What is Digg?46 Comments
- wolphkaat, on 10/12/2007, -3/+41Someone tell Ziggy that Sam is in Germany 4/18/1915.
- itsme92, on 10/12/2007, -4/+30Man, it must've been nice to be an early World War I pilot. Enemy pilots were waving at each other. Then some douche had to pull out a gun...
- CannedMango, on 10/12/2007, -0/+17It's amazing that their first instinct was to "shoot through the f!#%ing propeller!".
- Urusai, on 10/12/2007, -1/+14But seriously, putting armor on the propeller? Talk about some redneck engineering.
- complexigon, on 10/12/2007, -2/+15Quantum leap? So aerial warfare made the smallest possible progression on April 18, 1915?
Sorry, pet hate. - BigEasy, on 10/12/2007, -6/+18Knock knock.
Who's there?
Interrupting gear.
Interrupting gear wh....
WHHIIIIIRRRRRRR. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11You should have seen his backhand.
- BottledSunshine, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9Yep, that was the first bomb release mechanism for bombers. Also another little known fact, the rotary engines used back then were lubricated with castor oil. Do y’all know what castor oil is used for, or what it used to be used for? Castor Oil was one of the original laxatives, imagine what inhaling the fumes did to those pilots after awhile. I remember reading about an industrious pilot, who had a pair of specially designed pants and seat with a hole cut into it, who would try to make sure he was over the German trenches when the urge hit him. His fellow pilots thought it was hilarious, what the German troops in the trenches thought, was not recorded.
- AKBryant54, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7War sometimes has good consequences regarding the sciences, such as the space race during the cold war.
- 28dayslater, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7"I don't understand, I dugg this article like I was supposed to, Al, why didn't I leap yet?"
- ConeOfSilence, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8yes it has always been good news for the world when warfare technology improves.
- bewebste, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Oh boy...
- joffnz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5The interrupting gear to stop the prop being shot off wasn't developed until quite late into the war
- emiles, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Did people talk about quantum anything in 1915?
- Dunadan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Wow, I was frustrated with that ending for a while and everyone tells me I'm an idiot for thinking he shouldn't have and that it was "so cool." Glad to see there's at least a few people that agree with me on this.
- wvannus, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6The guns were usually powered by a crank off the motor, timed to go off when the propeller wasn't in front of the gun. It wasn't blind luck.
- novaculus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4@joffnz--No, it was actually fairly early in the war. Synchronizer designs were in development even before the war by a couple of different engineers, but no successful designs were completed. Fokker created the first practical design, which essentially involved a cam/lever arrangement to block the firing mechanism of a Spandau machine gun and timed to prevent bullets from striking the prop. Fokker's examination of Garros' mechanism in 1915 (and the insistence of the German military) inspired him to develop a better plan, and he had a working model within a few days. It went into production shortly after.
Bottled, you seem to be well informed, you must be a student of the history.
Various methods to achieve forward firing guns were attempted. Wing mounts outside the propeller arc were not practical as the wings would have required such heavy reinforcement as to render the resulting aircraft useless as a fighter. The most effective was to use a "pusher" design, which placed the engine behind the pilot and permitted forward firing, as in the DeHavilland DH2. Some guns were angled out from the fuselage to miss the prop, but it was difficult to use accurately. The gun mounted on the upper wing center section (ala the Nieuport II) presented its own difficulties, as it created much drag, placed significant weight at a distance form the plane's center of mass, and fired along a tangent to the pilot's line of sight. Some pilots learned to use the rail mount for the Lewis gun, designed to permit the gun to be lowered for reloading, as a means to fire up at targets from below. But it was simply not as effective a design as fuselage mounted guns firing through the propeller arc. - BottledSunshine, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5thesixthdesign
War in general has no positive consequences, in fact, when you think about it, war is simply a depressing, destructive, and terribly immature way to resolve a feud.
