Totally useless information/trivia

[blandy]

38 minutes ago, mjmooney said:

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, I guess, but bloody hell - that longevity. 

Got me thinking about the debate on the "things you wonder" thread, about when the quantum leaps in technological change happened in the last century. You have to say WWII was a huge catalyst. I'm sure I've brought this up before, but one year before the outbreak of war, the RAF's frontline fighter was the Gloster Gladiator - a fixed undercarriage, piston engined biplane. One year after the end of the war, it was the Gloster Meteor, a twin-engined jet. A mere seven years. 

Definitely. I was only joshing with Kenji. That said, pretty is not the word I’d ever use about, all but a handful at most, aircraft. I’ve been on a B-52, and up close they’re...more... brutal. From a distance there’s more of a classic line to them.

Spitfires, that came in after the Gladiator, they’re kind of pretty, though. A long time ago a mate helped restore one ( he did the radios) and I got the chance to look at it very closely. Lovely.

ive worked on and around military aircraft all my adult life and it’s amazing the progress, even though they take, typically,  a decade to design and develop - though we’ve done a few experimental ones a lot more quickly.  Mantis took less than 2 years from being told “this is what we’re going to do in the next 18 months” in Dec 07 to first flight in Oct 2009.

On the longevity of the B-52, I wonder about fatigue life, we’ll see . 

[chrisp65]

I was going to ask about fatigue, or a version of that because i wouldn’t have thought of that word.

It would have been more akin to Trigger, I’ve had this broom 100 years, it’s had 17 new heads and 12 new handles.

 

 

[blandy]

21 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

I was going to ask about fatigue, or a version of that because i wouldn’t have thought of that word.

It would have been more akin to Trigger, I’ve had this broom 100 years, it’s had 17 new heads and 12 new handles.

When Nimrod MR2 was getting converted to MR4, they found huge amounts of corrosion in the main spars. Aircraft get routine scheduled servicing and maintenance through minor and major services every few years/ every so many flying hours, and a lot of fatigue is able to be rectified then, but ultimately aircraft are designed to have a life of so many flying hours. This can be extended, but eventually the very rivets and panels and load bearing members and bulkheads will be at the end of their life. Complete rebuild, replacing everything, then becomes uneconomical.

B52s at least have relatively low stress lives. Nimrods spent their time wanging around at very low level above the sea, with all the salt water and vapour corrosion taking its toll.  I guess the USAF reckons that incrementally upgrading and fettling the bombers will be more cost effective than something new. Though to be frank, they’re potentially sitting ducks for decent air defences and their usefulness appears limited, other than as a delivery platform for stand-off long range missiles.

The other thing about them is their current engines are filthy.  They smoke more than a dodgy VW diesel.

[mjmooney]

I kind of assumed that the basic design was from the late 40s, but had been refined several times, and that the actual aeroplanes were periodically retired and replaced with newly built ones.

@blandy? 

 

Edited June 7, 2020 by mjmooney

[blandy]

15 minutes ago, mjmooney said:

I kind of assumed that the basic design was from the late 40s, but had been refined several times, and that the actual aeroplanes were periodically retired and replaced with newly built ones.

@blandy? 

 

They'll have been built in the 50s and maybe into the 60s to a late 40s/early 50s design. Since then I doubt they've built any more. The tooling and stuff wears out, and the hangars and technicians and mechanics are needed for subsequent build programmes. Manufacturing technology moves on...

Since then though, as I said above, the Minor, Minor * and Major servicing (or whatever the US equivalents are) will have done things like NDT to identify fatigued or microscopically cracked parts, strip downs, upgrades, repairs, strengthening, replacement of avionic systems, modifications to add in capability and all kinds. They'll be the original airframes though, I'm pretty sure, which is why I mentioned fatigue life somewhere up above.

edit. I just Mooney'd Boeing's internet and it says this

Quote

It had a rocky beginning. The original XB-52 design, selected by the Army Air Forces in 1946, was for a straight-wing, six-engine, propeller-powered heavy bomber. On Oct. 21, 1948, Boeing Chief Engineer Ed Wells and his design team were in Dayton, Ohio, when the Air Force’s chief of bomber development told them to scrap the propellers and come up with an all-jet bomber. Over the following weekend, in a Dayton hotel room, the team designed a new eight-engine jet bomber, still called the B-52, made a scale model out of balsa wood and prepared a 33-page report.

This effort impressed the Air Force’s Air Materiel Command, and the design was approved. As the war worsened in Korea, the Air Force, in 1951, designated the B-52 the country’s next intercontinental bomber and approved an initial production order for 13 B-52s. The first B-52A flew Aug. 5, 1954.

After assembly of three B-52As, production converted to B-52Bs, with more weight and larger engines. Some had photoreconnaissance or electronic capsules in their bomb bays and were redesignated RB-52Bs. The turbofan powered B-52H, the final version of the B-52, made its first flight March 6, 1961, and is still in service.

With each variant, the B-52 increased in range, power and capability. In all, 744 B-52s were produced by Seattle, Wash., and Wichita, Kan., plants between 1952 and 1962.

 

[chrisp65]

There are indeed degrees of repair and maintenance.

When I was a regular up at the GE aero engine plant you’d see the engines on the service route through the factory. There were most definitely different levels of service available.

To my totally untrained eye, the BA engines arriving for a service arrived looking in better condition than some of the engines of ‘lesser’ airlines left, having had a service.

You’d quickly be able to spot the exact same engine and shroud, the BA one would look pristine, others would literally have visible dents and patch repairs.

I guess that’s a lot of what you’re paying for when you fly BA? Maybe, I dunno, that’s 10 years ago now.

