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Real Life "Kerbalisms"


Lisias

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On 5/16/2022 at 10:11 AM, kerbiloid said:

French howitzer Caesar.

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Watch attentionally its reloading sequence.

Do they use Infernal Robotics or Breaking Ground to make that?

The loading arm seems so grossly unnecessary. Although if it's on 2S7, maybe it's worth it.

Spoiler

 

And now that we went there, there's something really hilarious about the M777 in tow configuration.

130930-M-FX659-035.JPG

Somehow the D30 manages to retain its dignity.

Spoiler

 

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It does take some effort to mate a 152 mm to a carriage from a 122 mm

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6 hours ago, DDE said:

The loading arm seems so grossly unnecessary. Although if it's on 2S7, maybe it's worth it.

There are other videos where the cute side arm doesn't present, and poor soldiers carry the shells by arms.
So, it's a bit of sugar.

Also, in KSP you hardly can use 7 Kerbals per cannon, while IR & BG still exist.

But Archer is the most Kerbal combat vehicle ever. Just one Kerbal is needed, and it doesn't leave the cabin.

Edited by kerbiloid
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21 hours ago, Lisias said:

I'm proud of the Swiss!

"A company from Switzerland called AirYacht gives you the chance to hook your ship to a massive helium-filled airship and take a pleasure cruise through the skies in a yacht."

airyacht_resize_md.jpeg

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Source: https://interestingengineering.com/hybrid-flying-luxury-yacht-land

Not bad, not terrible. But I'm aftaid Item №2 is an immobile mansion.

Also,

481px-USS_Los_Angeles_(ZR-3)_NH_84569.jp

I don't think these people have looked too much into blimps, and why they require docking systems.

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12 minutes ago, DDE said:

Saw the Super Bendy Bus from a Cities: Skylines DLC/paid mod, and my mind went "What the everloving heck, are these real!?"

Well,

9faac23488ca7fcc94f0a4358767caf60a58a7eb

There're some of these around here where I live:

img_2938.jpg

And this is from another state of my country:

4275c9c76b443920a24966cff54299c6.jpg

The very interesting thing is that besides being a puller (the second axle from front to rear does the traction), the engine is on very rear - so we have two articulated drive shaft from the engine to the driving axle. And I don't have the slightest idea how they do with the gear shift! 

On a side note, the last wagon where the engine lies is bumpy as hell, by God's sal]ke. The most comfortable wagon is the first one - dual axled. By a mile!

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4 hours ago, Lisias said:

The very interesting thing is that besides being a puller (the second axle from front to rear does the traction), the engine is on very rear - so we have two articulated drive shaft from the engine to the driving axle. And I don't have the slightest idea how they do with the gear shift! 

Not an issue here: the buses are electric.

AA59E74A-DF03-8608-EF0A4000B09576E4.jpg

https://www.bernmobil.ch/file/Unternehmen/Portrait/Fahrzeugpark/SwissTrolley5-DGTB.PDF

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7 hours ago, Lisias said:

There're some of these around here where I live:

img_2938.jpg

And this is from another state of my country:

4275c9c76b443920a24966cff54299c6.jpg

The very interesting thing is that besides being a puller (the second axle from front to rear does the traction), the engine is on very rear - so we have two articulated drive shaft from the engine to the driving axle. And I don't have the slightest idea how they do with the gear shift! 

On a side note, the last wagon where the engine lies is bumpy as hell, by God's sal]ke. The most comfortable wagon is the first one - dual axled. By a mile!

Having just one axes on both of the back and center segment feels like making it bumpy. Say you drive over an small bump, if the middle section front goes up if will force the rear section front down Having two axis on the center one should eliminate much of this but would make it longer and increase the turning diameter. 

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3 minutes ago, magnemoe said:

Having just one axes on both of the back and center segment feels like making it bumpy. Say you drive over an small bump, if the middle section front goes up if will force the rear section front down

Believe me, I know! :D

 

4 minutes ago, magnemoe said:

Having two axis on the center one should eliminate much of this but would make it longer and increase the turning diameter. 

Believe me, I don't care!!! :sticktongue:

It's funny to remember now, but at that time I got sick with the motion. It's like sailing on rough seas! :) 

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8 hours ago, DDE said:

Saw the Super Bendy Bus from a Cities: Skylines DLC/paid mod, and my mind went "What the everloving heck, are these real!?"

Well,

9faac23488ca7fcc94f0a4358767caf60a58a7eb

In Calgary, Alberta, Canada, there's just the 2-part versions of this bus.  My personal nickname for them is the Wiggle Bus.  But a 3-part Wiggle Bus....whoa.

 

2 hours ago, Lisias said:

No one beats the Dutch, however!!! :)

 

 

I wonder if that's fresh water or sea water.  The later would complicate corrosion quite a bit.

And the Wiggle Bus reminds me of the end of Thunderball (1965) for some reason. :)

Spoiler

 

 

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When speaking of electric...

U10582P2T836D186F28315DT20141209021352.j

Solarpulse. A plane. It's wings are longer than that of Boeing 747s. But its mass is close to a household SUV. POWERED SOLELY BY SOLAR PANELS. Solarpulse. This plane did a circumnavigation in 2015.