Hmm, ok, I agree, war is a depressing, destructive, and terribly immature way to resolve a feud. So what do you suggest we do, when dealing with someone who decides terror is the way to achieve their goals? The world is not full of reasonable people, unfortunately. There are people who see the act of trying to negotiate with them as a sign of weakness on our part. They are like the bullies back in school. There are peoples in parts of the world that have no respect for life and would happily kill you because you don’t think like them. I, for one, will not go quietly into the night. You are free to hold your naïve ideals, the rest of us, who know true evil when we see it, will try our best to protect you. - chuco, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Hey, shooting through propellers is only one of the f#$ked up ***** they would do back then...My great-grand-pa, a flight mechanic in one of the first bomber squad during WW1 would stick half his body out of the plane to cut strings with tailor scissors to drop bombs....
- TroubleInMind, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I am certainly no war advocate. But war does have positive benefits on several levels, primarily in terms of economic stimulus. It's not accurate to say that war has no positive consequences.
This ignores potential (and highly subjective) quality of life benefits that could, but do not always occur. WWII was terrible in many ways. But the consequence was that Hitler and Tojo were prevented from doing things that ultimately would have been worse for many people. And most would agree that is a positive consequence. - fredrated, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Sorry mate but quantum means smallest, as in "the smallest discrete quantity of some physical property that a system can possess" (dictionary.com).
As for "actually large enough to be measurable", huh?
And finally, "Quantum equals smalls gained popularity...", again, huh? Popular-wise, quantum as 'small' has never gained popularity, it is always taken to be large. - PotatoFro, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5I can't help but digg any comment that makes refference to one of the best tv shows of our time. i need to find myself one of those amazing silver jackets Al always wore. God bless the "near future".
- BottledSunshine, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4As Course6 said:
you could put the gun on the wings (and some did put the gun on top of the top wing, to shoot above the prop), but the problem arises in how you unjam the gun, reload it, etc.
Actually the first “dogfight” occurred when a pilot fired a pistol at another pilot. The early aeroplanes were for reconnaissance of the battle lines. The some of the allied pilots mounted Lewis machine guns on the top wings of their aeroplanes, besides throwing the plane out of balance, you had to stand up in the cockpit to unjam or change the ammo drum on the weapon. More than one pilot fell to his death when the aeroplane suddenly flipped over when the stick shifted between their knees. That was the reason Garros put the defector plates on the propeller, so you could hold the stick with one hand and clear a jam or reload with the other. The problem with the deflector plate concept was, after a number of bullets struck the plate, it would either knock the blades out of alignment or the blade would break, thus you would shoot yourself down. - angryredplanet, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4@emiles
The definition of "quantum" is the smallest physically realisable unit of something. Your example regarding quantum tunneling is on a particle scale. Big technology, yes, but involving very tiny particles. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3And hence, the French Open tennis tournament was born.
- thesixthdesign, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Airplanes are a mass contributer to global warming.
Aerial warfare has no positive effects at all.
War in general has no positive consequences, in fact, when you think about it, war is simply a depressing, destructive, and terribly immature way to resolve a feud. - course6, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4you could put the gun on the wings (and some did put the gun on top of the top wing, to shoot above the prop), but the problem arises in how you unjam the gun, reload it, etc.
- TroubleInMind, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3...who was the principal designer of the Fokker Triplane, the "Red Baron" three winged plane that now adorns pizza boxes in your grocer's freezer.
- DeathBorn, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Imagine what happened when that interrupter gear malfunctioned! "Where did my propeller go? Oh, it's down there! AAAAH!"
- novaculus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Actually, while Fokker was a great pilot and decent engineer, most of his stuff, including the triplane, was largely the work of Rheinhold Platz, his chief engineer. Fokker was a good businessman and marketer, wo promoted his planes to pilots and military officials with lavish parites in Berlin and gifts. He didn't hesitate to take credit for the designs.
- angryredplanet, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2@motormaroon
"Quantum equals smalls gained popularity from cheap semi-literate "popular science" version of physics for the masses."
I beg to differ that use of the term "quantum" is a popular science version of physics for the masses. Quantum mechanics, the science dealing with the structure and behaviour of subatomic particles. Quantum electrodynamics, the science dealing with the electromagnetic interactions of photons, electrons and muons. These are certainly not macroscopic sciences!
