Seen on the street in Kyiv.

Words of Advice:

"If Something Seems To Be Too Good To Be True, It's Best To Shoot It, Just In Case." -- Fiona Glenanne

“The Mob takes the Fifth. If you’re innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?” -- The TOFF *

"Foreign Relations Boil Down to Two Things: Talking With People or Killing Them." -- Unknown

“Speed is a poor substitute for accuracy.” -- Real, no-shit, fortune from a fortune cookie

"If you believe that you are talking to G-d, you can justify anything.” — my Dad

"Colt .45s; putting bad guys in the ground since 1873." -- Unknown

"Stay Strapped or Get Clapped." -- probably not Mr. Rogers

"The Dildo of Karma rarely comes lubed." -- Unknown

"Eck!" -- George the Cat

* "TOFF" = Treasonous Orange Fat Fuck, A/K/A Dolt-45,
A/K/A Commandante (or Cadet) Bone Spurs,
A/K/A El Caudillo de Mar-a-Lago, A/K/A the Asset., A/K/A P01135809

Sunday, January 21, 2018

Your Sunday Morning Jet Noise

A Dan Air DeHavilland Comet:


Either there was a mismatch with the stair truck or those airplanes had really small doors.

8 comments:

CenterPuke88 said...

I tried to find my pictures of the Comet 4 they have (Had? In the 90’s) on display at Duxford’s Museum, but couldn’t find them. A quick Google of ”DeHavilland Comet door size” found a decent picture of the Dan Air Comet 4 at Duxford with the airstair placed “correctly”. The guy climbing in shows the door seems pretty short.

Stewart Dean said...

Interesting discussion of jet engine in wing here...scratched some of my curiosity bump about that:
http://www.airliners.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=760011

Anonymous said...

There was no standard size for doors in the '50s. After many accident investigations showed that passengers died because they were unable to get out the FAA, CAA, TC etc specified the sizes, number and location of exits that had to be installed and the number of flight attendants that had to be onboard to direct the evacuation. It's all in the FARs. I suggest you read them whenever insomnia has you in its grip, they're a drug free sleep aid.

Al_in_Ottawa

Borepatch said...

What is pretty amazing is just how long the planes flew after repeated fatal airframe losses. Maybe people were just slow learners.

Ole Phat Stu said...

@Borepatch,
the Comet initally had square windows which cracked at the corners, causing the losses. After rounded windows were used it flew OK for many years.

Afaik; ymmv.

Comrade Misfit said...

Some years back, I took a turn at a steam locomotive. During the training, the instructor mentioned that the difference between British and American locomotives was that American locomotive designers were men who had worked on locomotives and British were not, which is why American locomotives had their running gear on the outside of the frame and the Brits had theirs on the inside.

Same probably holds for airplanes. Burying the engines in the wing roots looks nice, but those airplanes have to be maintenance hogs.

CenterPuke88 said...

It is reported that the buried engines were chosen because the designer wanted to avoid the drag of podded engines and was able to reduce the tail and rudder sizes due to the reduced asymmetrical thrust issue. As for the airframe design, the Nimrod flew until 2011, proving the design wasn’t that bad. There was good access for maintainence via access panels, and the engines were well protected from FOD, but the increased complexity of the wing was a weight penalty.

The lead for British airliners over the others that the Comet provided was lost with the pressurization-cycle driven aircraft crashes, and that was pretty much it for British commercial aircraft. In a long term view, the data the Comet provided certainly made the next generation of aircraft much safer, at a terrible cost.

Stewart Dean said...

That window thing....similar thing happened during WWII with the Liberty ships. They originally had squared off hold hatches for faster build....which quickly developed cracks across the deck out from the hatch corners. Later Liberty ships had rounded hatch openings, problem solved