sleet01

You magnificent motherfucker. You beautiful bastard. You incandescent ignoramus.

Is this the part of Russia that Russia invaded and annexed from Ukraine originally?

Horrific civilian death toll as the IDF “mistakenly” bombs the very safe zones where they told people to go in 3, 2, 1…

You’re doing Lord Baphomet’s work here, but I think I’m good. Thanks though!

Okay, this is like the third time The Frighteners has come up this week; the universe is telling me to rewatch that movie!

“We’ve secretly replaced Chet’s coffee with a Pershing missile, let’s see if he notices…”

Back in 2006/2007 I was reading Slashdot for tech news and stuff. I started noticing that a lot of newer content was just linking to Reddit posts, so I figured I’d cut out the middleman and jumped ship to Reddit.

Yeah, have you tried just… being @rosymind@leminal.space ? Their experience is obviously superior, why would you want to be anybody else? /s

I’ve been listening to “Blowback” and, like, duh.

Other folks had covered the wing aspect, I wanted to discuss the engine portion. Both are cogent.

This part is half-right: the work of the engine is going to accelerating the plane forward, or (when thrust and drag are in equilibrium) maintaining the current velocity. But in level flight, the engine is not “keeping the plane in the air” - it is impossible for it to contribute to lift directly because it’s force vector is 90 degrees from the lift vector.

Therefore, some of the engine’s energy is going into keeping the plane in the air, and some is going into accelerating it forwards, or keeping it at the same speed (fighting air resistance).

This is where you make an unsupported leap:

Therefore, if the plane points straight up, the engine should be able to support it hovering in the air. If it didn’t have enough power to fight gravity when pointing straight up, it wouldn’t have enough power to fight gravity when moving horizontally, either.

A car can accelerate horizontally because its engine can rotate its tires to apply horizontal force due to friction and mechanical advantage; does that mean it can drive straight up a wall? Of course not (outside of some specialized bouldering vehicles). The engine lacks the power to lift the car straight up, and the tires lack the grip to hold on to a vertical surface. The drivetrain is designed for efficient road cruising, not high power and grip

It’s the same for aircraft, generally: a given engine usually has enough power to accelerate the aircraft horizontally, and applies this through some kind of prop or jet rotor. But this combination is tuned for efficient cruising, not vertical climbing. The engine won’t provide enough power, and the prop can’t move enough air, to sustain vertical flight indefinitely.

“But Sleet01,” you cry, “helicopters exist!” Just so! They trade cruise efficiency for vertical thrust by greatly increasing the size of the prop, increasing the mechanical advantage so that less engine power is needed to hover or climb vertically. That’s like putting 4" wheels covered in suction cups on your car - now it can go straight up, but you can’t go very far or very fast!

“But Sleet01,” you exclaim, “F-15s exist and can fly vertically almost to space!” Indeed they do, but in order to fly an F-15 vertically you need to burn immense amounts of fuel, almost 400 gallons per minute. That’s like putting two turbo V8s in your Jeep - now you have the power to go vertical, but only for a couple minutes!

*Scoff*

This is not how you get Godzilla. This is how you get Hedorah… arguably much worse.

Yo.

What political office does he hold?