I'll leave you to draw a conclusion. - angryredplanet, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I guess the point is that we could've gone into space without the need to kill others, or as a symbolic demonstration of power and advanced technology over other nations. The sad truth is that large populations of humans generally do not act altruistically and are willing to put our trust in governments quite content to tell us that freedom exists at the bottom of the cliff we must jump from. Of course, said freedom comes at a cost, right? If we all got along with a little tolerance we can still have freedom and advanced technology, without costing dollars or lives.
- emiles, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4Hey, quantum leaps don't have to be small. For example, think about the idea of quantum tunneling. Electrons, say, which we (incorrectly) think of as little balls of stuff can hop through rather big barriers. This is how scanning tunneling microscopes work.
- TuxedosRevenge, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3The tennis center in Paris where the annual French Open is played is named for Roland Garros.
Why? - Egoist, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2My sarcasm meter is going off, but I'd argue to say that it's true. As weapons have become more accurate, there has been less need to firebomb entire cities in order to destroy a single target. Man will always find ways of killing each other, but with the advance of technology, they can do it with less collateral damage.
- idonthack, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2The Dutch invented frozen pizza???
- fredrated, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3Why is the term 'quantum leap' used in a situation like this? A quantum leap is the smallest possible change of state!
- motormaroon, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2'Quantum Leap' does mean a _Large_ (actually large enough to be measurable) discontinuous change. Both the word and phrase has is roots in the Latin 'quantus' and its use in English precedes the use of quantum in the modern sense by physicists. Even the physicists use of quantum is in the same sense (large measurable discontinuous change) rather than meaning infestimal or smallest. Quantum equals smalls gained popularity from cheap semi-literate "popular science" version of physics for the masses.
So yes Quantum Leap is both appropriate and correct usage of the term in this instance. - motormaroon, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"Popular-wise, quantum as 'small' has never gained popularity, it is always taken to be large"
@fredrated, please explain complexigon's post then.
"I beg to differ that use of the term "quantum" is a popular science version of physics for the masses."
@angryredplanet, You misunderstand. I said taking "Quantum" to mean "small" is a misunderstanding popularised by simplified 'science for the masses' type of articles. I didn't say quantum is a term invented by popular science renditions for the lay public.
There is no intrinsic connection between 'quantum' and 'ultra-small' - you could as well have a quantum theory of marco-scopic phenomenon. All that a quantum theory says is that state changes happen discontinously i.e. in some fixed quantums; weather it is at subatomic or cosmic scale is irrelevant and depends on the phenomenon being addressed.
Regarding - Quantum chromodynamics and electrodynamics etc: I can only point you to quantum cosmology. - ElFredo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1From the French Wikipedia page:
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roland_Garros
"Il avait adhéré au Stade Français en 1906 avec le parrainage de son condisciple d'HEC Émile Lesieur, et c’est ce dernier qui en 1927, devenu président de la prestigieuse association, exigea fermement que l’on donnât le nom de son ami Garros au stade de tennis parisien qu’il fallait construire pour accueillir les épreuves de la coupe Davis ramenée en France par les « Mousquetaires »."
Garros joined the Stade Français (French Stadium, a sport association) in 1906 with the sponsorship of his HEC school fellow Émile Lesieur, and the latter, when he became president of the prestigious association in 1927, firmly required that the name of his friend be given to the Parisian tennis stadium that had to be built to host the Davis Cup matches after it was brought back to France by the "Musketteers" (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Four_Musketeers ). - BlueIndependent, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I'm guessing that there could only really be TWO first fighter pilots, since you are not exactly fighting yourself up there. If he was attacking ground targets than possibly this could be said, but the article does epxressly mention "aerial combat".
- dupswapdrop, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2Lame read the real accounts of flying in world war I.
This is documented all over the place.
- alpine75, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1Interesting. The Dutch guy who ran with the French guys idea had the last name of Fokker.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -9/+3But seriously...a Frenchman who was SUCCESSFUL during wartime? Why not give him some honor. It may never happen again.
- adezero, on 10/12/2007, -7/+1stop posting this "day in history" crap
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