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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   2833 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for January 26, 2024

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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So I watched two youtube videos recently. "How a WWI Biplane works": https://youtube.com/watch?v=hgG4kGW_G9Y&t=2s and "How a P-51 Mustang Works": https://youtube.com/watch?v=hjsrqMe0B3s

I ended up surprised on multiple points. First, the WWI plane is simultaneously more complex and more well-thought-out than I assumed, but at the same time much flimsier than they might appear, and one gets a clear feeling for how young a field aviation was at the time. And then the WWII plane, designed maybe 25 years later. By comparison, the WWI plane is a folding chair strapped to a lawn mower tied to a kite, with some guns thrown in, whereas the WWII plane is just about one calculator and a booster rocket short of being the space shuttle. I honestly expected the difference to be less extreme.

Or maybe that's just German VS American engineering.

I went to the Udvar Haazy(sp?) air and space museum in the DC area recently. It was very fascinating to look at the relative sizes and complexity of different generations of fighter jets. The main thing that really struck me about the WWI and WWII planes is just how freaking small they were. The WWI planes definitely seemed like a lawn chair with an engine and some paper wings held together by string. The WWII planes were interesting as a comparison point for the modern fighter jets. They seemed obviously way more sturdy, but also so tiny.

I went and looked this up, but it fit my eyeballing estimates:

The b-17 had a max takeoff weight of about 32 tons. The F-15 had a max takeoff weight of 33.5 tons. An empty b-17 is heavier, and so its the average b-17. Compared to the Grumman F8F Bearcat (WWII fighter plane) with a max takeoff weight of 6.5 tons.

WWII plane is just about one calculator and a booster rocket short of being the space shuttle.

No. Just no. It cost a mere $800k in present day dollars to produce.

Meanwhile, rocket boosters, even the most economical ones such as Falcon 9 have a marginal cost of $15 million, and it takes $1 million dollar to refurbish them after a flight. Shuttle infamously cost $1 billion per start, an example of waste and inefficiency.

IF you want to compare spaceplanes to planes, SR-71 is about one of the few valid examples.

Well, congratulations. You have successfully out-autisted the German. That's what I get for attempting a joke.

Revel in your triumph as I commit Sudoku to expunge the shame of my defeat!

There are material costs, and then there engineering/design costs.

I think one of Musk's original reasons for going into the space game was that he realized material and engineering costs for rockets should be comparable to airplanes, but rockets were way more expensive. So presumably there was room for a lot of improvement either on the material or engineering side.

Even still, planes were a lot simpler back in the day... even the engineering costs were probably fairly low in comparison to what came later.

Those are neat videos. I then got recommended https://youtube.com/watch?v=4Nr1AgIfajI, which is from the same channel about an 18th century ship of the line.

I was able to understand most of how these vehicles worked thanks to these videos, but I definitely didn't realize before just how much had to be considered and engineered for these things to work as they did (do).

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