Hello everybody !
I am Paul aka Herr Drahüss and I'm french (sorry for my english sometimes approximative). I'm 24 years old and I'm public writer.
I'm a huge fan of weird weapons and war history (in theory, not in practice). I make a RPG dice & paper, like Dungeons and Dragons but in XXIth century with apocalyptic monsters. So I regulary add new weapons to the game (I have something like 2500 different weapons). Now I have all "classic" military stuff in my game, I'm looking for weird and bizarres prototypes, like planes who fly to mach 10 or rocket submachine guns.
Hello everybody !
I am Paul aka Herr Drahüss and I'm french (sorry for my english sometimes approximative). I'm 24 years old and I'm public writer.
I'm a huge fan of weird weapons and war history (in theory, not in practice). I make a RPG dice & paper, like Dungeons and Dragons but in XXIth century with apocalyptic monsters. So I regulary add new weapons to the game (I have something like 2500 different weapons). Now I have all "classic" military stuff in my game, I'm looking for weird and bizarres prototypes, like planes who fly to mach 10 or rocket submachine guns.
Welcome Herr Drahüs. You will certainly dig out enough material here to add another 2500 weird weapons to your list. You might even find with some us enough characteristics for some new apocalyptic monsters!
I am from Michigan, I found this forum trying to find interesting weapon prototypes. I'm excited to become active here and maybe just lurk. I am very interested in obscure prototypes of all kinds, from cars, to planes to boats. I plan on having a good time here.
Hey everyone! The name's Tetravault. I'm a 25 year old barista by day, hopeful YouTuber by night. I have a Bachelor's degree in Visual Communications (i.e. ad design, photography, illustrating), with an Adobe certification. I spend my free time researching and learning about military technology, primarily WWI and WWII tech. On the YouTube side of things, I hope to combine my research with content for the game War Thunder, to show players what fascinating and wild prototypes, X-Projects, and other curiosities could potentially have a chance to shine on the digital battlefield. If interested, follow the link and subscribe for future videos https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnD4v7gpggrga2asneyPKLg
I’m from Amsterdam, The Netherlands. I’m 39 years old, and a captain with a major airline. I became interested in black projects ever since I saw a flying wing aircraft much, much higher than us (airline cruising altitude) just west of Mashad in Iran, not far the Afghanistan border. The only reason we could see it was because it stuck out against the rising sun in the east.
Although I still don’t know what we saw that day, I’m pretty sure it wasn’t and isn’t a known, operational and declassified platform, although I can’t completely outrule it was an RQ-170 (which would be the most plausible explanation of course). I have an idea of course, but it’s pure speculation.
I would like to give the members here a big compliment as this forum is a treasure trove of knowledge, where people stick to facts rather than fiction. I’m sorry to say most other forums and groups have been ‘infiltrated’ and/or overtaken by halfwits who believe in fairy tales.
That’s certainly not the case here - I find the members posts very well written with a lot of knowledgeable and well informed people.
Many compliments and thanks to the owner(s) and moderators.
Hail and well met! I was born and raised in Seattle, WA - my dad worked for Boeing for 50 years lol I have an AAS in Digital Computer Electronics and work at a Science Museum as an Exhibit Electronics Technician. Always loved air planes! I remember the Discovery Channel's "Wings" series. Wish they'd re-do them at some point!
Only trouble is it's easy to get falsely banned from reddit; just post enough and a troll from some wildly unrelated subreddit will get angry at you then game the automated reports and ban system until you're permbanned. ***ONE*** false report of violence will more than do the job.
And now here I have proof of my previous assertion. Reddit has an actively exploited flaw with their ban system. The fact this is on removeddit speaks to the reddit admins knowing about the autoban system functioning this way and that they consider this to be working as intended.
As a result I highly recommend refraining from posting on reddit, and finding or remaining at another forum (like THIS ONE!). We can peacefully discuss our hobby activities far out of sight of any of the trolls idiots and spammers who would bear false witness against us for mayhem funsies and profit.
Niche communities are better off on their own forums rather than hosted on a huge social media site anyway. You can't get banned from your 'Cool Aerospace Shit' group because you pissed off a scammer robbing people blind over at some internet nudie bar and those two places share the same social media site. Forum admins have always been better at stopping spam and trolls anyway.
