Plane / Planes / Aircraft / Aeroplane / Airplane appreciation

I stand corrected.

I wonder if F1 technology could be used to push rpm and therefore screw speed?

Any billionaires (developing a complete new high power piston engine wouldn't be cheap) out there with an interest in an esoteric record could certainly get more power from a piston engine of a given mass and frontal area, those WWII era engines were good at the time but there are gains to be had from better combustion chamber design and reduced parasitic losses from gas flow. There are existing single airscrews capable of channelling 11,000hp aboard the A400M, so a complex and heavy gearbox to produce contra-rotation shouldn't be required (although the torque reaction will be a handful, so there is much computation needed to see whether the contra-rotation kit is more of a handicap than the trim drag needed to keep your aeroplane flying straight). At 17'5" diameter they are going to need some lengthy oleo legs, but that's not insurmountable, and anyway you're probably looking at scaling down to about 5,000hp and about ~13' propeller diameter to hit your 900km/h target. Designing your airframe from scratch to exploit the new power pack should get you some useful drag reductions too - the fighter based racers were designed to carry a couple of tons of armour and armament, and the stress calculations were simplified to allow them to even be done without high speed digital computers, and they were built from weaker alloys than are current in 2015, not to mention that you could use carbon fibre. You start getting into the kind of virtuous circle which allows the 70% scale S51 to do 275mph off only 400hp - lighten the airframe, cut the wing area to suit, which lightens the airframe, which lets you cut the wing area etc. Of course, you tend to end up with a GeeBee, i.e. some wings bolted onto the sides of an engine, but that's racing.

Ha the infamous Gee Bee.

What a plane. Surprisingly manouverable.

Interesting vid about the replica made by Delmar Benjamin which improved on the original...

http://youtu.be/puZDmj2QuX8

SR-71 being trucked over to groom lake

Now that's a flight case.
Its fascinating seeing images of that plane's production, considering it was designed using pens and protractors and bits of paper.

The SR72 is meant to be operational by 2026 but knowing skunkworks projects, it probably already is. I wonder how useful hypersonic reconnaissance drones are though, considering the X-37 is pretty much always buzzing around somewhere.

tldr

so your mate wot knocks out headset caps, and a 3d printer won't cut it..?

SR72> theres only a finite number of satellites in an area at one time, when you combine their availability with cloud cover and the possible sudden need to see an area before a sat van get to it im sure it'll get a good amount of use.

so your mate wot knocks out headset caps, and a 3d printer won't cut it..?

I don't think he has the capacity, you'd probably be looking to one of the shops with big 5-axis capacity to make a billet motor, so drag racing shops would be natural starting point. There's an awful lot of work to do before you even start cutting metal to get 5000hp from an aero-rated piston engine. You're effectively designing two engines from scratch, the piston engine itself and the turbo, which is basically a gas turbine which uses the piston engine as its gas generator.

cosford today, apparently this year will be the last season for vulcan xh558

https://youtu.be/bugamj_stKE

whoever filmed it missed out the latter 2/3's,commentator full of twaddle, but was a good day out nonetheless

Awesthum.

Spotted a load of spotters not far from Heathrow on Sunday. Wandering if related to Red Arrows or other?

Spotted a load of spotters not far from Heathrow on Sunday.

More than usual? Always quite a few on the green opposite T4, and presumably other vantage points.

Correction, RAF Northolt. Was on M40.

Was on M40

They must have had good binoculars to see any detail at Northolt from the M40 :-)

Western Av. Past tense.

RAF Northolt had its' Open Day.

We went a few years ago. About 25 parked planes to gawp at,
including a US cargo/troop carrier you go right inside.

Growing up nearby, took a while to realise not everyone had
annual Summer aerial displays by Spitfires and Hurricanes.

Ah...see. Nice 1. No birds in the sky when I passed. B-)

One word.

Fucking magnets.

Okay, two words..

better vid of the vulcan last sunday :

https://youtu.be/odQIwC0917Y

F 16 opened the show
https://youtu.be/xFJBmQe9xko

and amazing pitts s2s biplane antics (i could kill the wittering commentary tho..)
https://youtu.be/Fj5Lm78DIJg

Please tell me that wasn't the last display? I worked on one as a kid and still haven't ever seen one fly. Big regret.

Last time at Cosford, but you'll have to see it this year. http://www.vulcantothesky.org/appearances.html

The Volcan was a no show at the Bicester flywheel show today. Waited over an hour past its arrival time when the bad news was announced over the tannoy, Gutted
Happy fathers day dad. Sorry mate, you'll just have to go see it in Stevenage in a couple of weeks if it decides to show up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szten4iypCM

Eric "winkle" Brown's book is amazing, the sheer number of aircraft types he flew is astounding, but the pioneering stuff he did with carrier landings and in-flight refuelling is great to read about. I would highly recommend it.

Other top notch aviation books are Ernest K. Gann's 'Fate is the hunter' and 'Chickenhawk' by Robert Mason. Oh and Sharkey Ward's 'Sea Harrier over the Falklands' is very good too, if a tad contentious.