Build Your Own Model B-52

Assmasher writes "Who says the cold war is over? Wren Turbines, a UK based manufacturer of scale modeling jet engines (usually for remote control aircraft), has provided the engines for a 300lbs+ scale replica of Boeing's B-52. This isn't normal Slashdot fare; however, it is nerdy enough, crazy enough, and if you watch the videos, cool enough to warrant serious geek attention. At roughly $3k per turbine, this is a serious piece of engineering. The sound alone is amazing!"

Comments

Freecache links

[JS_RIDDLER]

Freecache links... I tested all of these first
B52_Test1.wmv
B52%20008.wmv
B52%20006.wmv

Re:Freecache links

[FFFish]

Is there any fucking reason Slashdot isn't hosting BitTorrent feeds of these sorts of things? I mean, goddamn, Wren's home page says right up front they'd appreciate consideration for their bandwidth.

Pure and simple laziness and disrespect on the part of Slashdot, this is. We frigging nuke people's websites with our numbers, blindsiding both site owners and their hosts with the hammering a Slashdotting gives out.

The very fucking least we, as a community -- and this really means Taco and company getting off their asses and coding it -- should do is be kind enough to make use of our superiour technical skills and knowhow, and automatically mirror humongous files to a BitTorrent feed.

It should not be difficult to do:
1. Parse new stories for URLs.
2. Spider said URL at least one level deep. And single files weighing in at, say, 1Mb and larger being Torrented.
3. On posting the story, replace large-file URLs with Torrent reference.

Result: A global community that doesn't live in mortal fear of being noticed by Slashdot, and a fantastic reduction in the number of Slashdotted sites, which means all of end-users will be happier. A win-win-win situation that's both courteous and beneficial.

Just $3k per turbine?

[Realistic_Dragon]

On the Eurofighter project we pay more than that for a hammer.

Beats the hell..

[fiannaFailMan]

...out of that flying model Starship Enterprise that we had a few days ago. Mind you, the phasers and torpedoes would probably make mincemeat out of this thing!

The B52 is just wierd

[Realistic_Dragon]

If you look at it you can see it ha a bycicle undercarriage (forward and back wheel sets instead of nosewheel+main gear). It also has wings with an unusually high attack angle with respect to the main fuse.

This leads to some crazy descent angle where the arcraft seems to be flying directly AT THE GROUND until it flares at the last second to place the wheel sets parallel to the runway to touchdown.

It's perfectly safe but damn, that's a wierd feeling when you are riding in one.

Re:The B52 is just wierd

[Anonymous Coward]

Another thing that's weird about the B-52 is the way it deals with the crosswind. It doesn't use flaps to stay parallel with the runway. It turns into the wind and rotates the wheels to be parallel with the runway. It's just a massive plane.

Re:The B52 is just wierd

[hkb]

It also has wings with an unusually high attack angle with respect to the main fuse.

This was a later model modification to help the B-52's stability with low level flight at its new role as a low-altitude bomber. Formerly, the B-52 was a high altitude bomber and had a much less steep attack angle.

You should see the B-52 crab control at work. You haven't lived until you've seen a B-52 land in a blizzard with its nose pointed well to the right of the runway, even though it's still going down the runway's path.

I saw one almost spin out of control on landing once, too. That is a freaky sight.

Any other former bomb/nav in the house?

Re:The B52 is just wierd

[Wyatt Earp]

He wasn't drunk and he didn't nose dive it.

http://s92270093.onlinehome.us/crmdevel/resource s/ paper/darkblue/darkblue.htm

"On the 24th of June 1994, Czar 52, a B-52H assigned to the 325th Bomb Squadron, 92d Bomb Wing, Fairchild Air Force Base, WA, launched at approximate 1358 hours Pacific Daylight Time (PDT), to practice maneuvers for an upcoming airshow. The aircrew had the planned and briefed a profile, through the Wing Commander level, that grossly exceeded aircraft and regulatory limitations. Upon preparing to land at the end of the practice airshow profile, the crew was required to execute a "go-around" or missed approach because of another aircraft on the runway. At mid-field, Czar 52 began a tight 360 degree left turn around the control tower at only 250 feet altitude above ground level (AGL). Approximately three quarters of the way through the turn, the aircraft banked past 90 degrees, stalled, clipped a power line with the left wing and crashed. Impact occurred at approximately 1416 hours PDT. There were no survivors out of a crew of four field grade officers.

Killed in the crash were Lt Col Arthur "Bud" Holland, the Chief of the 92d Bomb Wing Standardization and Evaluation branch. Lt Col Holland, an instructor pilot, was designated as the aircraft commander and was undoubtedly flying the aircraft at the time of the accident. 4 The copilot was Lt Col Mark McGeehan, also an instructor pilot and the 325th Bomb Squadron (BMS) Commander. There is a great deal of evidence that suggests considerable animosity existed between the two pilots who were at the controls of Czar 52..

