Aviation Geeks unite?! Anybody else care about planes here?

[publiusr]

Darkstar concept art—updated
https://danielsimon.com/film-design/top-gun-maverick/

Coloni’s
https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/threads/luigi-colanis-improbable-designs.15260/page-2#post-576344

Pilotless
https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/threads/designer-stephen-chang-futuristic-visions.40991/

The largest saucer
https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/threads/a-large-flying-saucer-airliner.9442/

strut-wing
https://www.spacedaily.com/m/report...re_fuel_efficient_airliner_of_future_999.html

X-37 returns to Earth
https://phys.org/news/2022-11-unmanned-solar-powered-space-plane-days.html

The X-37B has now flown over 1.3 billion miles and spent a total of 3,774 days in space.*

*(Laps in LEO and multiple missions included--not in one jaunt.)

The spaceplane I want:
https://www.reddit.com/r/KerbalSpac...g3/the_new_and_improved_jsc_space_shuttle_ii/

Real saucers
https://hushkit.net/2021/02/15/top-10-real-flying-saucer-aircraft/

AN-225 model
https://metal-time.com/products/ukrainian-dream

Air yacht
https://www.boatinternational.com/yachts/news/lazzarini-air-yacht-extreme-concept

Huge concept plane:

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Corrosion fighter
https://phys.org/news/2023-02-corrosion.html

AN-225
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/27/...4HVZmvg1fZ7fUcikM-u3XzNJfj8AAY&smid=url-share


Lastly—a tragedy has happened:
https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/threads/2022-dallas-air-show-disaster.40484/

A P-63 collided with a B-17. No survivors:

 

[MANT!]

Dallas airshow crash speculation video from a pilot's point of view..

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Seems to be pilot error from the P-63's pilot as a major contributor to the mishap.

 

[StarCruiser]

Watched that - and then had to watch Pink Floyd's Sorrow - since it was inline on Youtube.

Somehow, very appropriated mix...

 

[publiusr]

The car-like cockpit access was likely a way to help newer pilots. The two planes never served together so they really didn’t need to fly together anyway.

Maybe fisheye go-pros to go in wingtips with VR? Have your fighters fly outside the turn from heavies…not inside…unless you have a shoulder mount wing for filming.

Older pilot with a stuck throttle, maybe?

More:

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https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/threads/2022-dallas-air-show-disaster.40484/#post-562845

Oof…
https://www.reddit.com/r/Catastroph...gle_engine_private_aircraft_has_crashed_into/

On the Navier-Stokes
https://phys.org/news/2022-11-mathematicians-longstanding-problem-so-called-3d.amp

Tankers
https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/th...ial-refueling-tanker.27900/page-5#post-540601
[URL]https://twitter.com/beverstine/status/1617946330718154754?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1617946330718154754%7Ctwgr%5E6ee1fe334369dbb1ad8b1004f72183e30f9fe212%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.secretprojects.co.uk%2Fthreads%2Fair-force-could-pursue-stealthy-aerial-refueling-tanker.27900%2Fpage-5[/URL]

 

[publiusr]

Catching a Saturn

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fly-over
https://www.al.com/life/2022/11/stadium-flyovers-how-they-work-at-alabama-football-games.html

Eat this Branson

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Airship to Orbit?

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[shapeshifter]

Just a video flight of fancy for clicks or has someone really done ALL the math to show proof of concept?

 

[publiusr]

More here:
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/3741/1

With the money Musk wasted on Twitter, he could have funded this easily.

With LOFTID being a success, I wonder if that might be a way to recover even something like SLS.

With Branson and Stratolaunch’s Roc about all that’s left of winged spaceflight—I am hoping SLS can evolve into an Energia II for a Buran-like Shuttle 2…as I describe here:
https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/threads/us-space-shuttle-projects.1928/page-13#post-562354

I was thinking a future evolution might even have the LOX tank opposite from the orbital such that the center of gravity remains the same. If that, the engine block and a packed aeroshell is opposite the orbiter—-you could recover the high value parts, while the bulk of the rocket—the hydrogen tank—can be fashioned such as to lend itself to wet-workshop station assembly. Unlike Starship which cannot glide…said tank needs no TPS…which is only on Buran type shuttle 2.

The orbiter alone gets all the human-rating tech…and would have kerosene and laughing gas oxidizer—milder that LOX…and would be built from the start to be agile.
The RS-25’s and the tankage could do the riskier types of return, or left intact in that SLS—as a stage-and-a-half design…is just about in orbit as it is.

If anything is to do an Adama maneuver—let it be empty tankage—while the spaceplane continues its mission in safety, comfort, and style.

As for the chopper, it would be our VTOL AN-225 and put even the Russian mammoth haulers to shame.

—and darned if the Hiller doesn’t look like the DY-500 in profile…..hey…wait a minute…

Dream Chaser

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[Marc]

Aviation fans in the U.K are concerned over the fate of Avro Vulcan XH558 which according to wiki was the last of them to be airworthy.

