Comments by "William Cox" (@WildBillCox13) on "Found And Explained" channel.

  1. Beautiful. Perfect if used as "rocket ships" in a remake of Flash Gordon. I see the allure. Eliminate the yaw problem of two engines and simplify one engine asymmetry; reducing it to a minor adjustment/trim of the tailplane.
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  2. "We have the technology today. We could do it . . ."
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  3. A discordant thought: there are enormous and fast moving, intensely magnetic, currents of liquid/plastic metal in the Earth's core and inner mantle. Pretty much what we're talking about here, but on a vast, planetary, scale. No antigravity there, however. Nothing like that, as far as I know.
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  4. Two points I think worth making. 1) We (USAF) already had a better weapon for the job: the XF-84H Thunderscreech. It worked by creating a continuous nauseating sonic boom from its turboprop's blade tips exceeding Mach 1. It induced severe headaches, nausea, and long term negative effects on the body. We considered running it up and down along the FLOT to disorient and nauseate enemy forces. This aircraft, at least, was built and tested extensively. 2) As soon as the "ledge" deployed, the Soviet aircraft would enter a dive and hit the ground. Think of it as an Elevator, like the tail plane of a normal jet.
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  5. Supersonic propellers was the problem with the XF84H "Thunderscreech". Turns out that prop tips moving above Mach 1 create both ear damaging levels of sound and nauseating infrasonic resonance with both deck and airframe. Really bad for ground crews and pilots.
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  6. Believe me. If the Soviets discovered high speed nuclear specific bombers so close to their border they'd quite naturally expect we were gearing up to a sneak attack. In those days, fingers were on buttons and such a provocation might well lead to an all out nuclear conflagration.
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  7. Good content. Liked and shared.
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  8. For the Saturn rocket series, the "I" and "V" are Roman numerals. So: Saturn Five, not Saturn Vee. Saturn One B., not Saturn Eye Bee. Honest.
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  9. "Voron" means "Crow".
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  10. Reportedly advanced concepts, advanced materials, advanced powerplant, but certainly no concomitant advances in avionics, fly by wire actuators, or relaxed stability technologies. No integration of multiply redundant computer systems, no advanced sensors for airframe elements. A waste of resources. It could not fly and would never fly, even if built in terrestrial effigy 70+ years later.
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  11. ---Not an expert. Personal view here. 1:10:00 The problem jet age engineers conveniently ignored is that a jet plane on a runway OR in the ocean is subject to FOD; especially ingesting objects that cause engine failure or damage to the landing gear. An airfield can be visually examined/inspected and carefully swept by a perceptive team specialized in the task. That's impossible on the sea, unless you're a friend of Aquaman's. The Sea Dart was doomed from inception. Re: Seaplanes. Seaplanes were only useful when land planes had insufficient range to fly safely between far flung airports. Once land planes had enough range, seaplanes as a concept in transportation died out. There are still some brands out there, but short range, small capacity floatplanes are far more common. It's even worse for fighter planes, which have less clearance on take-off and landing. There's no reason for a jet powered ski plane, other than technological hubris (characterized as "the can-do attitude"). Ingest any object and the plane is dead in the water. And the very surface used for takeoff and landing is mutable, and subject to ingestion. Any malfunction of the ski and the plane goes to the bottom . . . that makes it insane as a military standard.
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  12. Not found nor explained?
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  13. Minuteman. We were doing something similar.
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  14. A few thoughts, if you don't mind. Any idea how poisonous mercury is? Worse than Hydrazine, for one. If you can manipulate/interact creatively with- the Higgs field you've mastered the meaning of Dark Matter and, most likely, Dark Energy. Please tell us! All of the legitimate particle* physicists on Earth are waiting to hear! Imagine a human possessing that secret who doesn't want to profit on the knowledge! Or even defend the Earth! All he wants to do is assure national security and sovereignty for the "right" kind of folk! Selfless. Patriotic**. A real American Hero! Makes a man proud to be a Norte Americano. Maybe someday that tech will trickle down into the civilian sector and eliminate our need for fossil or nuclear fuel! Cheap energy like that could end hunger and misery everywhere . . . among the rich, at least. *QCD, HEP, and Cosmogony all need that secret! ** Unlike anyone at the top.
