.50.

 

Be sure to check out my other Air & Space Drawings & Documents!

 Posted by at 6:03 pm

Space Drawing 25: Dyna Soar/Titan II part 2

 aircraft, drawings, drawings&documents, new products, projects, rockets, spacecraft  No Responses »
Jul 152011
 

New Space Drawing: part two of a set of diagrams showing the Dyna Soar spaceplane and its Titan II suborbital booster.

You get:

1: Martin Drawing 388-0400098, Oxidizer Tank Fwd Skirt & Blast Shield, Stage II: Details both the forward end of the Titan II second stage as well as providing geometric data on the Dyna Soar stansition section and abort solid rocket motor.  A grayscale scan of the diagram. 4700 X 2666 pixels.

2: Structural Configuration. A grayscalescan of a presentation version of the internal structure of the Dyna Soar/Titan II booster air vehicle, airbrushed. 11,522 x 2814 pixels.

3: Fin Structure. A grayscalescan of a presentation version of the structural configuration of the large yaw and pitch fins mounted near the base of the Titan II, airbrushed. 4435 x 2781 pixels.

All drawings come in JPG format and GIF format, as well as “halfsize” and “quartersize” versions for easier viewing & printing.

Space Drawing 25is a 47 megabyte ZIP file, and is available for $4.50.

Be sure to check out my other Air & Space Drawings & Documents!

 Posted by at 6:03 pm

Space Drawing 26: 4-man Rescue Apollo

 drawings, drawings&documents, new products, projects, rockets, spacecraft  No Responses »
Jul 152011
 

New Space Drawing:two North American Aviation diagrams showing a proposed 1965 version of the Apollo spacecraft, with seating for four for rescue purposes.

You get:

1: Docking Provisions – 4 Man Apollo Rescue Vehicle Study: NAA drawing 2129-1 showing the modified docking adapter that would allow the rescue Apollo to dock with a regular Apollo. Available in both the original color scan and a cleaned-up grayscale line diagram. 10,750 X 2599 pixels.

2: Four Crewmen in Block II C/M: NAA drawing 2680-2 showing an inboard view of the capsule with details on seating arrangement and provisions for four crewmen. Available in both the original color scan and a cleaned-up grayscale line diagram. 9854 X 2578 pixels.

All drawings come in JPG format and GIF format, as well as “halfsize” and “quartersize” versions for easier viewing & printing.

Space Drawing 26 is a 22 megabyte ZIP file, and is available for $4.50.


Be sure to check out my other Air & Space Drawings & Documents!

 Posted by at 6:02 pm

Rutan’s Hybrid-Electric Roadable Airplane

 aircraft, awesomeness, blather, news  2 Responses »
Jul 152011
 

This is just… huh.

Scaled Composites is testing a twin-fuselage roadable aircraft. Seats two… drive it like a car from the left side, fly it like a plane from the right. Looks like the wings are manually removable, rather than folding. It’s an example of the sort of compromises that are required to make a roadable airplane… it’s just really, really goofy lookin’, and looks *easily* messed up in the minorest of fender-benders. But beyond *everything,* here is the single most important line in the whole article:
The BiPod was brought from preliminary design to its first flight on 30 March 2011 in just four months.
Four freakin’ months. Suck it, bureaucrats!
Take a look at the article for photos. And for the performance figures: if they pan out… wow.
 Posted by at 4:05 pm
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