She was located at Doncaster airport which has just closed permanently (so the land will probably be sold).

the orgnisation that owns/restored the aircraft has until next June to get her moved - a process that will probably require dismantling. The airframe has clocked up more flight hours than any other Vulcan so very unlikely to get a special permit for a single relocation flight but her engines work just fine (they would be run up for the fans).

But definately better have a temporary disassembly than a permanent one.

What's To Become Of The Avro Vulcan Stored At Doncaster's Closing Airport? (msn.com)

 

[publiusr]

I want to apologize to the U.K. for the F-111 killing everything….

The hydrogen plane
https://interestingengineering.com/transportation/airbuss-powered-cold-hydrogen-hearts

Elevator drone
https://interestingengineering.com/video/youtuber-drone-elevator

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No minimum size to droplets? Good for combustion
https://phys.org/news/2022-12-code-accurately-disintegration-droplets-turbulent.html

 

[MANT!]

B-21 Rollout today!

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[Marc]

B-21 Rollout today!

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give away in the name and in and from an article I read today that it’s a evolution of the B-2 rather than a revolutionary new design and we’ll never know the full details of what’s under the skin.

it’s smaller that the -2 but sssume they’ve designed it in such a auch away that range and capabilities aren’t reduced.

probably the most visible difference between the two is size design of the intakes for the engines.

 

[publiusr]

There's your UFO reports. If you really want to see these things---there's only one way:
https://www.airforce.com/careers/detail/in-flight-refueling-specialist

I bet they have some tales.

More on the B-21--a quote:
The aerodynamics of this thing fascinate me; some comment is given in the article. The hundreds if not thousands of iterative computer designs have converged on several classic historical features that are generally ignored or forgotten by the mainstream.

The tailored airflow over the centre section echoes Reimar Horten's deep concern for the subtleties of the mitteneffekt (middle effect), which he never entirely resolved. He also wanted to improve the engine installation to a more conformal design.

Those intakes remind me somewhat of the NACA duct used for many small auxiliary intakes in the cold war era and trialled as an engine intake on the North American YF-93. No doubt the B-21 version is far more advanced, but the principle appears to be the same, and is I suspect the secret to decelerating the leading-edge flow at transonic speeds.

The wing outer sections have pronounced washout and, as far as I can tell, leading-edge droop. These features may be traced historically back through the majority of tailless swept wings, including the production Convair deltas, Avro Vulcan and Horten types, to the Dunne machines of the pioneer era and his 1909 patent. The first such design to fly, the D.5 biplane of 1910, received the first ever official certificate of performance for a stable aeroplane. Twenty or so years after that Ludwig Prandtl developed the theory of the bell-shaped lift distribution which offers the lightest structure and lowest drag for any given wing size, and for which these two features are necessary. Lippisch published a simplified calculation, which Horten adopted (though for some reason Lippisch seldom did). NASA only publicly caught up in this millennium, with Jonathan Bowers' PRANDTL-D flying wing project. Clearly, the key benefit for the digitally-controlled B-21 is not the inherent stability but Prandtl's minimal weight and drag. Once you sweep the wing, the stability comes with that package. Also of interest is that, right up to his rediscovery by Bowers, Prandtl was ignored by the mainstream and it was believed that these design features increased drag; this was voiced as a major criticism of the Dunne, and Northrop never incorporated them, not even in the B-2. Now, we see that they actually enhance the B-21's low drag characteristics.

The question I ask myself now is, did Northrop Grumman secretly take forward all these long-known but also long-obscure aerodynamic features, or did their computers arrive at something they knew nothing of beforehand? Either way, the B-21 looks like becoming a major vindication of all those maverick forebears.

--from:
https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/th...-b-21a-raider-lrs-b.25915/page-81#post-567223

 

[Marc]

There's your UFO reports. If you really want to see these things---there's only one way:
https://www.airforce.com/careers/detail/in-flight-refueling-specialist

I bet they have some tales.

Wrong thread.

 

[shapeshifter]

At the time I saw the roll-out link I had just finished watching a show about UAP triangles which included better views than that roll out afforded including one of the B21R actually flying. The B21R appears more like a boomerang but they never said that term once.

Google, Black Files Declassified: The Black Manta (originally released 3/22)

Pretty crappy examination of them over all though. A huge part rehashed the Phoenix lights and virtually almost none of the good triangle footage that exists was used.

Most interesting, also after the last commercial, info about a mysterious figure, (Salvatore Pais) who has a 2018 patent on tech exhibited in UAP craft, and his prototype diagrams are of a triangle.

 

[MANT!]

There's your UFO reports. If you really want to see these things---there's only one way:
https://www.airforce.com/careers/detail/in-flight-refueling-specialist

I bet they have some tales.

More on the B-21--a quote:
The aerodynamics of this thing fascinate me; some comment is given in the article. The hundreds if not thousands of iterative computer designs have converged on several classic historical features that are generally ignored or forgotten by the mainstream.

