Ze Plane! Ze Plane!

[Watser?]

Flying boats are so cool and especially the Catalina. I first learned about them from the Biggles books by W.E. Johns when I was a wee laddie.

[curses]

BBC News - Spitfire redux: The WWII guns firing after 70 years buried in peat
The video is p.cool. They dig up the machine guns, clean them up, then fire one.

[JoeP]

I thought of this thread.

[SR71]

I like that comic. I don't know why there are not more females who have the aviation bug. I don't think any of the guys (yes they are almost always all guys, everywhere I've been) would be put off by the company. I for sure would not. It's not a macho thing, it's an airplane thing. Really.

Anyway, built a plastic model of this thing as a whelp. Kind of strange, a biplane with retractable undercarriage. Curtiss F-11C Goshawk.

[Vivisectus]

Originally Posted by curses

BBC News - Spitfire redux: The WWII guns firing after 70 years buried in peat
The video is p.cool. They dig up the machine guns, clean them up, then fire one.

Peat again! Peat can do anything. I am going out right now to get me some more peat for in the back garden, just in case.

[Watser?]

If you find anything, don't shoot anybody!

[curses]

We do exist but I think it's the way girls are brought up. Mechanical things are best left to the menfolk according to my mom. I never listened to her. That being said, one of my best friends is a mechanical engineer who now works at Lockheed (working her way up) who now has the plane bug. We need to convert wimmins!

[Watser?]

Rolemodel

[SR71]

Originally Posted by curses

We do exist but I think it's the way girls are brought up. Mechanical things are best left to the menfolk according to my mom. I never listened to her. That being said, one of my best friends is a mechanical engineer who now works at Lockheed (working her way up) who now has the plane bug. We need to convert wimmins!

Yes! It amazes me, after being a kid in the 60's, how locked into the roles we still seem to be. My hat is off to your engineer friend! My hat is off to you! Why shouldn't wimmins have a thing for airplanes? Why cede well paying engineering jobs to males? Really, I don't think it is a mandatory boy's club attitude that is preventing more women from pursuing the traditionally male roles. I don't feel like the boys would be trying to chase anyone out. I could be wrong though, not having the first person perspective.

Anyway, Polikarpov made some attractive planes. This is my favorite, it's a i-185 I tink.

[SR71]

Originally Posted by Watser?

Rolemodel

Whozat?

[BrotherMan]

Kaywinnit Lee Frye, mechanic extrodinaire for the ASC Firefly.

[SR71]

The idea of Wing In Ground Effect (WIG) vehicles is pretty cool. Some dude used to use one to commute across Long Island Sound. I think the first pic is that one. The russians made some monstrosities that just blow my mind to sawdust. These are freaky. Russian aviation engineers were always coming up with doing it their own way, they get some respect from me.

[Watser?]

They have these rockets and space stations that always seem like they are about to fall apart. I guess they make it work though. If something goes wrong on a Russian spaceship you can probably repair it with a paperclip. There's this story, I don't know if it's true and can't be arsed to look it up, that when NASA wanted to have a pen that could be used in space they spent hundreds of thousands of dollars developing a pen with a pumping mechanism. The Russians just used pencils.

ETA: alright, stop hounding me! Snopes says false: http://www.snopes.com/business/genius/spacepen.asp

[SR71]

Yeah, I think that's about the way, there is for sure some truth to the idea. The Russians just had Grandmas sewing up space suits, we had to make big a production out if it and make it cost shkabillion dollahz. This follows to a lot of different products, like tanks are one I'm familiar with.

[Vivisectus]

Hah ! to be laughing with the scorn at your Polijerkoff!



Behold the rugged, simple, straightforward design. Make it faster and capable of carrying large centerline guns, and initiative will be yours. Pure russian design: heavy, rugged, not overly difficult to manufacture or fly.

[Vivisectus]

Hah ! to be laughing with the scorn at your Polijerkoff!



Behold the rugged, simple, straightforward design. Make it faster and capable of carrying large centerline guns, and initiative will be yours. Pure russian design: heavy, rugged, not overly difficult to manufacture or fly.

[SR71]

Yeah, Lavochkins? Another of the less celebrated makes. Thanks for the pic, nice!

More wild looking Russian WIG.

[Vivisectus]

That is objectively awesome.

[Vivisectus]

Wayyy to the other end of the spectrum: the p39.



Hard to fly and easy to put into a spin even at quite high speeds.
And lets face it: ugly!

[S.Vashti]

Originally Posted by SR71

Yes! It amazes me, after being a kid in the 60's, how locked into the roles we still seem to be. My hat is off to your engineer friend! My hat is off to you! Why shouldn't wimmins have a thing for airplanes? Why cede well paying engineering jobs to males? Really, I don't think it is a mandatory boy's club attitude that is preventing more women from pursuing the traditionally male roles. I don't feel like the boys would be trying to chase anyone out. I could be wrong though, not having the first person perspective.

(snip)

I was the first girl in my school district to take shop, and I had to enlist my parents to help me get it. And once in shop, I was treated as a pariah, even by the shop teacher.

So there is some poor attitude on the part of men and boys against women taking an interest in mechanical things. At least in the sixties.

And all of the members of my dad's model RC airplane club are men. Of course, they are in their 60s-80s.

[godfry n. glad]

My domestic partner, a 1975 female graduate of the U. Maine in mechanical engineering, tells me that the engineering field is still very much like your shop class. That's after more than twenty five years as working engineer, three patents with Caterpillar, and her own consulting business in Seattle.

[SR71]

Made a stabilizer today. but it still isn't finished. Maybe this plane will get finished this winter. It's been in the works, off and on, mostly off, since 1999. The hang up has been this stabilizer, which was a giant pia.

[godfry n. glad]

Nice...from this distance, at least.

That's going to be a fair-sized piece, given the coffee cup and beer bottle. What's the expected wingspan? I also assume it will be R/C, so I'm curious as to the engine size.

I don't think I'd have the patience for that anymore...I goober something up and then have a full-size fit and walk away.

A couple years back, I bought one of those plastic R/C helicopters...never mastered it. And I didn't even have to build it.

[SR71]

It'll be 5 1/2'. RC, throttle, elevator, rudder. Electric power, about 385 watts max. Here is the mock up of what I have so far. The power system is all cheap imported stuff. If I put any effort into the appearance, I'll try to make it look like the promo pic. It's a 1938 gas free flight design called the Red Zephyr. Prominently displayed is also the broken carcass from my most recent Hey Yall Watch This! moment. Plus, gratuitous kitteh.

[ceptimus]

A friend in the club had one of those. Flew like these vintage planes do, which is to float around the sky in a relaxing manner - most of the time they fly best when you leave the controls alone - just nudge them back towards the field occasionally. Best saved for reasonably calm days.

I have a Lanzo Record Breaker which flies much the same - it doesn't have a cabin, but the wing is up on a wire cabane. It's eight foot span.

This pic isn't my plane, but mine is very similar but with just a plain cream fuselage with red wings and tail.



Despite its usually slow lumbering flight, undercambered wing section, excessive dihedral and no ailerons, I found I could do half a loop and then steer it around inverted circuits on just the rudder! I took it to a vintage fly-in at Old Warden a few years back and was booed for doing low inverted passes with it down the strip! Most of the vintage enthusiasts were of the opinion that a classic design shouldn't be disrespected in that way!

I'm always a bit worried about getting it back upright - rolling it out or pulling through the second half of the loop might overstress the wing. What I do is put it into a steep inverted climb and then let it stall through into a dive from which a gentle recovery is possible. If the engine ever quit when it was low and inverted this wouldn't be an option - but that's never happened yet!