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Bad science in fiction Hall of Shame


peadar1987

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As in most ww2 movies with fighters in them, I constantly want the pilots to pull more lead, and/or to unload the stick before shooting. I suppose their poor shooting is actually more realistic, as even the best pilots only ever fired their guns in anger rarely (vs flying 10 gajillion hours in combat flight sims (with no consequences for mistakes ;) ) to the point you can hit someone at several hundred yards with a snapshot pretty routinely) )

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  On 3/6/2021 at 4:47 PM, Gargamel said:

Spitfires do not glide like that.    Nothing glides like that.    Maybe gliders do.... but not spitfires. 

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Funny you should say that.

I know the Spitfires prior to getting the wingtips squared in the later Marks had for its time ridiculously good transonic performance (when the airflow at some point on the fuselage gets to the speed of sound and shock waves and serious wave drag starts building) with a high transonic onset Mach Number.  It had to came from a lower drag profile in the design.  So I did a bit of digging.

2017 Aug 05 Sat   usual Reddit discussion on the long glide from "Dunkirk" including unsupported comments that it had a good glide ratio, 13 to 15

'Course, being a low-drag high-speed design, that best glide ratio is going to be at a high speed, likely so high the pilot would have to have a bit of confidence and good knowledge to trust that it was the best glide speed.

2017 Aug 03 Thu   New Statesmen article with a bit of critique of "Dunkirk" both as a story and its physics and hopefully better supported info

2017 Aug 22 Tue   AVweb article talking about how the "Dunkirk" flying scenes were made also touching on other air combat films including 1969's amazing "The Battle of Britain"

2016   "The Aerodynamics of the Spitfire"  a paper with real numbers and formulae talking about the design and drag of the Hurricane and the Spitfire

I think that paper had the numbers to calculate the glide ratio, but in my skim of it seemed to never touch on it.  And I couldn't recall the formula nor wanted to look it up right now.  I leave it as an exercise for the reader. :)

Edited by Jacke
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  • 4 weeks later...

I know TV procedurals are not known for accuracy, and this is more about the procedure than the science, but this was so freakin glaring that even my wife knew it was just wrong...

The latest episode of Chicago Fire had a five-ton truck with a cargo of that was smoldering. They knew it would burst into flames when the door was opened. Hoses were charged and ready to spray foam when the door was opened (minor nitpicking: maybe start spraying before opening the door? idk). At any rate, the hose teams had their helmets on, but no face shield, probably not needed for them. But the guy that opened the door, with his hands (another point: maybe use a stick or similar to open, to be able to stand to the side? still not the main headshaker) had the rest of his turnout gear on, but no face shield, and not even the helmet. A beanie toque, sure, but maybe a soaking wet towel over his head would have been good, but no.

Summary: Let's stand in front of a roll-up door known to have a smoldering cargo behind it, with no facial protection at all, and open it. Like, c'mon, seriously?

triple-facepalm.jpg

yeah, I know, CF (and other TV procedurals) is chock full of things done just plain wrong if not stupidly, for the sake of the story and/or to add drama, but in this case it added nothing. They really need to lay off the stuff where even a layman has to facepalm. An old elevator rescue scene in that show also comes to mind.

Mind you, I suppose there is a science to using the proper procedure, often learned the hard way..

 

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  On 3/6/2021 at 4:47 PM, Gargamel said:

Spitfires do not glide like that.    Nothing glides like that.    Maybe gliders do.... but not spitfires.  

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A U2 managed to glide from Tennessee to Arizona (or vice versa.  Call it 2500km if you aren't  familiar with American geography).  Of course you could claim that a U2 was a glider with a jet engine.

Then there's the Pelan/Perlan 2.  How does it soar?  How about higher than said U2.

U2 (I think the story involves a SR-71) to flight control: "request clearance for FL600" (60,000 ft, call it 18km)
Air Traffic Control: "(joking) it is yours if you can get that high"
U2: "descending to FL600"

Probably mythical, as I don't think 60,000 ft is controlled airspace (modulo notice to airmen around rocket launch sites).

Edited by wumpus
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Not saying it proves anything for what happened in the movie, but I do wonder how the spitfire compares with the shrike in terms of L/D ratio? A quick google shows the spit’s L/D max out around 13 at best glide... nothing found for the shrike.

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For All Mankind season 2.

The Director of JSC and the Pentagon liaison to NASA are talking. The Soviets, in this alternate timeline, have built a cosmodrome on Sakhalin. Buran will launch from there for its first flight.

The Pentagon liaison then shows stolen drawings of Buran to the JSC director. He asks if it can be armed (KAL 007 just happened and tensions are high, while the Americans are planning to put "missiles" on their own Shuttle II known as Pathfinder. More about that later).

