Comments by "David Elliott" (@davidelliott5843) on "Curious Droid" channel.

  1. The dots are not hard to join. Shuttle was not really reusable. The costs to rebuild it for every new launch was huge. X-33 cost less = less work for the zombie outfits that sucked off NASA’s space shuttle budgets. SLS keeps those same zombies in business. Sorted.
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  2. The Tsetse version is covered on another video where the old crew tell their stories. One took out a Ju 88 when a six pounder shell literally knocked an engine off the plane.
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  3. Merlins always had ejector exhaust stubs. No nanny panby silencers for them.
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  4. At least we know Nord had problems and now has them sorted. How many of the others are hacked right now.
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  5. Victor Pelini The Mosquito airframe and skin was almost entirely made of wood. Germany tried their own version but they did not have the resin adhesives. The fuselage was made in two halves like a model kit then wiring hydraulics etc were run along each half before it was bonded together. The wooden structure also gave them an early stealth ability as they did not show up very well on radar of the day. For a very scary version, check out the Tsetse Mosquito which carried a 57mm Six Pounder autoloading anti tank gun. Each round could put two holes through a U-boat hull.
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  6. Deltic railway locos are still in use pulling freight on the U.K. west coast main line.
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  7. Sorry for your loss but do remember that mainstream media exists to spread doom and gloom. They never show a balanced view. Government machinery exists to make itself bigger. It’s never capable of doing a good job of anything.
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  8. SR-71 losing an engine at mach 3 would tear the plane apart. On one test flight the pilot survived but the rear seat tech guy had his neck broken. The forces are that big.
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  9.  @michaeldunne338  Costs were not an issue to Russia (and still aren’t). It was all about showing off with a big bang. They certainly got that with N-1.
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  10. Why has the aviation industry refused to make satellite black box data a requirement for all aircraft?
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  11. The exhaust was not radiaoactive unless it was programmed to be so. What happens when it crashes is another matter of course.
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  12. Vger will become wall art at the restaurant at the end of the universe.
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  13. I’ve always wondered if those engines would have cooled better with wider spaced cooling fins. Typical Japanese air-cooled motorcycle engines make around 100bhp from 1000cc (60 cu in). The cooling fins are much wider apart yet if anything, they run too cool except for traffic jams in hot weather.
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  14. The private sector space launch industry is basically SpaceX followed by SpaceX. Similar things can be said about satellite communication systems.
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  15. The whole plan after WW2 was to force everything into state ownership. The socialist political dogma could not use the usual excuses to grab the aerospace industry so they forced it to consolidate and the rest is described.
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  16.  @leehotspur9679  The Stringbag Swordfish was a heavy lift (for its day) STOL aircraft built to fly from heaving carrier decks in the North Atlantic. Today, we do the job with helicopters though I doubt they’d fly in the weather the Fleet Air Arm flew their Swordfish. The pilot credited with hitting Bismarck rudder used a technique done at Taranto. After dropping his fish, turned using rudder only to show the minimum target to the gunners. Japan’s raid on Pearl Harbor was inspired by the Swordfish at Taranto.
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  17.  @rovercoupe7104  Sadly fascism is on the way back via China.
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  18. When using an angle grinder slitting disc to cut aluminium I always use a breathing mask because the abrasive dust always causes hayfever symptoms. That also smells of gunpowder.
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  19. We got a few goodies from the Apollo project but are non stick cookware and write on the ceiling ballpoint pens really worth the cost? Another big issue is power. Solar panels on Mars give 50% of the useful energy they do on earth. Further degraded by the horribly abrasive dust. Kirk Sorensen was tasked developing nuclear power to do the job but his project was shut down and molten salt reactors (an American invention) are being ignored. Plutonium powered thermocouple reactors as used in space probes are too low power and too hazardous. PWR reactors are too heavy. That leaves molten salt.
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  20. Apollo had a small fraction of the power needed to do this.
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  21. The people of Ramsar in Iran live with background radiation 20 times higher than the max allowable occupational exposure to ionising radiation. They show no ill effects and might have fewer cancers. The suggestion is that (just like UV, ionising radiation low doses is beneficial. The snag is that we assume any dose of radiation is harmful. Accordingly, no real research has been done to prove the actual shape of the IR exposure graph. If people are to visit Mars we really need to do that radiation research.
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  22. If the moon landings were a hoax, Apollo13 would have never happened and the program would not have wobbled along to Apollo17 when everyone got bored with it. It would have simply stopped after the Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin event and they'd have chosen folks with a bit more charisma for the endless TV chat shows.
