It DID stop being dangerous...right around the time that photo was taken!
This is why I actually believe that F1 drivers from say the 1960s - the 1980s actually WERE better than those that came after. When those earlier folks were driving, there was a material risk that if they screwed up, they'd end up dead. When the penalty of failure is actually dying, it tends to sharpen the sense, what?
I put the dividing line at Senna, although of course that's a bit arbitrary. There's a reason - beyond Ferrari - that Schumacher became so effective. He learned to drive in an era with risk against a bunch of drivers who for the most part lived without it. The implicit attention to detail that comes with that type of commitment is very, very different than a time when Robert Kubica can tumble down the track at 150MPH and race again the next weekend.
I put the dividing line at Senna, although of course that's a bit arbitrary. There's a reason - beyond Ferrari - that Schumacher became so effective. He learned to drive in an era with risk against a bunch of drivers who for the most part lived without it. The implicit attention to detail that comes with that type of commitment is very, very different than a time when Robert Kubica can tumble down the track at 150MPH and race again the next weekend.
@HJTravels: Thank god someone remembers a GOOD rocket (good in rocketry being defined as big and awesome).
This just emphasizes how boring modern transportation is. That's about 1/4 of what a Saturn V system could deliver to the moon, and about 1/10th of what the same system could deliver to LEO.
The U.S. space program just makes me sad.
And let's not get started on airplanes. The fastest commercial jet was fielded in the '60s (Concorde) and even the medium-haul equipment, like the old 1960s-era 727 (cruise at over mach 0.81, max 0.90), was faster than their modern equivalents, like the 737 (cruise at mach 0.75 or so, max mach 0.81). Pathetic.
The U.S. space program just makes me sad.
And let's not get started on airplanes. The fastest commercial jet was fielded in the '60s (Concorde) and even the medium-haul equipment, like the old 1960s-era 727 (cruise at over mach 0.81, max 0.90), was faster than their modern equivalents, like the 737 (cruise at mach 0.75 or so, max mach 0.81). Pathetic.
Am I the only one that thinks that Ms. ZF needs to cut back on the nachos?
Once again, Porsche delivers attractive disappointment.
This suggests a factory motorsports effort, but not anything close to a prototype one or anything resembling "all out". This is a GT-class car. It's way too fat to be a dedicated Le Mans/GTP/blah blah blah dedicated race car. Look how high it is!
To my relatively uneducated eye, it looks like a closed-cockpit, hotted-up 918 Spyder with relatively immature aerodynamics.
This is clearly not an update of a classic Porsche racer; this is a very attractive road car with racy bits on it.
This suggests a factory motorsports effort, but not anything close to a prototype one or anything resembling "all out". This is a GT-class car. It's way too fat to be a dedicated Le Mans/GTP/blah blah blah dedicated race car. Look how high it is!
To my relatively uneducated eye, it looks like a closed-cockpit, hotted-up 918 Spyder with relatively immature aerodynamics.
This is clearly not an update of a classic Porsche racer; this is a very attractive road car with racy bits on it.
@gnarlycharlie4u: Right. Water weighs about 8 pounds per gallon. My guess is that it's more like 6 - 8x 250,000 = 1.5 - 2.0MM pounds.
Virginia is the home of the personalized plate. I once saw a mid-50s woman driving an older S-Class Mercedes with a license plate that I was truly amazed passed:
EINVOLK
Those of you up on your Nazi propaganda will no doubt see the source of my concern...
EINVOLK
Those of you up on your Nazi propaganda will no doubt see the source of my concern...
There was a neat article in either Road & Track or Car & Driver where they had a race car driver in a 458 Italia and a bike racer of some sort on a Ducati 1198S (which is slower than the Bay-Em-Vay above). I was surprised by the result - the bike was MUCH faster around the track. The 458 is very fast, has the right tires and even has a little aero.
Cool article, though - and in a car magazine, so I buy it.