The tailored airflow over the centre section echoes Reimar Horten's deep concern for the subtleties of the mitteneffekt (middle effect), which he never entirely resolved. He also wanted to improve the engine installation to a more conformal design.

Those intakes remind me somewhat of the NACA duct used for many small auxiliary intakes in the cold war era and trialled as an engine intake on the North American YF-93. No doubt the B-21 version is far more advanced, but the principle appears to be the same, and is I suspect the secret to decelerating the leading-edge flow at transonic speeds.

The wing outer sections have pronounced washout and, as far as I can tell, leading-edge droop. These features may be traced historically back through the majority of tailless swept wings, including the production Convair deltas, Avro Vulcan and Horten types, to the Dunne machines of the pioneer era and his 1909 patent. The first such design to fly, the D.5 biplane of 1910, received the first ever official certificate of performance for a stable aeroplane. Twenty or so years after that Ludwig Prandtl developed the theory of the bell-shaped lift distribution which offers the lightest structure and lowest drag for any given wing size, and for which these two features are necessary. Lippisch published a simplified calculation, which Horten adopted (though for some reason Lippisch seldom did). NASA only publicly caught up in this millennium, with Jonathan Bowers' PRANDTL-D flying wing project. Clearly, the key benefit for the digitally-controlled B-21 is not the inherent stability but Prandtl's minimal weight and drag. Once you sweep the wing, the stability comes with that package. Also of interest is that, right up to his rediscovery by Bowers, Prandtl was ignored by the mainstream and it was believed that these design features increased drag; this was voiced as a major criticism of the Dunne, and Northrop never incorporated them, not even in the B-2. Now, we see that they actually enhance the B-21's low drag characteristics.

The question I ask myself now is, did Northrop Grumman secretly take forward all these long-known but also long-obscure aerodynamic features, or did their computers arrive at something they knew nothing of beforehand? Either way, the B-21 looks like becoming a major vindication of all those maverick forebears.

--from:
https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/th...-b-21a-raider-lrs-b.25915/page-81#post-567223

At the time I saw the roll-out link I had just finished watching a show about UAP triangles which included better views than that roll out afforded including one of the B21R actually flying. The B21R appears more like a boomerang but they never said that term once.

Google, Black Files Declassified: The Black Manta (originally released 3/22)

Pretty crappy examination of them over all though. A huge part rehashed the Phoenix lights and virtually almost none of the good triangle footage that exists was used.

Most interesting, also after the last commercial, info about a mysterious figure, (Salvatore Pais) who has a 2018 patent on tech exhibited in UAP craft, and his prototype diagrams are of a triangle.

 

[XCV330]

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JP and his team probably have more experience sending airships to the edge of space than anyone else at this point. The long term plan is/was to have stratospheric sky stations you could visit or transfer to even more massive ATOs (Airship to Orbit). I don't know how far they will get but no one can accuse them of not trying. Nice compilation of some of JP Aerospace's airship work.

As I understand it, he's currently building a mini-submarine as a test for a future mesospheric airship gondola.



edit: my apologize I just realized @publiusr had posted this already. airhead moment on my part.

 

[shapeshifter]

They did cover that in the episode too, but that they even considered one of those could be confused for any of the best triangle footage (now scrubbed from the webs or swept behind paywalls) is insulting.

 

[Marc]

the presence of high ranking officials and that the defence minister is meeting with the U.S SecDef, is fueling speculation that Australia may be looking to buy some B-21s though if it were to happen it would be unlikely to occur until well into the 2030s.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-12-06/b21-nuclear-stealth-bomber-australian-military/101735190

Not sure what the B21's would exactly bring to Australian defense measures.

In the post WW2 era, the RAAF has flown the English Electric Canberra from 1953 to 82 and the F-111s from 1973 to 2010. Now the role of dropping bombs is handled by the F-35s with the F/A-18s filling in the gap between the F111s and the strike turkeys.

Assuming that the U.S is willing to allow them to be exported (which they might do to try and reduce the $US1bil per unit price tag) there's the matter of affordability. On current exchange rates, that comes in about $AU1.4billion per aircraft.

That would also be a time when the previous conservative govt committed the country to buying nuclear subs from the U.S (again another question defense purchase but that's for a different thread unless those subs have wings and can fly

 

[Marc]

The last ever 747 to be built has rolled off the assembly line bring and end to the manufacturing era of 4 engine passenger jets.

The very last 747 jumbo jet just rolled off Boeing's assembly line (msn.com)

It's destined to be used as a freighter so no passengers will ever fly on it.

 

[XCV330]

The last ever 747 to be built has rolled off the assembly line bring and end to the manufacturing era of 4 engine passenger jets.

The very last 747 jumbo jet just rolled off Boeing's assembly line (msn.com)

It's destined to be used as a freighter so no passengers will ever fly on it.

I know a few 380's have been called back to life recently but it does seem like the airbus 350 and the 777-9 can pretty much do what airlines need, now, and with 777-9s folding wingtips it can fit well into current airports