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johnny_7713

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About johnny_7713

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  1. Hello all. After a several year hiatus I finally got back into modelling again. I quickly built a 1/200 Revell BA Boeing 737-200 that I got for my birthday once, and finally finished a Fokker 1/72 that had been lying around in several parts for the past few years. I can't compete with many of the models shown here, but from a few feet away they look pretty decent and I had fun building them :D. Also, guess who forgot to add nose weight, even though he had some lying about... The lozenge pattern is hand painted on top of a black & white decal marking the hexes, because the people
  2. To add another view to the mix, I'm from the Netherlands, which was not an axis country, but was one of the largest contributors (even in absolute numbers) of foreign SS personnel. Every year on the 4th of May we have 2 minutes of silence at 20:00 with remembrance ceremonies all over the country, including a very large one in Amsterdam which is attended by the royal family and the government ministers and is televised. This year the national committee organizing the Amsterdam ceremony held a poetry competition amongst high schoolers. The winner would be allowed to read their poem during the c
  3. I've seen speculation that it's supposed to be a 'steerable' spy satellite, and I think this is the second mission, but other than that there's not much known about it (in the public domain at least).
  4. SAS is a French abbreviation for Société par actions simplifiée, which wikipedia informs me is comparable to the American limited liability company (LLC). Airbus SAS is the full name of the EADS subsidiary that builds the Airbus aircraft, just as all the other companies are referred to by their full name in the article (Boeing Co., Singapore Airlines Ltd., etc.). Was there anything else you thought was wrong with the article, because it didn't seem particularly ill-informed to me. Though I'll grant some of the language might be a bit over the top, airlines replacing the 747 with more fuel eff
  5. Presumably carrying small scientific payloads, either instruments to study the upper atmosphere or to perform experiments that need a few minutes of zero-G. Currently so-called sounding rockets are used for that. Using a fighter to carry them up through the lower part of the atmosphere gets you more payload for the same amount of rocket.
  6. I've heard a lot about doctors having to pull these kinds of shifts and it never fails to amaze me. Any airline that required it's pilots to work those kinds of hours would be shut down in a heartbeat on the grounds it was an accident waiting to happen. Just take a look at the new FAA pilot flying hour regulations for comparison. Yet somehow in medicine, where you need just as much mental alertness (possibly even more) to not end up killing people, these kinds of highly fatiguing work rosters are standard practice. 40 hour weeks for me, though I'm only paid for 38, so I get 41 holidays (plus
  7. From what I've heard to the internet (so it may or may not be true, but it sounds reasonable) a polished scheme needs maintenance more often (to repolish the surface), but weighs less than a painted scheme, which means lower fuel use. In the end the costs work out about equal.
  8. Rather an old post, but any excuse to point people to this awesome video is a good one: Starting at about 2:00 you will see multiple barrel rolls being performed with a glass of iced tea on top of the instrument panel. Also note the plumb bob under the glass, this points to the direction that will feel like down to the pilo. So yes, it is very possible to be inverted without the pilot noticing it. In general you will feel it if you are flying upside down but otherwise straight and level. As soon as the aircraft is manoeuvring however, what feels like down and what actually is down do not
  9. Turbo-props are more fuel efficient at lower altitude, is probably the main reason. Jets can generate more thrust so are probably better for short take-offs, then again props make good airbrakes so are good for short landings.
  10. Why place any blame at all? Why not just focus on finding the best way of breaking the chain of events to prevent future accidents? Accidents happen and we are never going to completely eliminate them, all we can do is work to make them ever more unlikely. Unless there is malicious intent involved the concept of blame is IMO one of the most counter-productive concepts in learning from accidents and preventing future ones.
  11. In Star Trek ships obeying law of physics X however quite often is something that happened previously, and may have even been an important plot point. If one episode Scotty says 'Ye canna change the laws of physics captain, if we fly into a dense gravity atmosphere* the nacelles will be ripped off.' and the next episode ships fly around through dense gravity atmospheres to their hearts' content with all nacelles firmly attached, then that's a break in continuity. Although both the starship and the universe are fictional, the universe is implied to have a consistent set of rules. Discussing wh
  12. Star Trek's ships don't break laws of physics at random. They break certain very specific 'laws' (there are physical theories that state that a kind of warp drive would be possible, though it probably wouldn't work as shown on Star Trek) and obey others. There is all kinds of material (dialog, accompanying books) that lays down which laws they obey. If in a new movie they suddenly stop obeying those laws it creates a break in continuity. What bothered me most about the movie was that Kirk should have failed his psych evaluation, rather than be given command of a starship.
  13. Depends. Aircraft are (nowadays at least) usually designed to last for X number of hours assuming a certain type of usage (in terms of types of missions flown). Although you can come up with clever designs, in general you can state that the larger you want to make X, the heavier your plane will be. In other words, during the design you have to trade-off mission performance versus operational life-time. If you have an aircraft that is low use in terms of number of flight hours per year you can design it to have a shorter life (in terms of actual flight hours) and have better mission performanc
  14. One important cost difference you missed out on is that for structural repair. Speaking in general, since I don't know that much about the U-2 and RQ-4 specifically, as an airplane gets older you will need to perform more and more inspections and repairs as more of the structure starts suffering from fatigue issues. Depending on the design you will also have to start outright replacing parts as they reach the end of their certified safe life. Though from the numbers you cite it would appear that this is outweighed by other factors on the U2. Also being an old design it is probably not as fatig
  15. I haven't managed to find a full analysis (perhaps in the final report, which is due in a few months?), but I gather the stall warning is inactive below 60 KIAS because the angle of attack measurement is considered invalid. Coding in a landing gear check is, I'm sure, possible, but it might require some currently non-existent system interfaces (i.e. between the undercarriage lock system and the Air Data Reference systems), increasing the complexity of the system. Since the normal stall speed is probably pretty far above 60 KIAS (I'm guessing 120-180 KIAS depending on configuration) this was pr
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