Hello y'all. I'm DA! No, not some District Attorney that has nothing better to do, lol, just Dan Avangard that thinks way ahead of his time! I hate the past, I tolerate the present, and I worship the future. Now, put past in back, present in middle, and future in front... see what happens? The thrust is powerful indeed: Eject the past in order to stage the present for a better tomorrow!
So what about the future, you might ask...? Well, since childhood I adore all things flying. What I remember first seeing and hearing lead to an urge to know more. At around age 4, right there in the early morning sunrise, flew in tandem across the horizon what appeared to be 3 oval objects. It was the sound of their presence that made me rush to my room window. The vision and sound is still very much alive in my brain. The shapes were like yellowish footballs, and the sound was akin to a high pitch "airy" buzz. From that day forth, until I don't know how long, I would constantly lay beside the running vacuum cleaner (Electrolux - green canister) in order to listen to what sounded exactly like what I saw buzzing through the horizon.
So I envision things like "flying saucers", whoop-dee-doo! Yeah but I crave novelty, I don't follow the pack (unless it's a pack of beer ;-) My profile logo pretty much sums the direction my "UFO" must be heading. It's about time we stop devising cigar tubes with wings and start designing saucers without wings. So here I am in this forum digging into all types of data in support of my inspirations, so feel free to share any inspiring unbuilt, and/or declassified tech of all sorts that pertains to anything flying in air or soaring in space. Thanks for the cool forum!
I am William Mook, a native of Columbus Ohio who moved to New Zealand 10 years ago. I am a director in Algae Water Treatment NZ and formerly with Zeeco Inc an OTC listed company. I reside in Sumner Christchurch and live in a wonderful home overlooking the Pacific with my partner and two dogs.
I attended graduate and undergraduate school in aerospace engineering at the Ohio State University in the 1970s and worked with John Kraus at OSU's Radio Observatory at that time and volunteered there through the 1980s. Through John I got invited to advise the White House on space and energy related matters. I have several patents and I'm a serial entrepreneur. One of my patents is for the first computer based cash register. I started a company to develop that and eventually sold it.
I received other patents for a golf ball that changed colours, and for the first multi-spectral solar cell. A version of these multi-spectral solar cells were later flown on the International Space Station by Boeing's Spectrolab division and marketed at the Ultra-Triple Junction cell by them.
I have since developed solar cells that have six optical bandpass filters and more and have attained over 80% efficiency (by treating each optical bandpass as a separate circuit and loading it efficiently).
I imagined I was going to take over the energy business so I looked at buying TRW back in the 1990s with a bank loan from Credit Suisse and First Boston. I had the great opportunity to present my plan to NASA for review as required by DOT rules at the time. I also presented to various investment groups as well as folks at TRW.
The idea was to use the pintle fed engine from TRW to recover rockets with the same rocket that flew them. I wrote a paper at a student AIAA conference back in the day where I showed that propellant to land a rocket weighs less than wings wheels or parachutes! I first had the idea as an aerospace student, and that morphed into a business plan called Green Space in later years.
The idea was to use LOX/LH2 rockets based on the TR-106 engine in a BDB and develop large scale hydrogen production and even a hydrogen motorcar to promote a hydrogen economy. I imagined I could be like Max Hoffman when he ordered 1000 Mercedes Gull Wings in 1954. I would go to BMW and order 1000 hydrogen fuelled Series 7s and establish a network of hydrogen stations at dealerships in Texas where I would flood depleted gas wells with hydrogen made with my solar panels and retrieve them for the auto buyers. These would have 1600 km range and BMW dealers throughout Texas would serve all of Texas and surrounding states using my hydrogen producing panels fueled from depleted gas wells filled with solar hydrogen. Zubrin and I worked out how to make methane from hydrogen and CO2. Zubrin figured later that would be cool for Mars. (papers attached)
The market crash of the late 1990s made the deal more of a challenge, and the disgruntled team of excellent aerospace engineers at TRW was hired away in 2002 by a fellow who invented the software side of retail -- haha Elon Musk.
Musk had the same idea of recovering the boosters, and not being trained in aerospace, did a much better job of it businesswise imho. He abandoned hydrogen as a first step, and sized everything down to an appropriate size to start, and most importantly hired talent not capital, and that made it doable without borrowing and gave him free reign to try things that bankers might frown upon -- but this is about me! Not Musk! lol.