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  23. America’s terrifying big stick Armageddon weapon only slightly less dangerous than the Chinese genetically engineered CCP virus.
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  24.  @UncleDon226  Short stroke or long stroke, the Bore/Stoke ratio is irrelevant to compression ratio. Compression ratio is the difference between cylinder head volume at TDC vs cylinder head volume plus swept area of the cylinder.
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  25. My dad made loads of Airfix kits When I was a kid. We found them in the loft when Mum died. Sadly they all fell apart - aged plastic.
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  26. The demo engine props are small with fine pitch. The engines will rev, but relatively little power is put out.
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  27. The big problem with today’s car diesels is the microscopic dirt particles. Back in the 1980s diesels we’re visibly smoky until authorities cut the allowable mass of soot. Car makers chopped the total mass but did nothing about the microscopic pm10 and pm2.5 which do the most biological damage. Strangely the visibly sooty exhausts are the least harmful because the lungs can remove big particles and being big they quickly drop out of the air.
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  28. The other thing missing today is engineering common sense. If it looks right it’s probably close to being right. CAD is great for refining designs but it crimps that factor of common sense.
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  29. Russia is alleged to be leading the hypersonic technology. But what is the point of it? It’s basically a ballistic missile that flies flat. It can’t target accurately and it can’t turn significantly without ripping itself apart. Nukes don’t need accuracy. Everything else does.
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  30. The RR Merlin 61 was a huge improvement on earlier versions which probably would not have been worth the effort over the Allinson. Rolls Royce Hucknall were given 5 Mustang Mk1 (P51A) airframes and had the first Mustang X flying just 6 weeks later. It was pretty ugly with what looked like a Lancaster Bomber nacelle stick on the front. However, when the blower intercooler, was moved to the main radiator cowling, the much sleeker nose added just 4 mph to the top speed. It sort of proved that blunt noses on piston engine fighters are not really such a big deal.
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  31. It can't be "that" impractical because every engine (at least the large turbo-fans) already sends it's diagnostic data to the manufacturer. There are at least two of those on every aircraft. AND the tech is used on mobile plant like JCBs and Cats.
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  32. The B52 is why Boeing were able to produce the 707. They are of course not at all similar No at a bit. Oh no.
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  33. The P51 Mustang was an efficient aircraft needing far less fuel than the P47 Thunderbolt. However even with drop tanks, at full fuel load pilots had to use fuel carefully to avoid upsetting the aircraft CofG. Dropping the tanks too soon could cause serious problems. The P47 had similar range but USAF generals refused to use drop tanks which kept these escort fighters away from Germany. Funnily enough, drop tanks arrived for both types just as the Merlin Mustang came along. The generals used introduction of the Mustang to hide their error in refusing tanks for Thunderbolts.
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  34. A single or twin row Deltic would be an excellent car or truck engine. With a petrol injector on one side and a spark plug on the other you’ll get an extremely clean DI two stroke. In diesel form, reduce the port heights for less noise and more torque.
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  35. The U2 ejection system and aircraft self destruct system was incredibly badly thought through. At 70,000ft this aircraft had about 10mph between max speed and stalling. Yet the pilot was expected to hit a self destruct button before he ejected. Powers proved thats was so (not) going to happen.
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  36. Early large two strokes had sleeve valves. These were not needed as the Deltic or indeed it’s Junkers forerunner proved.
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  37. Paul, maybe you would like to interview Kirk Sorensen on the subject of molten salt nuclear reactors. They came about directly from the USA's nuclear powered aircraft though were entirely different to the solid fuelled nuclear missles you discuss here. The molten salt reactor promises to solve virtually all the problems posed by current Pressurised Water Reactors. Sadly it's been legislated out of existence ever since Richard Nixon scrapped the only operating test reactor at Oak Ridge Tennessee. That plant was built and run by Alvin Weinburg father of the original nuclear sub reactor.
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  38. There is a reason Russia used lots of small rocket engines. The hoop stress on that Sea Dragon engine would blow it apart.
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  39. Hopefully the ion drive gas tanks won’t spring a leak before they come home. They need to carry four journeys worth. One to get there one to get back and another two for deceleration at the end of each journey.
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  40. Most of the junk IS travelling in the same direction so why are we not hoovering it up with cleaner satellites? Slowing it down will cause it to fall out of orbit.
