
Spying on the Soviets with Graph Paper and a Calculator - protomyth
http://www.airspacemag.com/history-of-flight/though-a-glass-darkly-bill-sweetman-technically-speaking-column-180957300/?no-ist
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2sk21
Great article. I really miss the days when I used to run to my university
library ever week to read the latest issue of Aviation Week. A few of us
regulars used to wait for the magazine and formed an informal discussion
circle and do calculations similar to what they describe in the article.

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smcl
I wish there was more in this article. Bit of a long shot but have you got any
suggestions handy for any similarly interesting articles in Aviation Week? I
went to their site but from what I could see most of the articles were about
newly announced aircraft which is sorta interesting, but not what I was hoping
for.

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analognoise
We should try to reconstruct their methods and build a how-to for doing this.
Since the data on quite a few planes is out there, it would be really
interesting.

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na85
Aerospace engineer here: I'm on mobile so I won't get into too much detail but
if you know or have a good idea of the dimensions of the aircraft, you can get
a pretty good approximation of performance characteristics with nothing
fancier than an undergraduate flight dynamics textbook.

The shape and locations of the various control surfaces, wings, stabilizers,
etc. will let you deduce a great deal of the aircraft's handling and stability
qualities. You can make educated guesses as to the lift and drag coefficient
curves and if you have any performance data (e.g. my friend Ilya saw it going
this fast at this altitude) you can go even further by making inferences about
the propulsion system.

For me the only x-factor would be constructing a 3-view plot of the aircraft
when given only a single photo. I guess it would depend on the perspective
from which the aircraft was photographed.

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digi_owl
What is it with "rocket jockeys" and itching for (nuclear) fights? Screwing
with the F-15 program if they didn't produce numbers that showed a
intercontinental bomber threat?!

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ris
During the cold war there were perpetual battles between the ICBM guys (who
saw the main threat as ICBMs and thought most budget should be concentrated on
missile programmes) and the bomber guys (who saw the main threat as bombers
carrying nuclear payloads and thought most budget should be concentrated on
similar bomber programmes and fighter programmes for defence).

As an air force guy, fighting his corner is what you'd expect him to do.

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digi_owl
There is fighting for his corner, and there is fucking with a company's
fighter program if they don't outright lie about the performance of enemy
equipment.

That has a high potential of a own goal, to say the least.

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mannykannot
There is fighting for his corner, and there is fucking with _your nation 's
defense_ to advance your agenda. The article effectively says that Keegan was
a serial offender in this regard.