The most surprising part was that the bike had higher corner speeds / g-loads; the car had modestly better braking, but everywhere else the bike was quicker. I strongly recommend it.
Cool article, though - and in a car magazine, so I buy it.
The most surprising part was that the bike had higher corner speeds / g-loads; the car had modestly better braking, but everywhere else the bike was quicker. I strongly recommend it.
@Torque: I used to believe that this was true, too. Now I'm not so sure. There might be - in the absence of aero effects - an advantage, and a real one, to the engine location.
In F1 and other racing series, aero dominates and effectively disjoins traction from the weight distribution of the car.
In road cars, though, weight distribution means a lot. And in the 911 what we see is that it can hop out of turns with greater alacrity than anything else - and it can brake harder, more often - precisely because of where the engine is located.
There was a recent comparo by a pro race driver between the GT2 RS and the Ferrari 599 GTO. The GT2 RS was faster around a track, due to its weight distribution and despite inferior aero and power. Road and Track did a comparo with pro race drivers of street cars vs. their track equivalents. Most interesting was how much faster the 911 GT3 was than the Ferrari F430. The GT3 is down on power, doesn't have the fancy transmission etc. - and ran 2:06 to the Ferrari's 2:12, on the same day each with optimum driving.
I'm increasingly of the view that Porsche, by accident, came upon a SUPERIOR engine location for cars without major downforce. As long as the rear suspension is sorted...otherwise, watch out!
In F1 and other racing series, aero dominates and effectively disjoins traction from the weight distribution of the car.
In road cars, though, weight distribution means a lot. And in the 911 what we see is that it can hop out of turns with greater alacrity than anything else - and it can brake harder, more often - precisely because of where the engine is located.
There was a recent comparo by a pro race driver between the GT2 RS and the Ferrari 599 GTO. The GT2 RS was faster around a track, due to its weight distribution and despite inferior aero and power. Road and Track did a comparo with pro race drivers of street cars vs. their track equivalents. Most interesting was how much faster the 911 GT3 was than the Ferrari F430. The GT3 is down on power, doesn't have the fancy transmission etc. - and ran 2:06 to the Ferrari's 2:12, on the same day each with optimum driving.
I'm increasingly of the view that Porsche, by accident, came upon a SUPERIOR engine location for cars without major downforce. As long as the rear suspension is sorted...otherwise, watch out!
I love these things. When I was growing up in Florida, a formation of them used to bomb Lee County with insecticide to help control the mosquito population. It was fantastic. They'd zoom in at tree-top level at 6:30 a.m., a smoky cloud of foul-smelling poison blanketing the area.
I LOVED it. They flew out of a WWII-area airfield, too.
Really cool, and Jalopnik is not wrong to describe this as one of the most important aircraft in aviation history. Still service 75 years after their initial introduction, the DC-3 gives great weight to the idea that if it looks good, it flies good.
I LOVED it. They flew out of a WWII-area airfield, too.
Really cool, and Jalopnik is not wrong to describe this as one of the most important aircraft in aviation history. Still service 75 years after their initial introduction, the DC-3 gives great weight to the idea that if it looks good, it flies good.
@Jono: +1 to that.
Best. Jalopnik. Diagrams. Ever.
@UnlimitedRevs: The shuttle makes me nonlinear. Although you're 100% right - it's actually not the shuttle per se but the bureaucratic inertia that's the real problem. The story behind the decision to launch Challenger actually illustrates a lot of the problems with NASA and its contractors. Very illuminating stuff.
I personally don't believe that it was crippled in the '80s, and we differ on that point - as a design / engineering exercise it was worthwhile. But there needed to be either a gen 2 (a complete re-do) or it needed to be relegated in favor of cheaper / easier / bigger stuff.
I view the amount of re-working they had to do after every mission as so substantial, even up until the final missions, that it was suggestive of a prototype program from which lessons simply weren't learned or for which there weren't viable solutions.