I recently got interested i radioisotope generators for a friend of mine and heard that TRW built a radioisotope rocket back in the 1960s. Now the chair of the Aerospace Department at OSU when I was there was Garvin von Eschen. He taught me propulsion physics. He helped create the RL-10 hydrogen oxygen engine, and he also built the highest performing chemical engine known to history. A lithium-hydrogen-flourine engine that attained 600 sec Isp. He was trying to compete with ROVER/NERVA at the time and flourine was a lot easier to handle than U-235 and Zirconium coated graphite. I also worked with Dr. Turchi at that time. He got antiprotons in a Penning Trap from University of Pennsylvania and dropped them into Uranium and Deuterium and flashed them into powerful energy pulses. Antiproton catalysed fission and fusion. We had a lot of capacitors at OSU's lab at that time and ran God's own current through shaped bits of Uranium wire to squeeze them down and blast them with antiprotons rom the Penning trap.
Anyway, that was then, now I'm interested in radioisotopes. Specifically Bismuth 209 converted to Polonium 210.
There is a nuclear research reactor in Argentina and I understand I can get Bismuth 209 irradiated with neutrons with it to make Polonium 210. This is perfectly legal as long as you fill out the paper work. Anyway, there is precious little in the literature, so I looked around at things and came across the website and started looking here. I read the rules and decided I would post a few things rather than just lurk and copy things. Looking for a win win haha.
I feel I must apologise to this group for some of what I got up to in College.
When I was a student at OSU I worked with a solar astronomer Walter Mitchell. He was famous for an article he wrote in Astronomy magazine in 1974, Zeta Reticuli Incident. I was doing a computer graphics course and decided for my assignment I would do star charts of nearby stars showing where the sun would be in the sky. I entered the Gliese catalog which was recently completed survey of nearby stars, on 80 column cards and ran a FORTRAN program to sketch star charts on a Calcomp plotter! haha. Mitchell at the Astronomy Department had the Gliese catalog and let me use it. Then after he approached me to do some 3D pattern matching which I thought would be fun. He wanted me to see if there was a pattern in 3 space of G type stars within 100 light years. No mention of UFOS haha. I plotted the pattern and found one with a reasonably good match.
Anyway, I found out that the pattern I was given was a hypnotically retrieved by Dr. Benjamin Simon from Betty Hill in 1964 of an alleged abduction that occured in 1961. I'm the guy who figured Zeta Reticuli matched the pattern given.
Carl Sagan whom I was working with on SETI projects at OSU along with John Kraus, was very unhappy with Walter's publicity. He told me not to include my name in the article! Walter wanted to put my name there. Sagen convinced me I shouldn't so I didn't so the article just said OSU Students. Sagan later dissed the work on COSMOS program, saying random dots can line up with random dots if you have enough dots. That's true, but the probability of a 10 star match in 3 dimensions is still what it is, and the number of G type stars within 100 light years is small, and the number of views examined SMALL, so probability is very low that you would have a match as good as the one found. Mitchell was asked to do this bit of work by Marjorie Fish a math teacher in Ohio. The match convinced Mitchell and the editors of Astronomy. They didn't convince me! haha. But, Does that mean Betty's map is legit? I don't know. Not enough data. Sometimes people win the lottery you know? They would be fools to think they would ALWAYS win! haha. If I won the big drawing three times in a row I might think differently. But drawing conclusions from one match, particularly given the lack of quality of the data, is a problem in my view. Yet it doesn't change the fact, I'm the guy who suggested Zeta Reticuli. Just saying. Don't hate me haha..
The numbers shown are not distances from the Sun, they're distances of the lines joining the stars in the star map.
Media NEVER gets science right haha..
In addition to hardcopy from the venerable Calcomp Plotter, I also had done some work on a Tektronix 4010 Vector Graphics terminal. Walt and I worked with the Mechanical Engineering department to make a rapidly spinning cylinder with two openings at eye width that were at 90 degrees to one another that present a sequential left eye right eye view and syncronised the motor with pulses to the Tektronix to flip images to left and right view. With a joystick we could fly around nearby stars haha. Anyway, I did this first and then produced a matching algorithm based on circular error probability calculation between the reference image and the data limiting myself to the G type stars view point within 100 light years. The big pointer to Zeta Reticuli was the fact that it is a double star 0.06 light years apart orbiting one another every 160,000 years or so. 39.6 light years away iirc. Both G type. The nearest pair like that. The other stars are also G type. Betty said the aliens told her they were looking at stars like our sun. Alright. We figured G type. But if aliens exist who knows what the heck they mean by anything? lol.