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  41. Deltic railway locomotives were powerful and fuel efficient. There is at least one Deltic loco still in use for freight hauling. Used as intended, they were very reliable. Then British Rail with its collective intelligence decided it was cheaper to service and rebuild the engines in their own workshops. No worries? Except these were the steam engine sheds with all their associated dust and grime. Unsurprisingly reliability collapsed.
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  42. The Dawlish Airshow (Devon U.K.) fliew the planes over a hill to the south and they bank left to drop down and run parallel with the beach. In 2014, I was on that hill as the RAF and Canadian Lancasters came over with the bomb doors open. They were so low you could see the rivets and bomb brackets. Their true purpose hits you and you viscerally realise how extremely scary these machines really are. The absolutely stunning Spitfire Hurricane and Mustang looked almost trivial by comparison.
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  43. Hawking was an amazing thinker. But he seriously did not think this one through.
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  44. The Vulcan bomb sight was the exact same instrument as used on Lancasters. The accuracy was good enough for placing a nuke and it turned out, also adequate or the Black Buck missions.
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  45. SpaceX has the core philosophy of reusable boosters. If F1 engines can be relit and controlled to bring a booster back to base they’ll be worth doing. If the can’t start, stop and throttle down, then really where is the point?
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  46. My thinking is a two valve 900cc bike engine easily makes 90 bhp with no shrouds to guide airflow. It has to shift A LOT of heat from a small lump of metal. Especially as the overhead cams block airflow to top of cylinder. There’s also the blocking effect of the air intake box immediately behind the engine. Cooling fins are longer in hotter areas but have at least 6mm air space. Often more. Nobody is going to destroy a piece of history to prove a point but I suspect there’s a fundamental design error.
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  47. Prior to the Gagarin flight, Soviets admitted to killing at least 78 workers when a rocket exploded on the launch pad. They might actually put a man in orbit before Gagarin but they could not get the capsule back. His death was covered up. Gagarin might have never gone into orbit. His personal statements are inconsistent then he conveniently died. It’s quite possible that Alan Shepard was the first man in space but the Soviets had better propaganda.
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  48. Brits have nuke dubs, but don’t have the land infrastructure for nuclear powered carriers. Carriers need to carry aircraft fuel and all the other supplies. Adding bunker fuel to that lot is not such a big ask.
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  49. Don't forget the MiG 15 only existed because (in 1946) UK's new left wing government gave a load of jet engines to the Russians. These were reverse engineered and went into their new Mig 15 jet fighters which caused so much trouble in Korea. It could be said that Kim Jong Un's regime only exists because the British gave away important military secrets. Is this the real political reason why USA was not prepared to fund the SR177? https://www.quora.com/What-genius-in-the-British-govt-thought-it-was-a-great-idea-in-1946-to-give-the-Russians-the-best-jet-engine-at-the-time-in-the-world
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  50. So we leave a planet that provides a safe haven in the cold inky black of space to live couped up in a tin can. All the risks of staying in earth are magnified.
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  51. I saw the Vulcan test flights near Buntingford around 2010. Almost every car stopped so people could stand and watch. At Dawlish in 2015 the pilot flew by with the underside facing the beach/audience. The engines sound like swing machines when they come over low. The roar when he hit the throttles is truly visceral. The contrast with the two Lancasters we saw in 2014 was just jaw dropping.
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  52. The British government panic was well-founded because the NAZIs were working on a nuclear bomb. There is (well suppressed) evidence that they exploded a test nuclear device in late 1944. However they got a very bright blue flash but no chain reaction. It fizzled.
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  53. The Mossie should have been used in place of the heavies. Two of these could carry considerably more bomb load than one B17 with the same number of engines and 4 crew instead of 10. Lancaster could carry a lot more weight but was slow and vulnerable. Mosquito should have at least replaced Halifax, Stirlings and many of the Lancasters.
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  54. @13:30 shows what could have been done had the option been considered sooner. Two Mossies could carry more bombs (over similar distances) than one B17 using the same number of engines, with four men at risk versus 9 in the B17. Double the number of aircraft would overwhelm German defences. Double the number of aircraft flying faster than BF109s would be even more effective. I fully agree, Mossie would not totally replace the B17 but the two-for-one approach could have replaced 4/5 of the lumbering heavies.
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  55. Rolls Royce always had an issue with big end failures. Not enough to ruin the engine type but it limited the maximum revs. It was eventually discovered the oil pumps could not keep up with demand. Henry Ricardo ran V Twin test engines (basically 1/6 of the full size engine) which could sustain higher revs without problem. He was using a full size oil pump on a twin cylinder. Upgrading the oil pumps on full size engines significantly improved engine life at high revs.