Under any circumstance, passion for manned exploration of space is important - and insofar as the shuttle put people (a lot of them!) out there, it was a successful program.
I personally don't believe that it was crippled in the '80s, and we differ on that point - as a design / engineering exercise it was worthwhile. But there needed to be either a gen 2 (a complete re-do) or it needed to be relegated in favor of cheaper / easier / bigger stuff.
I view the amount of re-working they had to do after every mission as so substantial, even up until the final missions, that it was suggestive of a prototype program from which lessons simply weren't learned or for which there weren't viable solutions.
Under any circumstance, passion for manned exploration of space is important - and insofar as the shuttle put people (a lot of them!) out there, it was a successful program.
@k_stokes: I'm bigger than you by a bit and mine feels spacious. Is it a real one? You know the seats go back...
@TR3-A: That's cool (that you got to know the guy) and a sad story (about the god damn space shuttle, those fucks).
@UnlimitedRevs: I'm not a troll, and I'll wager that I know a lot more about aero stuff (and engineering in general) than you do, unless you're in the industry in one way or another.
Of course I know what f**cking wings do. But on a spacecraft, particularly one designed to put heavy things into orbit, they're heavy, create complexity, waste space with structural reinforcement in the fuselage, create a greater area for heat accumulation increasing the probability of a catastrophic failure spewing parts and people across half the U.S. etc.
If you want wings on a space ship, then either go back to kindergarden or do it for a good reason, like upper atmosphere loiter or easier recovery of expensive spy equipment (e.g., that recent Boeing project). But for a LIFTING vehicle they are RETARDED. Every pound you put on the "reusable" shuttle is a pound that could have been lifted into space. Weight is at even more of a premium on space stuff than on airplanes.
So I stand by my view: the space shuttle is an overly complex science fair project that has set America's manned space program back by more than two decades and possibly three.
Putting heavy sh** into orbit or beyond is the point, and whacking off over some airplane looking thingy.
Of course I know what f**cking wings do. But on a spacecraft, particularly one designed to put heavy things into orbit, they're heavy, create complexity, waste space with structural reinforcement in the fuselage, create a greater area for heat accumulation increasing the probability of a catastrophic failure spewing parts and people across half the U.S. etc.
If you want wings on a space ship, then either go back to kindergarden or do it for a good reason, like upper atmosphere loiter or easier recovery of expensive spy equipment (e.g., that recent Boeing project). But for a LIFTING vehicle they are RETARDED. Every pound you put on the "reusable" shuttle is a pound that could have been lifted into space. Weight is at even more of a premium on space stuff than on airplanes.
So I stand by my view: the space shuttle is an overly complex science fair project that has set America's manned space program back by more than two decades and possibly three.
Putting heavy sh** into orbit or beyond is the point, and whacking off over some airplane looking thingy.
The Saturn V was a truly amazing achievement, and it's pathetic and sad that with our computers and advanced materials we can't even get to that level of heavy lift capability.
Every time I think about the waste and stupidity of the space shuttle, though, I get angrier and angrier. WINGS? Are you f888ing kidding me? Please explain how making more than one of these made any sense whatsoever. Wait. Don't bother. Because you can't.
The space shuttle, in my view, effectively destroyed America's space program. We'd have men on Mars today without that abomination. And probably more and bigger satellites, too.
/rant over
Every time I think about the waste and stupidity of the space shuttle, though, I get angrier and angrier. WINGS? Are you f888ing kidding me? Please explain how making more than one of these made any sense whatsoever. Wait. Don't bother. Because you can't.
The space shuttle, in my view, effectively destroyed America's space program. We'd have men on Mars today without that abomination. And probably more and bigger satellites, too.
/rant over
@Graviton1066: Mmmm...has there been a successful launch of this thing yet? I thought it was still in development.
@Buck_Turgidson: The opposite of obscure. This is synonymous with awesome.
