Zoom!!

[Dr Mordrid]

Play me (800k WMV)

Hold your ears

[az]

Wow, I didn't realize they flew this slow. Cool! Looks kind of... I don't know, physics-defying. When the Eurofighter is flying that slow, it looks very strange, because it keeps its nose high up to generate enough uplift with its engine.

[Nowhere]

While the engine probably ads something, it's mostly about wings high angle of the attack (the bigger it is the more lift they generate at given speed)

And if you'd really like to see something which looks physics-defying...there's always An-2
It can be flown, fully controlled, at around 60 km/h...so if there's big enough wind it can "fly backwards"
Also:

An interesting note from the pilot's handbook reads: "If the engine quits in instrument conditions (blind flying when you can't see the ground) or at night, the pilot should pull the control column full aft (it won't stall) and keep the wings level. The leading-edge slats will snap out at about 40 mph (64 km/h), and when the airplane slows to a forward speed of about 25 mph [40 km/h], the airplane will sink at about a parachute descent rate until the aircraft hits the ground."

[Dr Mordrid]

The A-10's job is to fly low/slow and rake bad guys with that big gatling gun. Thats why the cockpit sits in a titanium armor tub. Tough too; they'll come home with half a wing and most of the tail shot off. Pilots love that thing.

[Nowhere]

BTW, when it comes to losing parts of your plane and returning to base, not much can beat this guy:

http://www.uss-bennington.org/phz-nowing-f15.html

PS. Doc, anything else radiation related on your radar recently?

[Dr Mordrid]

One of those "first you say it, then you do it" moments

Other than the Fermi breactor getting hammered for not doing the right safety checks on their peripheral equipment, not much. Saw a tidbit about a tabletop X-ray laser the other day. Also some stuff involving magnastars.

[Nowhere]

Sorry, I meant "aviation related"

[Dr Mordrid]

Ahhh....AViation

Lessee....a lot of them are private space related and in Science and Military (S&M ...hmmm.... Sasq, you trying to tell us something? )

One biggie is that the Orion spaceship will likely use private jet digital dashboards.

The other is that there will be an annoucement on April 10'th. Speculation is that ULA (Lockheed & Boeing launch venture) and Bigelow (the inflatable habs) will be announcing something huge. Bigelows quote was that the content of the announcement will "make people spit their coffee".

Leaks from both this week to the affect that;

* the Atlas V could easily be man rated and that Lockheed/ULA thinks they can make a business out of it

* that Lockheed has manned spacecraft in the works specifically for the Atlas. NOT another Orion or Orion-lite but a whole different design based on their planetary landers, which is interesting as it's geared for both Earth and Mars reentry.

* that Bigelow has plans for large inflatable moonbases that can be build at L1 (stable orbit between Earth & Moon) then landed INTACT on the lunar surface ready to inhabit. They can even dynamically adapt to an irregular landing site (NBC interview)

* Bigelow has developed a way to cover an entire moonbase in lunar regolith for radiation shielding using only 2 crew members.

An leak rumor that makes sense is that that the Lockheed "Space 1999 Eagle" lunar lander they floated last summer will be inflatble and the shell built by Bigelow. Yes, inflatable vehicles.

IF April 10'th includes even a couple of those the space forums will be burning up for weeks.

Sounds like both are ready to give NASA more than a run for their money.

[Nowhere]

Nothing else? In your PM for example?

[Dr Mordrid]

Ahhh...you mean the F-22's programming error that screwed the system when crossing the international date line. Yeah...read about that but it's normal for the late development and early production runs. Remember when F-16's were crashing with wiring errors when they first came out?

[Nowhere]

Strangely you tell different things when it's about A3XX for example

[Dr Mordrid]

The F-16 and F-22 will be fixed. From the looks of things the A3XX's problems are endemic to the plane, the company culture or both.

[Nowhere]

Uhmmm...how can you know that?

[Dr Mordrid]

Much of their problems are obviously corporat culture, and in that environment a high rate of design & production problems are the rule and not the exception. My best example is 1970's NASA and the auto US auto industry until recently.

[Nowhere]

OK, but what about the first sentence of your previous post?