The JSC director then remarks how Buran is an "identical copy" of the space shuttle, down to the SRBs. Here is where alarm bells begin to ring. But Wikipedia states that despite their reservations, the Soviets briefly considered using SRBs. So maybe its ok.

The real offense is this- the drawings are of the real life Energia-Buran with the LRBs.

Now for part 2-

Pathfinder apparently uses a nuclear thermal rocket engine instead of SSMEs. On a Space Shuttle.

Edited by SunlitZelkova
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  On 4/5/2021 at 10:13 AM, kerbiloid said:

For All Mankind: When Marvel Starts Writing The History.

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Now-now, they haven't broken out "fusion" and "quantum".

  On 4/5/2021 at 9:13 AM, SunlitZelkova said:

The JSC director then remarks how Buran is an "identical copy" of the space shuttle, down to the SRBs.

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There's this one self-gratifying NBC article by an ex-CIA type that gets reposted all over the place. I imagine they used it as the sole source.

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  On 4/5/2021 at 1:17 PM, DDE said:

Now-now, they haven't broken out "fusion" and "quantum".

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They will next season.   But with all the sci-fi errors, I'm still kind of enjoying the show.   The storylines are fun, if not a bit campy, and the actors are all pretty good.  Just don't expect to learn anything accurate from there.  

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  On 4/4/2021 at 7:00 PM, wumpus said:

A U2 managed to glide from Tennessee to Arizona (or vice versa.  Call it 2500km if you aren't  familiar with American geography).  Of course you could claim that a U2 was a glider with a jet engine.

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Yeah, but that's a glider with engines :D .  

This fighter was at low altitude and speed to start with, glided the length of a beach, made a hard turn, lined up on and shot an enemy, then glided back up the beach the way he came, for quite some distance.   In at least one of the directions the wind would not have been helping him.  

I'm not saying that a Spitfire didn't run out of fuel, down an enemy to to protect the troops while gliding, and then glide to a landing on the beach, just that how they showed it doesn't work in reality.  

 

Not even the shuttle flying upside down has that good of a glide ratio. 

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It looks like fat cessna for me. Maybe 12.

https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=&sl=ru&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fru.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FАэродинамическое_качество%23Аэродинамическое_качество_некоторых_летательных_аппаратов_и_птиц

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  On 4/5/2021 at 1:17 PM, DDE said:

Now-now, they haven't broken out "fusion" and "quantum".

There's this one self-gratifying NBC article by an ex-CIA type that gets reposted all over the place. I imagine they used it as the sole source.

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I'm not sure they did much research at all on the Soviet side of things. When the astronauts for Apollo-Soyuz arrive in Star City (which is happening in 1983) they are greeted by five soldiers with AKs, and then immediately subject to a pat down. Even during the Reagan-Andropov era I doubt they would receive such a cold welcome.

Also their point of divergence is fairly implausible. Just 30 minutes of scrolling through pages on astronautix will show anyone that even if Korolev survived his surgery, and even if the N1 worked, the Soviets were not going to beat the US to the Moon.

Edited by SunlitZelkova
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  On 4/5/2021 at 11:29 PM, SunlitZelkova said:

they are greeted by five soldiers with AKs, and then immediately subject to a pat down.

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That's just how things always are in Hollywood Soviet Russia. Different kind of bad, just as widespread.

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  • 2 weeks later...

For all man kind, s02e09.

It's pretty fun to

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but

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Also the AK and M16 are air cooled. According to a scene in an earlier episode, apart from being painted to "prevent them from melting in their hands" nothing has been done to modify the rifles (except the scopes). I don't think they would do too well in a vacuum.

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A water-cooled Lunar Maxim Gun.

They can use lunar ice for it.

"Cool even on the Moon."

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(Who cares about its 30 kg weight? On the Moon it's just 5. You can hold it in hands on the gunner deputy back.)

Edited by kerbiloid
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  On 4/16/2021 at 7:08 PM, SunlitZelkova said:

Also the AK and M16 are air cooled. According to a scene in an earlier episode, apart from being painted to "prevent them from melting in their hands" nothing has been done to modify the rifles (except the scopes). I don't think they would do too well in a vacuum.

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A right and proper moonblaster?

scale_1200

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  On 4/17/2021 at 1:44 PM, DDE said:

A right and proper moonblaster?

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As they were hiding in a jumbo fuel tank, it was also about a wet workshop.

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P.S.
And that's the movie which they watch before every Soyuz launch, btw.
It's about the Moon, see the regolith and the 3d-printed structures on the background.

Edited by kerbiloid
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  On 4/17/2021 at 6:40 PM, Gargamel said:

Yes.... but they weren't spaceflight capable.... just.... ehhhhh.... I watch it for the story more than the science...

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I saw the actual Space Shuttle in the season 2 trailer and decided from that alone not to watch season 2 at all, lol.

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