Click bait with photos of many aircraft I've never seen before.
Take Off Here
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Click bait with photos of many aircraft I've never seen before.
Take Off Here
Excellent, especially viewed in Brave to scuttle the ads. Thumbup
The L1011 was the first wide body I flew on---back in the early 70's when wide bodies were just coming into the market. At least some of them had an elevator in the galley for the crew to go down to the freight deck for supplies.
Many years latter I was to come into Sioux City Iowa only days after a very similar DC-10 crashed and burned during an emergency landing. It was a very sobering picture.
I've read of the Convair NB-36 many times...Not an aircraft I would want any contact with...:nono:...Ben
That was one of which I never heard. Was it solely powered by a nuclear reactor, and how did its power get to the propellers?Quote:
Originally Posted by Truckman
This may fill in some blanks, Joe...The 11 ton radiation lining for the crew would have negated any value as a bomb truck...:help:...BenQuote:
Originally Posted by wacojoe
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3eOYHkiBkzA
I thought for sure someone was going to say the Boeing 737 Max.........LOL
^^^
Coming up fast on the outside.
Well, that provided more blanks than it filled in. The test B-36 engines were conventionally powered and merely carried the “light water reactor (whatever that is) capable of producing one megawatt of power” into the air where it was cycled on and off without any clue as to how that power would ever end up propelling an aircraft. Duh!Quote:
Originally Posted by Truckman
My research assistant has failed miserably here, and I guess I will have to do the heavy lifting unless the resident nuclear engineer intervenes.
Joe, it might be said by some (but surely not me) that with such a massive ego, and a capacity for deflection as is present in this thread, that there simply is no room for the correct answers to maneuver themselves into a position of visibility here...Your unworthy research provider, with his limited skills, was only able to provide signposts indicating the direction in which a curious student might embark on a quest to uncover long-forgotten (and strangely enough still classified) documents containing the desired intel...Quote:
Originally Posted by wacojoe
With the demands put on your severely understaffed (and malnourished) fact-finding division, perhaps this would be the time to discuss an expansion of this department to include several younger, eager (and female) interns in the faculty...At the same time the matter of a stiff upward revision in the budget, including a long-neglected pay bump for the department's Chief Investigator would necessarily be a mandatory inclusion to the agenda...:relax:...Ben
Picking up where my meager research assistant failed, I present a much more extensive video on the defunct (let us hope!) efforts to produce a nuclear powered airplane. This video will show that the NB-36 merely carried a test nuclear reactor to see if the crew could be successfully shielded from the radiation, but that reactor did not connect to any engines or provide any propulsion in the test airplane ✈️. Later, if things worked out, the reactor would be used to heat incoming air in the engines in one of two ways explained in the video. It never worked out...too much weight, too much radiation danger to crew and to anyone near at an inevitable crash site, so the ideas were never implemented or built out as a real test.
The callous attitude shown by the people designing these theoretical systems exposed in the film is stunning. For instance, one proposal was that the airplanes were to be manned only by old personnel beyond child producing age so that stray radiation did not matter to their sperm! Another that was actually instituted was that each of the 46 test flights of the NB-36 with an operational nuclear reactor aboard was accompanied by a chase airplane containing a marine troop trained to parachute to any site at which the NB-36 crashed and seal it off for both safety concerns as well as secrecy reasons. Fortunately, the test plane never crashed.
Mention is made that the Soviets actually developed and flew their version of a nuclear powered airplane in 1961. It flew 40 test missions, and in typical Soviet fashion, they got around the lead shielding weight problem by simply not caring about the crew and not shielding them adequately to the extent they died of radiation poisoning.
In the 60’s the U.S. government went a long way down the road to developing a nuclear powered cruise missile wherein there was no crew to protect and excess radiation would be part of the threat it presented to an enemy. It got the kibosh when a treaty was signed with the Soviets. Interestingly, recent news reports speculate that the latest Russian nuclear accident was centered around efforts of them to develope their own new nuclear cruise missile, which crashed and then exploded while it was being retrieved by some of their best nuclear scientist and engineers, killing them all.
https://silodrome.com/nuclear-powered-planes/
You are so right Joe, the disappointing performance from your research assistant in this case has shamed him to the point where he feels compelled to wear sackcloth and ashes as he reports to work with the other businessmen in the precious metals trade...And it appears that with the demise of the nuclear aircraft projects, you and I both missed our last opportunity at being included in any government pilot training program...:wah:...BenQuote:
Originally Posted by wacojoe
As a USMC brat I lived in Norfolk.. in x1959/1960 there were several experimental aircraft on display at NAS Norfolk (near the NOB Norfolk movie theater).. the F7U was there.. because of the difficulty taking off and landing, the high angle of attack required.. the F7U had an enormous nose gear strut.. much higher angle than the Concord.. huge, goofy looking long!
Chapter two.. the harrier.. in spring of 1969 I was between Navy Schools.. they sent me to NAF Washington for a few weeks to wait for my turn.. while there (sweeping decks and washing aircraft) British Aerospace conducted a demonstration of the Harrier.. the conscripts moved the softball bleachers to the flight line.. all of the resident aircraft were moved to other parking.. and we were told to keep out of sight.. well when we heard about the Harrier demo, we knew that our lowly E-3s had to watch..
One of us went to the hangar duty office and signed out a “building maintenance “ key ring.. to let “public works contractors have vague access”.. then off to the central ladder (Navy for stairwells) and up to the roof access.. unlock the hatch and half dozen young sailors are now on the hangar roof , above the Congressional bleachers.. let the show begin!
We were awe struck when the Harrier flew in and .. stopped! Went into a hover and backed up!..
As the Harrier turned to leave, we scrambled down, returned the keys and were sitting in the shade when the Chief “found us”.