What are G type Stars?
Back at the beginning of the 20th century astronomers began looking at Stars through spectroscopes attached to telescopes. This produced a stellar spectrum. Hertzsprung and Russell classified stars according to their colour which is the same as temperature, and luminosity,which when given temperature, gives you the size of the star. Stars fell into patterns. There are several types O,B,A,F,G,K,M,R,N,S are the types. The G type stars are the same colour and the same size as the Sun. If an alien could taste or smell stars somehow, or classified stars by the size of their sunspots or something, they would come up with a different way to classify things. Walt wanted to fly around space within 100 light years and that sounded like fun. Then he wanted to test my ability to solve a problem which also sounded like fun. The map was a map from one of the stars, which one? Prove it. I learned later about Marjorie Fish and Betty Hill. haha. Walter was originally from Maine and he was contacted by both parties independently. He figured it was kismet telling him to look into this. He figured I would come up empty. When I didn't he wanted to get some mathematical algorithm, which we did. That clinched it for him. He invited UFOlogists to OSU astronomy department meetings after that. He wasn't that way before.
ADDENDUM
I forgot, since this is an aerospace site I thought first about aerospace, I forgot that I also got into Bitcoin Mining back in 2013. I am very happy I did. It was another thing that gave me five minutes of fame! haha..
Only trouble is it's easy to get falsely banned from reddit; just post enough and a troll from some wildly unrelated subreddit will get angry at you then game the automated reports and ban system until you're permbanned. ***ONE*** false report of violence will more than do the job.
And now here I have proof of my previous assertion. Reddit has an actively exploited flaw with their ban system. The fact this is on removeddit speaks to the reddit admins knowing about the autoban system functioning this way and that they consider this to be working as intended.
As a result I highly recommend refraining from posting on reddit, and finding or remaining at another forum (like THIS ONE!). We can peacefully discuss our hobby activities far out of sight of any of the trolls idiots and spammers who would bear false witness against us for mayhem funsies and profit.
Niche communities are better off on their own forums rather than hosted on a huge social media site anyway. You can't get banned from your 'Cool Aerospace Shit' group because you pissed off a scammer robbing people blind over at some internet nudie bar and those two places share the same social media site. Forum admins have always been better at stopping spam and trolls anyway.
LMAO! Well, the internet equivalent of nudie bars.
I still highly disrecommend any of them hosted on social media instead of their own standalone website for reasons already elaborated on above. Welcome aboard!
Hi all, I am 45. I am just an agronomist (so only plane I am used to are agric one ) but spending my leisure in discovering aeronautic histroy. I am very interested to what if alternative aeronautic, also buildng scale modelkit. Joined the channel to read and learn. thank you for letting me in. Cheers
Only trouble is it's easy to get falsely banned from reddit; just post enough and a troll from some wildly unrelated subreddit will get angry at you then game the automated reports and ban system until you're permbanned. ***ONE*** false report of violence will more than do the job.
And now here I have proof of my previous assertion. Reddit has an actively exploited flaw with their ban system. The fact this is on removeddit speaks to the reddit admins knowing about the autoban system functioning this way and that they consider this to be working as intended.
As a result I highly recommend refraining from posting on reddit, and finding or remaining at another forum (like THIS ONE!). We can peacefully discuss our hobby activities far out of sight of any of the trolls idiots and spammers who would bear false witness against us for mayhem funsies and profit.
Niche communities are better off on their own forums rather than hosted on a huge social media site anyway. You can't get banned from your 'Cool Aerospace Shit' group because you pissed off a scammer robbing people blind over at some internet nudie bar and those two places share the same social media site. Forum admins have always been better at stopping spam and trolls anyway.
Seems Secret project has got one hell of a new recruit. Welcome !
I checked your 12 posts so far - tons of varied ideas, lot of interesting aerospace history. Plus grand visions, well articulated and with plenty of details. I like this way of thinking: thinking big and outside the box.
It fascinates me when an aerospace engineer has a potentially disruptive idea (case in point 1: Skylon heat exchanger - case in point 2 : William Escher SERJ, and on, and on) and from that breakthrough technology, a complete vision is crafted.