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  15. The turrets had dangerous overhangs when traversed to the sides, forming deadly shot traps should anyone shoot upward into one. The single forward bow gun is sort of superfluous, especially as its breech and handling room would interfere with the main turret hoist and magazine. The aft turrets as illustrated are pointless, as the ones used in the model haven't enough gun depression to defend the vehicle from threats under 1500m range. New turrets would have been required to make this arrangement practical insofar as self defense is concerned. No forward facing mFlaK is another serious issue. Being a big target is no problem. Allied bomber streams (and shore bombardment) regularly missed whole cities. Hitting a moving target in real time is practically beyond the capability of WW2 heavy bombers, and extremely difficult for OTH large caliber naval rifles. A FlaK Abteilung (mot) (with halftrack mounted 12x 8,8cm and 18x 3,7cm weapons already in service) could escort this monster to protect it from fighters, but, here again, allied fighters were notoriously overhyped when it comes to AFV kills claimed. A Typhoon, for instance, is a lousy platform for shooting tanks with rockets. Hits and kills were negligible when compared with the effort expended. Moving the Ratte (pronounced "Rat" I think) to likely invasion sites would be cheaper than maintaining twenty different calibers and nationalities of the hundreds of large caliber weapons and tens of thousands of troops otherwise used for Coastal Defense installations and behind the beach fortifications. I like it. So did Keith Laumer, popularizer of the Bolo. Colonel Nick hates it. And he's the expert.
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  16. What a sports plane!
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  17. 55:20 The competition was doomed to fail, due to the T40 Turboprop Motor. This was buggier than an ant farm. All planes designed around it (mostly tail sitters) were failures. Agreed, they were ideas waiting modern CCV technology solutions to be made feasible, but, a crappy engine can doom the best design. Consider the troubles Germany had with the Junkers Jumo and BMW turbojet engines. The "Tail First" fighters (Ascender, et al) were also cursed by buggy engines, like the P&W X-1800. Heck-even the B29 was plagued by engine malfunctions- especially fires. Its R2800 Double Wasp engine was really insufficiently developed when introduced into service.
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  18. It is my understanding that the MD21 drone was problematic. Though some launches were attempted, a mothership was lost when a drone rebounded from the superheated sheathe of ambient air surrounding both vehicles (at Mach 3+) and crashed back into the mothership, destroying both aircraft in the process. Spending a manned Sr-71 (even once) for sake of a drone test program was ridiculously expensive in trained personnel and materials. Other avenues of research showed more promise at less expense. Your point about vibration at extreme speed is also salient to the discussion. Buffeting is a real hazard and is difficult to compensate for when complex and fragile cameras are the payload. Hypersonic AA missiles are a potential emergent technology arguing against using large, fast, aircraft for strategic reconnaissance.
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  19. Well executed. Liked and shared.
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  20. Two small carriers with reduced size air wing (33 planes each) compared to USN types. Pair them with a Hipper class cruiser each for a German Carrier Division task group. What use would this unit be to a continental power? All I can think of is to station it where the combined air wing can be used to drive B24 ASW bombers away from the lurking points of the U-Waffe (in the mid ocean gap). At least until its planes were sighted. Then the hunt would be on. Otherwise, set the two ships up according to IJN standards and race them to Japan (even incomplete) in 1941. Who knows-the two plug and play carriers might prove useful to an axis nation with a substantial blue water consideration.
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  21. Gyrational = Ji-ray-shun-al. The G is soft. It comes from "Gyrate" (Ji-rayt), which means to spin and whirl. It has the same root as "Gyroscope".
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  22. An anecdotal account: In the middle of 1966 I was part of a private middle school tour of the Lewis Research Center. We were shewn a 1st gen ion/plasma engine test, ogled at the Zero Gee catapult, and attended a presentation on . . . drum roll . . . the A12 "Nuclear Umbrella" project. Yep. Truth. There is nothing new under the sun. Not even "Star Wars" (SDI). These days I am a writer of speculative and fantasy fiction*. That tour in my halcyon days was a big part of the why of it. *Among other things
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  23. Ex-PLISS-it-lee. Carry on.
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  24. The Triebflugel returns!
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