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

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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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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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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@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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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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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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SpaceX lands it’s rockets at sea. Maybe they’ll be launching them the same way.
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Anti ship ballistic missiles will be a nasty threat to any big ship.
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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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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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@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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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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@Nn-3 Which is exactly why the USA built so many nuke bombs.
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@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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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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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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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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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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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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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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