Oct 052021
 

I have drawings of a proposed aircraft from 1946 that was to have an “Allison GGR engine.” This was an inline piston engine to turn a propeller, but is otherwise not described. Does an “Allison GGR” ring any bells?

Update: never mind. The drawing is poor… what I read as “GGR” appears to actually be “G6R,” a variant of the V-1710 engine.

 Posted by at 10:46 pm
Oct 042021
 

Early/mid 80’s artwork depicting an X-Wing vehicle (a helicopter with very rigid rotors that could stop in flight to serve as wings). The text attributes this to Boeing-Vertol, but I could swear I’ve seen it attributed to someone else (Lockheed? Grumman?).

The X-Wing concept seemed to have great promise, but testing showed that, perhaps unsurprisingly, it had severe problems during transition. Had it worked, though, it would hve provided the high speed and long range of a conventional aircraft with the hovering efficiency of a helicopter.

 Posted by at 9:30 pm
Oct 042021
 

Democrats are eating their own for not being sufficiently far-leftist. Here some whackaloons follow Senator Sinema into a crapper to yell at her. Imagine, gentle reader, if these were right wingers doing *exactly* the same thing to Bubbles Cortez: the wokies would be screaming in fake horror and feigned outrage.

Dear Senator Sinema: the Republicans would probably take you on board.

 Posted by at 5:28 pm
Oct 042021
 

In the 1970’s the CIA wanted to field recon drones that would be visually indistinguishable from birds (at least from a distance), under Project Aquiline. While Aquiline was *apparently* not successful, other bird-shaped drone have been developed over the years, with some crashed and captured examples shown to the press. Thanks to modern tech, the average citizen is now able to have a drone that would be just as good as Aquiline, at least from the design standpoint.

 Posted by at 4:38 pm
Oct 032021
 

Razorfist rants about the importance of “pulp” heroes, using as examples The Shadow, Zorro, Doc Savage, The Rocketeer, Solomon Kane, Philip Marlowe.

 

There are considerable differences between these characters. The likes of Philip Marlowe and Zorro exist in “real” worlds, devoid of magic and the supernatural or whiz-bang sci-fi technology; Solomon Kane and The Shadow are surrounded by otherworldly forces and abilities. But they share important features: in worlds of gray morality, these are Men (with a capital M) with strong, unshakable morals. They are neither monsters nor pacifists, but are willing and able to throw down with the villains they come across or indeed hunt down. They do not compromise or mollycoddle, but instead lay a severe beatdown on those who would do harm to innocents.

Imagine a Pulp Hero confronting Antifa and similar culture-wreckers. *THAT* is the movie I want to see.

 Posted by at 12:55 pm
Oct 032021
 

Murders are spiking. Police should be part of the solution.

I’m glad these geniuses are here to tell us these things.

Last year, the US’s murder rate spiked by almost 30 percent. So far in 2021, murders are up nearly 10 percent in major cities. The 2020 increase alone is the largest percentage increase ever recorded in America — and a reversal from overall declines in murder rates since the 1990s.’

Gosh I wonder why that might be.

There remains one solution to the problem of violent crime that would doubtless be highly effective:

Small issue being that stargates to penal colonies on distant worlds remain firmly fictional. But if distant worlds are unattainable, it certainly seems that a penal colony in, say, Nunavut should be achievable.

 Posted by at 12:16 am