XpXnxA.jpg

I was given a cap featuring this plane when I visited the Swiss Consulate in my city.

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12 hours ago, CFYL said:

When speaking of electric...

U10582P2T836D186F28315DT20141209021352.j

Solarpulse. A plane. It's wings are longer than that of Boeing 747s. But its mass is close to a household SUV. POWERED SOLELY BY SOLAR PANELS. Solarpulse. This plane did a circumnavigation in 2015.

XpXnxA.jpg

I was given a cap featuring this plane when I visited the Swiss Consulate in my city.

As an old glider pilot my first thought was that in a turn those huge wings would generate a horrendous amount of adverse aileron effect, which would explain the big rudder. It would take a lot of rudder input to counteract the initial aileron drag. I suspect that the aircraft is not much fun to fly. I imagine that advances in technology would now enable us to make a much smaller, more efficient electric aircraft.

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7 hours ago, benzman said:

As an old glider pilot my first thought was that in a turn those huge wings would generate a horrendous amount of adverse aileron effect, which would explain the big rudder. It would take a lot of rudder input to counteract the initial aileron drag.

Nice catch - kinda obvious, but I missed that! :)

 

7 hours ago, benzman said:

I suspect that the aircraft is not much fun to fly. 

Neither the U2, by the way - for similar reasons, that huge wingspan (and the need to fly near the coffin's corner)

 

7 hours ago, benzman said:

I imagine that advances in technology would now enable us to make a much smaller, more efficient electric aircraft.

Being the reason I think this craft may be a R&D for some military/strategical purposes. On a blind guess, I think they need enough solar panels for both charge the internal batteries to keep it flying without direct Sun light for some time and also to power the engines at the same time.

Humm, reading again the article, I found that it circumnavigated the globe in 2015… So it had to fly at night, only on batteries. I think this explains the size of the thing, it's all batteries!

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@kerbiloid Oh yeah, those "micro excavators" as I like to call them (I don't know the proper name for them, I might have hit it right on the nose by having a good guess).

they're pretty common in suburban work, because of the tendency for most houses to have small and/or nonexistent backyards, and actually not that Kerbal at all if you actually analyze them beyond "hey that looks super weird". They're optimized for a specific constraint, which in this case is the ability to use power earthmoving equipment in confined spaces.

However, the small size of such earth moving equipment raises another niche that this equipment might be able to be adapted to.

Lunar earthmoving.
Sure, the equipment might not need to operate in confined spaces on the surface of the Moon, but space is absolutely at a premium while transporting that equipment to the Moon's surface from Earth, so it already being quite small and yet capable is an excellent starting place for Lunar rated excavation, bulldozing, and grading equipment IMO.

The uses I foresee such equipment being used for on the Lunar surface is things like grading and otherwise improving landing sites and colony foundation embankments (or outright burying colony modules in the regolith to take advantage of "free" radiation shielding) and the like. Naturally modifications such as most structural elements being replaced with high strength Aluminum (to save mass) and considerations made for the low gravity environment would of course need to be made.
But the compact size of such "micro" earth moving equipment as the "micro-excavator" shown in that image seems to me to be ideal (if maybe even a tad large) for inclusion on a lander that is intended to build a colony. And if Lunar Starship is successful and is retained, then the high payload capability of that lander should make it rather easy to land many such pieces of Lunar-adapted earthmoving equipment all at once.

Now of course, with this micro earth moving equipment being usually powered by internal combustion engines on Earth, the issue of how to power the hydraulics would have to be addressed. However, the solution is absolutely within reach using current technology.
This doesn't have to be as complex as replacing all the hydraulic cylinders and motors with electric ones (which remains an option, if using similar technology used on the 787's flight control actuators which are all electrically-driven). Of course, replacing the hydraulic motors with electric motors seems reasonable, but the pistons can be retained as "rather ordinary" hydraulic pistons.
How do you move the hydraulic fluid to those pistons?
That's not too hard. All that needs to be done is to replace the internal combustion engine and fuel tank with an electric motor and battery pack.
To recharge that battery pack, the lander that puts the earth moving equipment on the surface could be fitted with more solar panels and larger batteries than it strictly "needs" for its own purposes of completing the landing, in order to have excess power generation capacity for use by the earthmoving equipment.
Somehow the batteries would have to be engineered to survive being frozen by the 14-ish Earth day long Lunar night, but that's probably a solvable problem as well. If not, then fuel cells could be used instead of batteries, but the issue would be how to supply them with the needed hydrogen and oxygen (likely carried on the lander, tho transferring it would be much more challenging than simply supplying electricity to the equipment from the lander's solar panels and batteries).

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14 hours ago, Lisias said:

 

Neither the U2, by the way - for similar reasons, that huge wingspan (and the need to fly near the coffin's corner)

Years ago at an English airshow I spoke to a U2 pilot, a woman by the way, and she told me that at maximum altitude the U2 was flying on a knife-edge for the reason you state.  Also it was difficult to land in any crosswind as the bicycle undercarriage meant that it always had to be landed dead straight. I read somewhere that if a U2 at maximum altitude started a turn the lower wing could could be stall buffeting and the upper wing, which is moving slightly faster, could be experiencing transonic mach buffets.  It all sounds rather ugly. 

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