[blandy]

1 minute ago, chrisp65 said:

There are indeed degrees of repair and maintenance.

When I was a regular up at the GE aero engine plant you’d see the engines on the service route through the factory. There were most definitely different levels of service available.

To my totally untrained eye, the BA engines arriving for a service arrived looking in better condition than some of the engines of ‘lesser’ airlines left, having had a service.

You’d quickly be able to spot the exact same engine and shroud, the BA one would look pristine, others would literally have visible dents and patch repairs.

I guess that’s a lot of what you’re paying for when you fly BA? Maybe, I dunno, that’s 10 years ago now.

In terms of GE servicing the engines, they'd do exactly the same tests and work on all the engines, regardless of airline. Older engines might get a more in-depth level of maintenance - like a car having an oil change every year, but much more fettled every (say) 50,00 miles. Anything less than doing the full job and nothing less and GE would be breaching all kinds of stuff, as well as risking massive reputational, legal and future business damage. Maybe the BA ones were newer? Maybe the BA maintenance people were better at keeping the associated shrouding and trim and panels in good nick.

[chrisp65]

Yeah, don’t know the answer, i was just a nosey observer. I’m going to go with maybe they were newer? But there was a definite dividing line and it was pretty much where you’d guess it would be.

Making up names (because I can’t really remember them), but you’d see a BA engine and think it was fine, you’d see Easy Jet and it would look, crudely, a bit dirtier sat on the low loader waiting for it’s turn in the sheds. Then you’d see ‘Air Zaire’ or ‘CheapSunAir’ and they’d look positively secondhand in comparison.

Again, don’t take this as literal, well it is literal but I wouldn’t know the reasons or the proper description. The ‘Air Zaire’ end of the market would have pop riveted patches on the outer casing that weren’t on the same BA engine. Now, it could have been slight model variation. But they’d be in the same queue in the same part of the factory waiting for the same process.

[mjmooney]

Wow, so they actually are really old aeroplanes. 

[blandy]

1 hour ago, chrisp65 said:

. The ‘Air Zaire’ end of the market would have pop riveted patches on the outer casing that weren’t on the same BA engine. Now, it could have been slight model variation. But they’d be in the same queue in the same part of the factory waiting for the same process.

Oh, yeah. BA would definitely run tidier aircraft, do more in terms of aircraft cosmetic care and all that. They’d have more money for keeping the aircraft in top condition, and perhaps tighter CAA regulation to adhere to compared with the Zairean equivalent of the CAA. And BA technicians are likely better trained and qualified. The actual engine servicing by GE, will all be done to the same standard. Perhaps BA clean their engines more often, too.

[blandy]

11 minutes ago, mjmooney said:

Wow, so they actually are really old aeroplanes. 

Yep. Aircraft build lines, I suppose like those for cars, make a particular model, then the new model comes along and they don’t make any more of the previous ones.

[Mandy Lifeboats]

Norway and North Korea are separated by only one country. 

Edited June 8, 2020 by Mandy Lifeboats
Speeling mishsteaks

[choffer]

10 minutes ago, Mandy Lifeboats said:

Norway and North Korea are separated by only one country. 

Had to look that up to confirm. Not quite "mind blown" territory but that's a pretty good fact. 

[Xela]

1 hour ago, Mandy Lifeboats said:

Norway and North Korea are separated by only one country. 

Like the fact USA and Russia are only 50 miles apart at its closest border.

[mjmooney]

Just now, Xela said:

Like the fact USA and Russia are only 50 miles apart at its closest border.

You can see it from Sarah Palin's house. 

[Tegis]

2 hours ago, choffer said:

Had to look that up to confirm. Not quite "mind blown" territory but that's a pretty good fact. 

Initially I thought it was a letter thing, Norw - Noth. But there you go, cool

[Mandy Lifeboats]

1 hour ago, Xela said:

Like the fact USA and Russia are only 50 miles apart at its closest border.

It’s much less than that. The Diomede Islands (not 100% sure about the spelling) are 2 islands that are less than 3 miles apart. One is Russian the other is USA.  

They are a famous trivia quiz question because they are either side of the International Dateline. Therefore it can take you “a day” to travel 3 miles. 

[bickster]

On 07/06/2020 at 10:23, mjmooney said:

I'm sure I've brought this up before, but one year before the outbreak of war, the RAF's frontline fighter was the Gloster Gladiator - a fixed undercarriage, piston engined biplane. One year after the end of the war, it was the Gloster Meteor, a twin-engined jet. A mere seven years. 

Thats not strictly true though, well it is obviously but wasn't the reason that the Galdiator was still there in the frontline, government prevarication in deciding what they actually wanted in their "modern fighter aircraft", The Gladiator was pretty much obsolete the day it entered service in 1934(?), the first prototype Spit was in the air a couple of years later and the Hurricaine before that I think and they all stemmed from the ministry's demand for a "Modern fighter aircraft". They should never have chosen the Gladiator in the firs place

SO even though as you say, in 1938 the Gladiator was still the frontline aircraft a) it should never have been in that position and b) Tech was already well past that point but politics got in the way. So the tech leaps your talking about was actually 15 years not the 6 or 7. Still impressive though

[HanoiVillan]

18 hours ago, mjmooney said:

You can see it from Sarah Palin's house. 

Retro, but I like it

[sidcow]

Apparently in America they don't have electric kettles. 

I mean WTF? Apparently they boil water on the stove like it's the 1950's or summat. 

They don't have squash either.  It's no wonder that as a nation they are all completely bonkers. 

I expect God has told them that squash and kettles are evil or something and people armed with high powered assault rifles stand outside shops waiting to terminate people who buy them. 

Edited June 10, 2020 by sidcow