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More Confessions of Research Addiction
Oct. 24th, 2009 12:08 amWas in a forum for the Flames of War game, and a fellow was asking about a U.S. Army unit crest pin he had found. Well, that search led me to The Institute of Heraldry, the U.S. Army's official designer/assigner/databank of unit and uniform insignia. I didn't find the specific unit he was seeking (because he didn't have a graphic to work from), but the TIOH website is seductively browseable.
Some of the insignia I've seen there make me wonder what it would be like to serve in the units they iconize. "Acquisition Support"? "First Space Brigade"? "Expeditionary Contracting Command"? "Maneuver Center of Excellence"? "Industrial Operations Command"? "Technical Escort Unit"? If I had seen stuff like this when I was still in High School, it might have made me more curious about enlisting. Then again, I knew I wasn't soldier material fairly early on.
FP
Some of the insignia I've seen there make me wonder what it would be like to serve in the units they iconize. "Acquisition Support"? "First Space Brigade"? "Expeditionary Contracting Command"? "Maneuver Center of Excellence"? "Industrial Operations Command"? "Technical Escort Unit"? If I had seen stuff like this when I was still in High School, it might have made me more curious about enlisting. Then again, I knew I wasn't soldier material fairly early on.
FP
Pipe, Meet Dream
Sep. 11th, 2009 02:57 amAn Old Theme Of Mine and I want to revisit it again.
If there were such a thing as a Capri today from Mercury it would have to be based on the Milan; the Milan is the smallest car they make and the choice of powerplants nearly matches in spirit what was available in the Capri. The Milan's wheelbase is about half a foot longer than the Capri's so that will have to be altered, but that can be done between the aft corners of the front door frame and the rear window/rear fender front line.
Since we are going from a four-door to a two-door configuration, the flanks of the cabin can be reinforced on the sides for better rigidity and stability. We might even expand the engine compartment a little for more powerful drivetrain hardware.
You could accuse me of reinventing the Mustang--and you'd be partly right. But it's relatively easy to just rebadge a Mustang. It was tried TWICE by Mercury, and neither time was particularly successful. I want to take the sports coupe concept in a direction that I know would work.
Of course, my own sandbox is too small to play in. Born in the Week of the Titan. Hmmph.
If there were such a thing as a Capri today from Mercury it would have to be based on the Milan; the Milan is the smallest car they make and the choice of powerplants nearly matches in spirit what was available in the Capri. The Milan's wheelbase is about half a foot longer than the Capri's so that will have to be altered, but that can be done between the aft corners of the front door frame and the rear window/rear fender front line.
Since we are going from a four-door to a two-door configuration, the flanks of the cabin can be reinforced on the sides for better rigidity and stability. We might even expand the engine compartment a little for more powerful drivetrain hardware.
You could accuse me of reinventing the Mustang--and you'd be partly right. But it's relatively easy to just rebadge a Mustang. It was tried TWICE by Mercury, and neither time was particularly successful. I want to take the sports coupe concept in a direction that I know would work.
Of course, my own sandbox is too small to play in. Born in the Week of the Titan. Hmmph.
( More Behind THIS )My view: the Warhammer (called such in the graphics) here is completely different IN SURFACE DETAIL to the Studio Nue anime original, but FUNCTIONALLY identical to the concept in the original Battletech game. It probably fits the legal definition of reverse-engineered. I wouldn't want to be in the courtroom for this case.
Tags:
I Bombed In Dandridge
Aug. 1st, 2009 03:26 pmYes, bombs. The kind they drop from warplanes. Nothing actually exploded, but I did get some exercize defusing a dilemma.
In my research addiction Google-roaming, I came upon an article about the IML Group (a team of aircraft designers in New Zealand at the end of the Seventies) who had created a set of warplane proposals under the name ADDAX. None of these were able to get funding for construction (one [happy or unhappy, depending on where you are in the world] fact about New Zealand is that it's too far away from the population pressure of conflict rampant elsewhere on Planet Earth and is surrounded by good-buddy nations that will never threaten it). But I did find scaled drawings for some of them. The Addax-S strike fighter is a wild blended-body design, almost like the Captain Power or Buck Rogers fighters from their respective TVB series. I wanted to figure statistics from the drawing...but the article where I found it had no further information.
And then I noticed that the drawing had the plane armed with BOMBS.
The U.S. standardized its bomb design in the 1950s after years of chaotic development programs and the ultimate obsolescence of the WW2 "box-tail" bomb...which was okay for B-17 and B-29 internal bays but getting to be a problem with delivery from high-performance jets. The central figure was Ed Heinemann, the chief designer for Douglas Aircraft. The shape was the same basic slim teardrop he was using for auxillary tanks on the A-4 Skyhawk and F-6 Skyray. It was easily scalable, and easily adaptible. And, in the case of those into scale models, a workable yardstick.
I go into my spare parts boxes and find a box of add-on armament parts and their instruction sheets. I compare what I have to my printout and decide that the plane in the picture has 1000 lb bombs strapped to the underside. I measure my 1/72nd scale 1000 lb bomb: 37mm. Bombs on drawing: 26mm. Scale of drawing printout: about 1/100. Made sense because of the size of the engines and the cockpit relative to it all.
While it's impossible to learn everything about something from just one feature, there are ways to learn quite a lot.
In my research addiction Google-roaming, I came upon an article about the IML Group (a team of aircraft designers in New Zealand at the end of the Seventies) who had created a set of warplane proposals under the name ADDAX. None of these were able to get funding for construction (one [happy or unhappy, depending on where you are in the world] fact about New Zealand is that it's too far away from the population pressure of conflict rampant elsewhere on Planet Earth and is surrounded by good-buddy nations that will never threaten it). But I did find scaled drawings for some of them. The Addax-S strike fighter is a wild blended-body design, almost like the Captain Power or Buck Rogers fighters from their respective TVB series. I wanted to figure statistics from the drawing...but the article where I found it had no further information.
