Tonight on GeekNights, we talk about desks. If you have a desk job, you probably spent a huge amount of time at one. If you have a desktop computer, it's probably under your desk. Desks. In the news, Twitter now has too many characters in addition to having too many nazis, and this person was almost definitely lying. Also, get your flu shot.
The sad resting place of the Soviet Tupolov. German Technical Museum:
(the museum is actually really cool and has a ton of stuff including these amazing one man band machines that were super popular in Europe for years plus lots and lots of tanks and planes)
Sinsheim is one of the best museums I’ve ever been to. They have so many amazing historic vehicles that you wouldn’t imagine ever seeing in real life and then you turn a corner… and there’s the 6 wheel F1 car, or Hitler’s car, or so many other weird things you just got to see it.
That they have a Tupalov and a Concorde on the roof is just advertising to get people in from the autobahn. But the coolest advertising ever.
I was amazed at how thin the concord and Tupalov were… only 2 seats on each side. It makes sense once you think about it, but in my mind’s eye they were much larger inside.
@SkeleRym@apreche you guys almost certainly did not hear sonic booms over your houses. Flying supersonic over populated areas is prohibited, you can only do it over the ocean or in the Western test ranges.
We had to call the air base a few times a year with noise complaints. Sometimes, it was low flying planes rattling windows. Sometimes, it was afterburners over the sub division.
I remember at least two times where it was a ridiculous boom. After those, the complaint line was usually busy when we tried to call.
Of course, one time there was a big boom, it turned out a house down the street at literally exploded, so…
Might have been a hot engine start, you can quickly start a jet engine by spinning it up with compressed air and dumping fuel into it with a full open throttle and it makes a huge fireball and a loudass bang. When I worked for Jet Blue pilots who were former military loved doing that for kicks. I only have a passing understanding of how afterburners work but I wonder if something similar happens if you jam the throttle open then activate the afterburners.
I once lived by the sea, and my house shook like an earthquake hit it, or a truck had driven into it. I tuned in to the news and they said it was a sonic boom from an airplane off the coast. I’ve never experienced an earthquake, so I can’t compare the sonic boom to that, but it’s unlike any other sound or massive vibration I’ve heard or experienced.
Afterburners are just as crazy as people make them out to be. You dump fuel behind the turbine (into the exhaust), and it burns. It burns after the engine. Just a big old fireball back there.
Well, to be fair, it only works because the turbine itself can’t handle the temperature of full O2 utilization. The fuel is dumped in to burn with the rest of the O2 that made it through the turbine.
It also lead to an interesting manuver called the “Dump and Burn”, only possible on a handful of aircraft, namely the F-111 Aardvark, where they engage the emergency fuel dump, and then hit the afterburner to light up the atomized fuel. GREAT at fireworks displays, here’s one of the many, many times they performed it at Riverfire in the middle of my city.