This was a result of Lt Col McGeehan's unsuccessful efforts to have Bud Holland "grounded" for what he perceived as numerous and flagrant violations of air discipline while flying with 325th BMS aircrews. Colonel Robert Wolff was the Vice Wing Commander and was added to the flying schedule as a safety observer by Col Brooks, the Wing Commander, on the morning of the mishap. This was to be Col Wolff's "fini flight," an Air Force tradition where an aviator is hosed down following his last flight in an aircraft. Upon landing, Col Wolff was to be met on the flightline by his wife and friends for a champagne toast to a successful flying career. The radar navigator position was filled by Lt Col Ken Huston, the 325th BMS Operations Officer."

We'll meet again...

[k4_pacific]

Does it come with a little figurine of Slim Pickens sitting on a nuclear bomb that drops out the bottom?

"How many times have I told you boys that I don't want no horsin' around on the airplane?"

Re:We'll meet again...

[Grog6]

That was actually my first thought;" How do we scale the 100Megaton blockbusters from Dr.Strangelove?"

Hell, at that size, maybe they'd only be ~1Megaton, but WTF?

five or six of these, with scaled weapons, would that give enough plausible deniability?

"It appears the nuclear attack on (insert favorite islamic target here) was the work of a rogue group of RC modelers....

Re:We'll meet again...

[Burdell]

The wingspan looks like about 6 feet to me, which would make it about 1/30 scale. IIRC, the bombs in Dr. Strangelove were supposed to be about 20 megatons. If you could scale the bomb the same way, you would still have a bomb with the force equivalent to about 740 tons of TNT. That's still a lot of deterrent to most things if delivered accurately; for example, the Oklahoma City bombing was equivalent to about 1.5 tons of TNT and the 9/11 World Trade Towers attack (both planes) equivalent to about 900 tons.

Mine doesn't look right

[The I Shing]

I followed the instructions and my B-52 model looks like Fred Schneider. I was hoping for Kate Pierson. Dang.

The airforce fact sheet

[ignatus]

hwo want's the gory details? The airforce fact sheet

Nice video, but ....

[Honkytonkwomen]

....what I really want to know is if it has the range to get here?

in-flight refueling?

[victor_the_cleaner]

So when can we expect them to build the KC-135 tanker and re-fuel in the air?

Well...

[ptomblin]

Somebody already made a Cri-Cri (world's smallest plane) powered by two of these engines/a.. It scares the hell out me just thinking of it.

I'll stick with my PA32R-300, thanks.

Scaled Nuke for my B-52

[Anonymous Coward]

www.brook.edu/FP/projects/nucwcost/davyc.htm
the W54 warhead should fit nicely in the bomb bay, although at 51lbs might be a little heavy.

The W54 warhead used on the Davy Crockett bazooka weighed just 51 pounds and was the smallest and lightest fission bomb (implosion type) ever deployed by the United States, with a variable explosive yield of 0.01 kilotons (equivalent to 10 tons of TNT, or two to four times as powerful as the ammonium nitrate bomb which destroyed the Alfred P. Murrah federal building in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995), or 0.02 kilotons-1 kiloton. A 58.6 pound variant?the B54?was used in the Special Atomic Demolition Munition (SADM), a nuclear land mine deployed in Europe, South Korea, Guam, and the United States from 1964-1989.

B-52s are a cinch to make!

[IllogicalStudent]

Amateurs... B-52s are simple to make; and cheap!

• 1/3 shot Kahlua
• 1/3 shot Amaretto
• 1/3 shot Bailey's irish cream

Layer the Kahlua, Amaretto, and Irish Cream into a shot glass in that order. After drinking, notice the Vapor Trails.

I mean, really, aren't they teaching ANYTHING in schools nowadays?

Re:Expensive Hobbies

[morcheeba]

They actually haven't landed it yet. They noticed a problem with the the gear, so they've been in-air refueling with this kc-135A stratotanker until they figured out a way to deal with it. The current plan is to shut down the M52 and land it on a flatbed tractor tailer (remember it's 23' wide, so it is 4 lanes wide!!)

(please, don't reply if you think I'm serious with this comment, because someone will point out that they are completely different scales and will start worrying that that won't work)

They'd need to...

[Goonie]

While I haven't seen the specs on this model, if they're anything like most minijets they'll chew fuel at an astounding rate of knots. While I can't find the stats for the Wren, the smallest model made by this company uses 250 grams (9 ounces) of fuel per minute at full throttle. Even assuming the Wren uses half the fuel, with 8 engines that's 1kg of fuel per minute. That's 1.6 *litres* of fuel per minute, or, if you like, about 140 seconds of flying time for every US gallon of fuel, if I've done my sums right.

This is why small GA aircraft use propellers, by the way.

Landing?

[ZorMonkey]

No videos of it landing? Oh dear, they mustve crashed it! Wait, no videos of it crashing? Even worse! Oh dear, they mustve crashed it into the cameraman! Hopefully next time they'll have 2 cameramen.