Mitsubishi G4M2 Betty Bomber

Mitsubishi G4M2 Betty Bomber

Paraphrase of the introduction on Wikipedia's page about the G4M:

The Mitsubishi G4M was a twin-engine, land-based medium bomber operated by the Imperial Japanese Navy from 1940 to 1945. It was commonly referred to by Japanese Navy pilots as Hamaki ('cigar', literally 'leaf roll') due to the cylindrical shape of its fuselage and its tendency to ignite after a hit. The Allied reporting name was Betty.

The G4M boasted good performance, excellent range and was considered the best land-based naval bomber of the time. This was achieved with flimsy structure and almost total lack of crew protection, with no armor plating or self-sealing fuel tanks. The G4M was introduced in 1941, but its problems resulted in heavy losses.

It was the most widely produced and most famous bomber flown by the Japanese during World War II, and it served in nearly all battles during the Pacific War. Attacks by G4M and G3M bombers resulted in the sinking of the Royal Navy battleship HMS Prince of Wales and battlecruiser HMS Repulse, the first time capital ships actively defending themselves were sunk solely by air power while in the open sea. G4Ms and G3Ms were also credited with sinking the heavy cruiser USS Chicago during the Battle of Rennell Island. The G4M later served as mother ships that carried the Yokosuka MXY-7 Ohka, the anti-ship suicide weapon. Of the 2,435 G4Ms produced, no fully intact aircraft have survived, though several airframes exist as unrestored wreckage or in partial states of restoration.

Probably the best-known incident involving a G4M in the war came during the top secret mission to intercept the aircraft carrying Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, resulting in Yamamoto's death. On 18 April 1943, sixteen P-38 Lightnings shot down a G4M1 carrying Admiral Yamamoto.

As part of the negotiations for the surrender of Japan, two demilitarized G4Ms, given the call-signs Bataan 1 and Bataan 2, flew to Ie Shima, carrying the first surrender delegations on the first leg of their flight to Manila. The G4Ms were painted white with green crosses and were escorted by American P-38 fighters.

Mitsubishi G4M Betty bomber training footage - 732nd Kōkūtai (1944)
Lancero99

Japanese Mitsubishi G4M "Betty" bombing raid
Aviation videos archives part2 1935-1950

Wikipedia has a collection of photos of the G4M here.

Funnies

10 Short Videos #6162

10 Short Videos #6162

Fast Drone 😱 

The Art of Precision Metal Hardening and Quenching 

Hidden In Daylight 🛰️🌙 - ISS

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From the stream over the wheel into the belly of the Mill of Benholm…

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Interstellar Travel

How Long Might a Generation Starship Last in Interstellar Space?
Silent Abyss

I'm only posting this video as a curiosity. It showed up on YouTube the day after I mentioned Nemesis by Isaac Asimov in a post. I only listened to few minutes. Who's got three hours to spend listening to someone drone on endlessly about generation ships? I dunno, maybe I could listen to him if I was busy doing something else, but usually, if I am working on something I will listen to music, which requires no thinking, as opposed to listen to someone talking. I do listen to audio books when I go for a walk. So far I've just been listening to free audio books on YouTube Music. Some are wretched, but some are okay. You have to be careful because if you search for Audio Books (or is it Books on Tape?), half of the items it returns will be music by a band with that name.

Nemesis did get me restarted thinking about interstellar travel. Right now the only way we know how to go anywhere in space is to throw things in the opposite direction. That can get us to the Moon, and can get robots to Mars, but rockets are not going to get us to the stars. Tsiolkovsky's rocket equation puts a limit on how fast you can go, but it is based on your rocket's exhaust velocity. If you can get that velocity up some large fraction of the speed of light, you could reach the stars, but getting that high velocity would be a bit of a trick. We can do it with particle accelerators, but they are only working with particles. We would need to do it with a continuous stream of matter.

Of course, none of this matters if we don't have a destination. Astronomers have detected numerous exoplanets, that is planets orbiting another star, but we have scant information about the planets themselves. One of these days astronomers are going to find one that looks like it might be worth going to visit. Probably want to send a probe before we send a manned mission. Also give us a chance to test our particle beam rocket engine.

Even with a super particle beam rocket engine, it will probably take years to get to the star. And it will  be even longer before we hear anything back from our probe. And will we even be able to hear it? Our current deep space network has limited bandwidth, and we are only dealing with small fractions of interstellar distances. Lasers might work, but I suspect it would have to be one heck of laser. Sending actual physical mail might work better, but you would need the probe to return home to deliver the package.

Problem: if you use half of your mass as reaction mass to get you to your cruising velocity, then you will need half of your remaining mass to slow down to visit your destination. Now you've collected your data and you want to return it to Earth, you will need half of your remaining mass to accelerate to cruising speed, and then half of you remaining mass to decelerate.

100   tons x 50% = 50   tons

 50   tons x 50% = 25   tons

 25   tons x 50% = 12.5 tons

 12.5 tons x 50% = 6.25 tons

Start with 100 tons and you will only have 6 tons for your spacecraft. But using only 50% of your mass is probably highly optimistic. You are more likely to need 90%, which means you will only have 10% of your starting mass that you began that stage with. So your fuel consumption will look like this:

100   tons x 10% = 10    tons

 10   tons x 10% =  1    tons

  1   tons x 10% =  0.1  tons

  0.1 tons x 10% =  0.01 tons

Start with a 100 ton rocket and you return package will only weigh 20 pounds. Somehow I don't think you are going to be able to make a nuclear powered particle accelerator rocket engine and pack it in a 20 pound package with all the necessary sensors and recording equipment. So a ton in this case is liable to mean a zillion pounds.

On the other hand, some whiz kid might conjure up a warp drive, an astronomer will discover a whole raft of possibly habitable planets, and all this speculation can be ignored.

10 Short Videos #6161

10 Short Videos #6161

I build rc ornithopter with differential thrust 

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Heaven’s Gate Cult

The Leader - Tribeca Festival

Remember Heaven’s Gate Cult? Variety has a review of a movie about it:

‘The Leader’ Review: Tim Blake Nelson and Vera Farmiga Are Creepy and Powerful in a Disturbing Drama About the Heaven’s Gate Cult by Owen Gleiberman

Good reading since we seem to be seeing a lot cult-like behavior these days.