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2 years ago they landed this plane here in Brazil, when they camt to pick hidroeletrical generator parts. I gone with a plane enthusiast friend to see the thing
by major505 6y ago
2 years ago they landed this plane here in Brazil, when they camt to pick hidroeletrical generator parts. I gone with a plane enthusiast friend to see the thing take off. I know the phisics, but amazes me that something that big can fly.
Theres hope that more of this are made in the next years. It looks like China is interested in making a few units;
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- duxup 6y agoIt always amazed me that you could strap a space shuttle to a modified 747 and ... fly. The whole idea of "just strap it to another flying machine and move it that way" seems like something my 4 year old would come up with. It is clear my mental model of 'things that can fly good' is deficit when we see things like the AN-225 and etc.
- nickff 6y agoInterestingly, there was some doubt within NASA as to whether the 747 piggyback was a good idea. One of the proponents of the idea was a scale model builder, and made a model to demonstrate it; the model's success was persuasive enough that they continued to study the idea. In the end, the 747-Space Shuttle combo actually has better crosswind landing characteristics than a normal 747, but it has atrocious fuel economy.
- duxup 6y agoI wonder how many great ideas have been missed out on because our most basic filter / mental models that allow us to just choose basic candidates for options are ... wrong. "Wait no you can't do that, let's look into this other thing."
- nickff 6y agoMy favorite example of a near-miss because of that sort of opposition is lunar orbit rendezvous.[1] Yuri Kondratyuk, Tom Dolan, and John Houbolt were the protagonists in that instance; I generally disfavor the 'great man' theory of history, but I think those three made a real difference. [1] https://www.nasa.gov/centers/langley/news/factsheets/Rendezvous.html https://www.nasa.gov/centers/langley/news/factsheets/Rendezv...
- duxup 6y agoTIL that. Thanks for sharing.
- lostlogin 6y agoMoving rockets and shuttle parts reminded me of the story of the limits hit when organising shuttle transport - railways have a gauge and tunnels are made to fit the gauge. The gauge was chosen based on cart wheel spacing and this was chosen by the romans. A bit of googling suggests this may be an urban myth as weight. Eg https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/4064/how-fair-is-the-claim-that-shuttle-boosters-diameter-is-dictated-by-the-railroad https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/4064/how-fair-is-t...
- strictnein 6y agoSeeing it take off is really something. I used to work on the grounds of an international airport, and one of these flew in one day to pick up a crane or something. It dwarfed the other planes, 747s included. And seeing it slowly rumbled down the runway gave you the impression that there was simply no way it would have enough speed by the time it reached the end, but somehow it lifted off and flew.
- dylan604 6y agoIt is weird how the size of a plane screws with how our brains interpret the speed.
- AceyMan 6y agoI've always explained this to myself by saying the apparent speed correlates to body lengths per unit of time. Hence jumbo jets look like they are creeping along, but a bumblebee or hummingbird looks like it's got afterburners.