lutorm

7 ms·

31.
by lutorm 2y ago
Exactly. In addition, by delaying the relight as long as possible you're giving drag as much time as possible to do the work for you (assuming you're not at terminal velocity, so not applicable for the ship.)
32.
by lutorm 2y ago
The primary purpose of having those cameras is to gather test data, not provide entertainment.
33.
by lutorm 2y ago
As others have said, you're correct. But one reason for doing this, beyond just looking cool, is to give a visual cue for motion. The aim isn't primarily to look realistic, but to make it as easy as possible to interpret the o
34.
by lutorm 2y ago
Every moment your engines are burning at anything less than maximum thrust, you are wasting fuel. You want to relight as late as possible with as high thrust as possible for maximum efficiency. But that it actually works is nuts.
35.
by lutorm 2y ago
No. Way too hard to validate.
36.
by lutorm 2y ago
There is so much coal... I wouldn't worry about running out of that.
37.
by lutorm 2y ago
I met Lee briefly, along with a few other Nobel laureates, in 1991 at a weird symposium in Japan. Unlike some of the others, he was very friendly and relaxed. RIP.
38.
by lutorm 2y ago
The downfall of trains is that they require track, which require rights of way. Trains are cost-effective if a lot of people make the same trip, and that's after a massive investment cost. No one in their right mind would fly their s
39.
by lutorm 2y ago
So you're concluding that there is no benefit to general aviation because, presumably, you don't fly? I think we should absolutely keep airplanes as a mode of transportation, because the alternative is that all small airports go a
40.
by lutorm 2y ago
Perfect is indeed the enemy of the good. So we should realize that not everyone values the same things and not single out something as deserving extinguishing just because it's something we personally don't value.
41.
by lutorm 2y ago
So wrong. You can get an airplane for the cost of a car. Yes, it won't be new and it won't be fancy, but you can definitely fly without being wealthy.
42.
by lutorm 2y ago
I take it from your attitude that you don't drive, fly commercially, buy resource-intensive consumer goods, use electricity produced from nonrenewable sources, or eat food produced from large-scale agriculture then, and agree we should
43.
by lutorm 2y ago
How do you get seven times? Takeoff constitutes a negligible part of the total fuel consumption. Climb to altitude uses more, but you get that back when landing since you're then using your stored potential energy. Small-aircraft GA is
44.
by lutorm 2y ago
Yes, if someone tells you how the air flows around a wing you can immediately deduce that it's producing lift, since the air is deflected downwards. The real task is explaining why the air flows the way it does.
45.
by lutorm 2y ago
Newton's laws are absolutely not sufficient to explain how an airfoil works.
46.
by lutorm 2y ago
It's not a cause and effect situation, because you can't have one without the other. A pressure differential can only exist if the flow is altered somehow, because a pressure differential means that the air molecules are subject t
47.
by lutorm 2y ago
As a purely conceptual illustration of the fact that the air must be deflected downwards by the wing, sure. It doesn't really work, though. For example, there's no reason for the air to move faster over the top of the wing in your
48.
by lutorm 2y ago
Usually you draw a line from the trailing edge (which is sharp so unambiguous) to the point on the leading edge that makes the line the longest. The definition that makes the most sense, though, is to disregard the geometry of the wing and
49.
by lutorm 2y ago
Increasing drag is actually useful when landing. too. Trying to land an airplane with very little drag at a given spot is difficult because if you're just a little fast they'll float a long time.
50.
by lutorm 2y ago
There are efficiency races for general aviation aircraft, yes. Check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAFE_Foundation
51.
by lutorm 2y ago
Because of the negative lift of the horisontal stabilizer, the main wing needs to provide more lift than the weight of the airplane. This increased lift requires flying the wing at higher angle of attack, which always comes with increased d
52.
by lutorm 2y ago
"See how it flies" that you linked is a wonderful resource for understanding the physics of aircraft and the skills needed to fly one. Another, more math heavy treatment, of why airplanes fly that still aims to gain a conceptual
53.
by lutorm 2y ago
Exactly, this is why understanding fluid dynamics is so difficult. You can't look at some physical laws and assume that the right hand side "causes" the left hand side. They all represent relations and it so happens that the
54.
by lutorm 2y ago
Unless your two terminals are talking to the same satellite, the answer to whether your traffic has to go through a ground station depends on the topology of the space laser inter-satellite links. Whether the routing in practice allows for
55.
by lutorm 2y ago
I think his point was that the time to check the lane over is before you initiate a lane change, not after. About the only reason to initiate a lane change without pre-checking where you're going is if there's an emergency (like
56.
by lutorm 2y ago
YWWV. Our DRLs are not enabled if the transmission is in park.
57.
by lutorm 2y ago
It's worse than that, I think. The typical radar beam is so wide that it can't discriminate between in the road and near the road, so the Doppler selection is the only reason it even works at all. This is very noticeable on our ca
58.
by lutorm 2y ago
I find adaptive cruise control definitely helps with the mental fatigue as well, because I can concentrate on looking for hazards far ahead instead of having to pay attention to keeping distance to the car ahead. But yeah, I never drive mor
59.
by lutorm 2y ago
That rule explicitly states that it's not for being able to stop, though, it's just to have time to react to the driver ahead stopping. Two seconds isn't nearly enough to stop in front of a stationary object. At highway speed
60.
by lutorm 2y ago
* ... should typically be able stop a car length per 10mph.* This is not correct, stopping distance scales as the square of speed. The distance you'd need to stay from the vehicle in front to be able to stop if it magically came to a

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