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  56. The natural background radiation at Ramsar in Iran delivers about 10x the max allowable occupational dose. Yet the people have less cancer than would be expected. NASA should be studying here as there are no ethical issues.
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  57. SpaceX lands it’s rockets at sea. Maybe they’ll be launching them the same way.
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  58. Anti ship ballistic missiles will be a nasty threat to any big ship.
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  59. The engine cooling fins are incredibly close together. I can’t see how cooling air can get between the fins to do it’s job. Most of the air will simply go around. Aircooled motorcycle engines make at least 100bhp per litre but the significantly wider spaced cooling fins do the job. I know - bikes are not aircraft but they all use similar fuel and burn it in reciprocating cylinders. Shedding heat to airflow has the same physics issues.
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  60. Today’s molten salt reactors from such as Elysium have a high negative thermal coefficient. Remove the cooling causes the M to get a little hotter but the power output tumbled. They can’t overheat. they also fun at high temperature so could be ideal for powering spacecraft. Molten salt reactors were used by USA for their ill fated nuclear aircraft. That project never had a chance but the designs could work well in space. A huge benefit is that liquid fuels do not degrade over time. They can deliver ALL of the fissile energy. Distortion of solid fuels limits them to just 5% or less.
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  61.  @ralfiasz  Unless that fearsome tool can continue to spread death and poison long after the war has ended. The makes it a highly potential target and provoke a first strike from the other side. On the plus side (1) they scrapped it and (2) it would not have mattered as both sides already had enough nukes to turn each other to glass and create a solar blackout lasting months if not years. Those not killed by flash, blast or radiation would starve. Metallic Plasma That as well though it was only throwing out rads when set to do that. The reactor heat would not create a radioactive exhaust. I wonder how it copes with decay heat.
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  62. What happens when Elon Musk just goes ahead and does it? He’s already landing re usable first stage boosters. Maybe we will see a reusable lifting body second stage.
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  63.  @Nn-3  Which is exactly why the USA built so many nuke bombs.
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  64.  @MrGoatflakes  Did the Cuban missiles actually have any warheads? Not that that should matter as they could be quickly shipped in.
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  65. The huge circular bunker (Coupole d'Helfaut-Wizernes) France for launching V2 rockets had a domed roof to cause bombs to bounce off. Tallboys and grand slams were landed alongside the structure. Entrances were destroyed and the surrounding ground so broken up the bunker was abandoned.
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  66. The pressurised water reactors appear economical but mitigating their inherent hazards really shoves up costs. And they can’t be refuelled without replacing the whole reactor pressure vessel. One day we might see molten salt reactors. They run at atmospheric pressure with almost no inherent hazards and the types with fuel rods can be refuelled in service. BUT we do not have marine designs and there are no plans to build anything any time soon. Basically the world chose the PWR VHS when the molten salt Betamax was a far better idea.
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  67. The Merlin and Griffon engines had four valve heads. The Mustang test mule was planned to put the Crecy in the middle much like the Airacobra. It never got beyond a static model. Crecy failed because nobody noticed that the oil pump was unable to keep up with the engine at high speed. Con-rods suffered catastrophic failures. Harry Ricardo ran V twin versions of the engine over in Coventry. Basically two cylinders were lopped off the end to cheaply develop engine performance. But he ran a full size oil pump so the oil issue was never spotted. Just 10 years after the end of WW2, Walter Kaaden (an NSU engineer trapped behind the iron curtain) invented the two stroke expansion chamber and the through-piston boost port. He was getting well past 30bhp from his 125cc racing bike engines.
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  68. Clearly high doses will kill. Just as high dose of UV cause damage. Therefore authorities assume that all radiation is dangerous. However we know that UV has a spoon curve (aka J curve) low levels are beneficial. Life on earth has lived with low level radiation since the planet has had any life. So clearly low doses are not harmful. Logical question - could low level of IR be beneficial?
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  69. Crecy with its (unnecessary) sleeve valves and diesel fuel pumps was not a simple engine. It also had an inadequate oil pump which led to endless con-rod failures.
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  70. Molten salt nuclear reactors operate at high temperature low pressure. The salt will be around 650 to 700 degs C. Steam would be produced at 575 C but the hot salt could run all sorts of high temperature operations from bio char to aluminium smelting.
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