Category: Essay

Hyperfans

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I just came up with an alternate aviation term. Hyperfan, referring to such gigantic bypass ratio-turbines as the NK-93 and Rolls Royce Contrafan. These so far never-were powerplants get amazing fuel efficiency-at the cost of basically everything else. Like complexity, size (that drag can’t be good), and other stuff I don’t know because I’m not an aeronautical engineer.

In real life these concepts get names like “shrouded propfans” which are very cumbersome and not very intuitive. Furthermore, there isn’t a consistent definition of them. Hyperfan is obvious and very smooth-flowing. It’s a hyper-powered fan engine to the layman, and that’s who names them.

Paradrops

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The problem with large parachute drops, especially post-World War II, is that you need to be able to get a bunch of large transport planes to the DZ. However, if you are able to do that, chances are you won’t need to do something as risky as a parachute landing anyway.

Then you run into the issue of whether or not the resources spent on guarding the paradrop are worth it or not. There’s a reason why large operational/strategic paradrops are more in the theoretical than real. However, even theoretical offers an advantage. The force in being strategy means that a defender must prepare for the possibility that a paradrop could happen.

A New Crossover Concept

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See, Buckshot Roulette is one of the most crossover-friendly setttings imaginable. All you need to do is put the crossover character into the game. Since it’s implied to be some kind of supernatural dream anyway (at least in one mode, it’s a long story), you can go into their psychology as they face off against a floating head and heads and repeatedly shoot themselves in the head for a mid-six figure paycheck.

The Stingley and the SA-2

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Time to look at one of my favorite examples of “Statistics don’t tell the whole story.”

This is the SA-2/S-75 SAM. In Vietnam it accounted for only a single digit percentage of American losses. So it must be ineffective-right?

This is Texans cornerback Derek Stingley Jr who just got a monster contract. But he’s never had more than five interceptions in a season, good but not even close to league leading… Overpaid, or?

Or maybe SA-2s forced planes down low into the teeth of AAA and maybe the best corners succeeded because opposing QBs are deterred from throwing in their direction to start with.

Weird Wargaming: The All Union US Military Part 2: Air Force(s)

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Part two of this alternate history series.

Background/USAF

Until September 9, 1998, the US Air Force and Navy was mostly in a holding pattern. About the only large procurement decision was going ahead with the A-6F and F-14E Super Tomcat programs due to the continued USSR, leaving the Super Hornet as a paper plane in this timeline.

Then the Sovereign Union destroyed 80% of Romania’s air force on the ground in minutes, and panic set in. V/STOL research and dispersed operations immediately began taking the highest priority, and as an interim measure, the first major foreign-built fighter in American service since the AV-8A was made in the form of the F-21 Griffin, aka the Gripen. A huge fight ensued over whether to phase out the F-16 or keep it. The results were mixed.

US Naval Aviation

The US Navy and Marine Corps have a mixture of Super Tomcats, F/A-18A-Cs, Sea Gripens, F-24 NATFs, and A-6Fs in a support role. The Intruders and Hornets are being phased out. No, this is not just an excuse to run scenarios in CMO.

5th Gen/Updates

A lot of helicopters, high-performance VTOLs, and the F-24 being “Phantomed” into the Air Force as well. The equivalent of the F-35 is just the F-35 B/C equivalent, since a pathological fear of normal air bases exists. (Ironically the Sovereign Union does NOT have quite a fear despite knowing what it can dish out, but that’s another story).

The Megaliners

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I mentioned a long time ago how I had a fascination for “megaliners”, “superjumbos”, or aircraft designed to hold more passengers than a 747. Leaving aside the impracticality of them, most were/are pretty conventional. They just took an existing jumbo and either added or stretched the upper deck.

But not the Tu-404. This not-found Tupolev design was a flying wing for maximum passenger space.

Some variants stretched capacity into the four digits, and it would have been driven by six propfans.

The Draft Bust That Changed History

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It’s almost Super Bowl time, and it’s Black History Month. So I figure I’d post this tiny bit of gridiron history I was checking out. So if you were to list pioneering black quarterbacks overcoming the past stereotypes of the position to thrive in pro football, maybe you’d pick the first starter in the modern era, Marlin Briscoe. Or maybe Doug Williams, the first to win a Super Bowl. Or Warren Moon, the first superstar.

How about seemingly forgettable draft bust Andre Ware? Picked out of Houston college by the Detroit Lions no. 7 overall in 1990, he sputtered out in the pros. Now the “how” isn’t really the point of this article. From what I’ve read, it was a college scheme that didn’t really translate well to the pros, especially at the time. That white quarterback David Klinger followed a similar “went to Houston, was drafted high, and was a pro bust” seems to support that. But again, that’s not really the point.

The point is that Ware set a precedent for drafting black quarterbacks very high that has never stopped. Looking at later drafts:

  • 1995: Steve McNair: 5th overall
  • 1996: Tony Banks: 42nd overall, second round, however was first quarterback picked
  • 1999: Donovan McNabb (2nd), Akili Smith (3rd), Daunte Culpepper (11th), this was the final nail in the coffin

Now obviously high draft picks are not total evidence of prejudice being eliminated. But it is interesting to note see the exact moment when, in practical terms, the tide turned.

Nuclear Weapons Studies

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I have an idea for teaching a class that would combine traditional history with red-teaming. This is of course just a fantasy, but this is a fantasy blog. The course would be called “Nuclear Weapons Studies”. It starts off with history and physics even I can understand. Then comes The Assignment.

Students are given a fictional country with a set government, GDP, and domestic industry. They have to present the story of that country’s nuclear weapons program and will be judged not just according to traditional metrics but also according to how ‘plausible’ it seems to me. And the program doesn’t have to be a successful one, just seriously attempted.