REL back in the day (2012) churned tons of papers centered on Skylon
- Skylon & fuel depots
- Skylon and Mars (troy)
- Skylon and ISS
-[insert more "Skylon-for-something" here]
NASA did that with the Shuttle & OTV back in the 70's. Also with NERVA, and Apollo Applications. Kraff Ehricke at Convair, too. Many others.
I'm Mickaël
I ve been building and collectin aircraft models kits for more than 30 years.
I'm interested in original prototypes and projects. Hope to discover new topics on this forum and provide my contribution.
Hi all
I am bcal1 sorry to say 80years old been aeromodelling for 75years on and off 5 years before that i was learning to walk and talk. Reason for joining i really want to build a helicopter something i have not really done something like Breguet-doland gyro or some thing in that era feed up looking at all modern helis with supersonic fairings but then that`s just me.
Hi everyone, my name's GruntFox. Stumbled upon this little forum thanks to the fact that it has information on the COMVAT program. Fanfic writer and can get a bit crazy at times.
... so if I'm having a meltdown I might go on crazy rants.
Buon pomeriggio a tutti; Scrivo dall'Italia e ho 42 anni. Mi occupo di analisi forense e nel tempo libero scrivo di aviazione russa (adoro questo specifico argomento che seguo dal 1993 circa).
Scusa per il mio cattivo inglese, ma sfortunatamente ho studiato solo francese a scuola.
Hello,
Thank you for accepting me on this forum. My name is Guillaume and I am 47 years old. I live in France (La Rochelle) I am interested in secret projects. And I would like to model them in 3D. Thanks for the available plans posted by users.
Greetings , my name is Vasili. I have been interested in avaition since i was young, and did a little bit of amateur spotting a few years back. I would like to keep up with defence industry news.
I am John. I have been interested, (my wife would say obsessed), with aircraft since I was at least 4 years old.
For the last 20 years or so, I have had an aviation website at www.aeroflight.co.uk, which I was running as a hobby.
I recently retired from 35 years working on Aircraft Systems design, modelling and testing.
I now have a lot more time to devote to my personal interests. As part of this, I am developing an Aviation Enthusiasts Cloud platform. Hosted on Google Drive, and using the free version of GSuite/Google Workspace, this cloud is a collaborative research platform that allows multiple users to simultaneously work on documents – writing, editing and commenting. Thus allowing users to share data and review each others contributions.
The eventual aim is to produce a comprehensive set of peer-reviewed documentation covering the data orientated aspects of aviation – past and present.
An introduction and overview of the Aviation Enthusiasts Cloud is here.
I am also looking at writing and publishing some niche aviation books, which would not be commercially viable for mainstream publishers. These may include individual profiles on utility aircraft types, such as the LET L-410, PZL M28 and Cessna 208 etc, and also helicopters, aircraft company histories and other topics.
Hello! i'm Velns. I was born in Latvia and I moved to Australia when I was young. Quite a big history buff for prototypes and experiments during WWII and the Cold War vehicles! I'm currently studying Automotive Engineering for TAFE and I'm learning to be a Practical Lexicographer in my spare time! Looking forward to meeting everyone eventually! Have a wonderful day
I am Daniel MARTIN - 69 - from France, near Nice with my wife, I am retired from French air force (30 years, pilot on Cap10, Fouga,, T-33, Mystère IVA, Mirage IIIE, Jaguar, Tucano and Alpha Jet). I join this forum to maybe find the identification of some of my metal models. My favorite period: 1930 / 1950.
My name is Stefano and I was born in Rome in 1963.
Graduate, working as a software developer, I'm interested in weapon, ordnance, military technology and military history.
My name is Jaap and I'm 70 years old.
I was born in the 1950's in Holland (hence my nick name Old Dutch)
Our family moved to Venezuela when I was 1 year old and we lived there for 9 years.
Guess I got bitten by the aviation bug in that period for we flew to The Netherlands a few times in the planes of that era: Constellation, DC-6 and -7.
Later, as a young man I worked for KLM Engineering and stayed with them untill my retirement.
As a hobby I got hooked on Flight Simulator and also tried some 3D modeling to make scenery items and aircraft for the game.
I'm not a wizzard with it but have great fun fiddling around
My name is Colin. I'm a civilian alternate/military history enthusiast and wargamer who's been lurking on this site for a while and have finally decided to sign up.
Hello. I'm Robert/Bob, and I work in aviation development (hence 'likely to get myself in trouble'). Have always enjoyed the theoretical and speculative, and the allure of the unknowable.
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