And then I noticed that the drawing had the plane armed with BOMBS.
The U.S. standardized its bomb design in the 1950s after years of chaotic development programs and the ultimate obsolescence of the WW2 "box-tail" bomb...which was okay for B-17 and B-29 internal bays but getting to be a problem with delivery from high-performance jets. The central figure was Ed Heinemann, the chief designer for Douglas Aircraft. The shape was the same basic slim teardrop he was using for auxillary tanks on the A-4 Skyhawk and F-6 Skyray. It was easily scalable, and easily adaptible. And, in the case of those into scale models, a workable yardstick.
I go into my spare parts boxes and find a box of add-on armament parts and their instruction sheets. I compare what I have to my printout and decide that the plane in the picture has 1000 lb bombs strapped to the underside. I measure my 1/72nd scale 1000 lb bomb: 37mm. Bombs on drawing: 26mm. Scale of drawing printout: about 1/100. Made sense because of the size of the engines and the cockpit relative to it all.
While it's impossible to learn everything about something from just one feature, there are ways to learn quite a lot.
A Mess Of Updata
May. 19th, 2009 12:26 pm*) Dad somehow succeeded in getting the lady's analogue channels back the way they were, but still no digital success yet.
*) Another Job Fair in Knoxville--standing room only and just double the number of participating businesses as the last one. I let them have my resume to scan, so it's not totally hopeless, but I don't know if I'm going to bother with any more of these for a while.
*) Yesterday, in Morristown, Moonshine smoked a Mustang GT at a traffic light. Good going!
*) I ate the last of Sunday's Monkey Bread.
*) I'm experimenting again with the idea of home-brew DVD case covers and liner note sheets. I got a 10-pack of slim cases at Big Lots and since I already have a design template, all I'd need would be legal sized paper for printouts. But I want to design more dummies beyond the one I'd done earlier. Perhaps I'll go through my old LJ entry headers for spurious titles and concoct dummies from them.
*) Another Job Fair in Knoxville--standing room only and just double the number of participating businesses as the last one. I let them have my resume to scan, so it's not totally hopeless, but I don't know if I'm going to bother with any more of these for a while.
*) Yesterday, in Morristown, Moonshine smoked a Mustang GT at a traffic light. Good going!
*) I ate the last of Sunday's Monkey Bread.
*) I'm experimenting again with the idea of home-brew DVD case covers and liner note sheets. I got a 10-pack of slim cases at Big Lots and since I already have a design template, all I'd need would be legal sized paper for printouts. But I want to design more dummies beyond the one I'd done earlier. Perhaps I'll go through my old LJ entry headers for spurious titles and concoct dummies from them.
Weird...I Must Have Some Weird.
Sep. 28th, 2008 06:42 pmWeirdness is like my oxygen sometimes.
Did a lot of shopping today, as the weather was nice and I hated the idea of sitting between two TVs, one showing football and the other showing golf and both of them with the volume a little too loud. Wound up getting four boxes of herbal tea and a couple things for my brother for housewarming/upcoming birthday.
Anyway, I was in a Tuesday Morning discount store and saw a coffee table book on celebs who collect cars. Race cars, luxury cars, rare cars...and one fellow who is into concept cars. He has this machine in his collection:
The Chrysler D'Elegance, built by Ghia in the early Fifties along with other Chrysler concepts and stylewise the father of the VW Karmann Ghia.
Didn't buy the book but perhaps I may go back for it someday. When I got back here I got to looking through pictures of other such concept cars from that and other eras, not just online, but in a book I bought when I was a cashier at a Borders bookstore. One weirdness idea of mine would be to artistically backdate the history of GM's Saturn marque, as if it existed in those decades instead of Oldsmobile or LaSalle or some other brand of the times. Take some features of the current Saturn cars and some features of the Motorama concept cars and some features that production cars had and breed some hybrids.
I'm already thinking up names for spurious cars, mainly based on the moons of the planet Saturn and the Titans of classical mythology, as well as temporal terminology (as Saturn, as the Greek character Cronus, was the master of time).
Moonshine has job security...but I can dream about having a weird car.
Did a lot of shopping today, as the weather was nice and I hated the idea of sitting between two TVs, one showing football and the other showing golf and both of them with the volume a little too loud. Wound up getting four boxes of herbal tea and a couple things for my brother for housewarming/upcoming birthday.
Anyway, I was in a Tuesday Morning discount store and saw a coffee table book on celebs who collect cars. Race cars, luxury cars, rare cars...and one fellow who is into concept cars. He has this machine in his collection:
The Chrysler D'Elegance, built by Ghia in the early Fifties along with other Chrysler concepts and stylewise the father of the VW Karmann Ghia.
Didn't buy the book but perhaps I may go back for it someday. When I got back here I got to looking through pictures of other such concept cars from that and other eras, not just online, but in a book I bought when I was a cashier at a Borders bookstore. One weirdness idea of mine would be to artistically backdate the history of GM's Saturn marque, as if it existed in those decades instead of Oldsmobile or LaSalle or some other brand of the times. Take some features of the current Saturn cars and some features of the Motorama concept cars and some features that production cars had and breed some hybrids.
I'm already thinking up names for spurious cars, mainly based on the moons of the planet Saturn and the Titans of classical mythology, as well as temporal terminology (as Saturn, as the Greek character Cronus, was the master of time).
Moonshine has job security...but I can dream about having a weird car.
