Helicopter Engineering

Derelict Russian Mi-24 (HIND) Helicopter

Notice how the two engine intake covers (just above the twin canopies) are slightly offset from the centerline (thoughtfully provided by Flankerman. All Mi-24 helicopters have this slight cant to the side, which is intended to help mitigate the torque from the main-rotor. The whole rear fuselage behind the cockpit is offset from the vertical by 2deg 30min.
   Tail rotor helicopters (that is, helicopters that use tail rotors to counteract the torque produced by the main rotor, as opposed to helicopters with two, contra-rotating rotors like the American Chinook or the Russian Alligator) do not have an even relationship between forward flight and hovering. Each helicopter design deals with this in its own way. The Mi-24 designers have incorporated the off even attitude into the airframe.

Starship Troopers

Shades of Iron Sky. German paratroops landing on the moon. Or Tennessee.

Fathers

St. Athanasius, depicted with a book, an iconographic symbol of the importance of his writings, not Origen Adamantius as previously reported.

Marcel put up a post that mentions "the Fathers". Now there's your Father and my Father and and the "Founding Fathers", but who are these fathers he's talking about? Putting two and two together, along with a little Google, I conclude that he is talking about the fathers of the Christian church. Wikipedia has an article (of course), wherein I found this line:

— Origen Adamantius and Tertullian are often considered Church Fathers but are not saints owing to their views later deemed heretical ^[2] — 

which, because of my contrary nature, I really like.

Gas Delayed Blowback

I put up a post about a new handgun, the Walther CCP, mistakenly thinking that they had invented a new technology. Queen Tam quickly pointed out my error, and I corrected (beat into submission) my post. This morning I found this long, involved comment on the same post. I was going to reply there, but I dislike the comment editor. It doesn't have enough room for me to spread out and wax philosophical, so we are here, and here is the inspiring comment:

Powerfull rounds with bullets heavier than 7Grams, use two main systems to manage the breechbolt opening after the projectile to go out the barrel; one construction called "Locked Breech" and another known as "Delayed Blowback". Several actions are present on second group and "Gas Delayed is one of them with a well known member of HK P7. Though seeming rather simple as compared to locked breech samples, this working system needs precise workmanship and some additional measures for positive extraction for charged empty shell since very high pressure is still existing at initial stage of breechbolt rearward travel starts causing case separation.
Walther CCP is a new member of this kind, but seemingly having no remedy for possible mentioned case separation. Besides, This pistol's main spring that is giving force for striker, does is not compressed against to the recoil spring similar of new trend striker guns like Glock, but gets compressed against to a hook shaped post provided at rear of frame on which the key part of field stripping process weared. The pistol, therefore, is cocked during the last stage of breechbolt backward travel and, since this construction precludes the necessity of using costy frame and slide counterfitting rails, it is a cheap manufacturing method of inexpensive striker guns like HiPoint.

We'll ignore the typos because it was written in a comment box. This commenter apparently knows a thing or two about guns. He (or she) brings up a couple of interesting points. Case extraction is the first one.
    I'm thinking the problem of "case separation" happens when the breech bolt, with it's embedded case extraction hook, starts moving away from the breech too soon. The extraction hook is pulling on the shell, but the pressure inside the chamber is pressing the walls of the shell against the inside surface of the breech with such force that the shell walls cannot slide, and so the extraction hook rips the base of the shell from the body. Not good. This video about the HK P7 (Heckler & Koch P7) has a bit (just after the one minute mark) about what HK has done to alleviate this problem.
     In designing a "gas delayed blowback" operated pistol, one would need to carefully consider all of the operating elements:

• the size of the powder charge, 
• the position, diameter and length of the gas port, 
• the diameter of the piston,
• the mass of the breech block, and
• the strength of the main recoil spring.

All of these would need to be balanced in order to make a smoothly functioning gun. And then you would want to test it extensively.
     The second part, about the striker (firing pin?), I'm not too clear about. I think the complaint is that the part that holds the firing pin in the cocked position is prone to wear. If you are someone who puts a hundred rounds through your gun every week, week in, week out, then, yes, this could be a problem. But if you are burning through that much ammo I think you could probably afford to replace this "hook shaped post" occasionally.
    If you are running a hundred rounds through this gun when you go to the range then you are liable to run into another problem long before you have worn out the hook, as this video about the HK P7 (same one as mentioned earlier) tells us just after the 2:25 mark.

Loyalty by Ingrid Thoft

Ingrid's Book Page

Not a great book, but pretty darn good. We've got a tough girl PI, her wealthy, spoiled dysfunctional family and a real mystery: who killed her sister-in-law, and why? It's entertaining and her insights into the various characters are interesting, and about once a chapter she drops a real gem. Those are what really make the book worthwhile.
    The writing overall is good, but not real smooth. You know how sometimes you read a story and it just glides by like you are cruising on a brand new asphalt highway in a brand new car? You're just sailing along. This is more like driving your actual car on the actual roads around your house. There are bumps and rough spots, but you still get where you want to go, and your hair doesn't get mussed.

P.S. The girl (woman?) on the cover doesn't match my image of Fina at all. She looks too young and too delicate, and the gun is way too big. 'Course you can't tell much from this picture, and it is the cover of a murder mystery, so I guess I shouldn't expect too much.

Crocker on Syria

I don't know who Crocker is, but what he says here makes sense to me. From a story by Barbara Slavin on Al Monitor.

    Ryan Crocker, a distinguished former US ambassador to Lebanon, Syria and Iraq, told a Washington audience May 1 that US military intervention would likely not produce a better outcome in Syria and that the Barack Obama administration should focus on a “post-Assad” but not a “post-Alawite” future for that war-torn country.
    “We would be making a grave mistake if our policy were aimed at flipping the tables and bringing a Sunni ascendancy in Damascus,” said Crocker, who experienced the pitfalls of US military involvement in Lebanon in the 1980s and in Iraq in the past decade. The United States would have no assurance, he said, that a Sunni government would be an improvement on that of Bashar al-Assad and the probability would be that such a government would be “dominated by the worst of the worst” religious extremists.
    . . .
    Crocker said those advocating military intervention underestimate the extent to which this is an existential struggle for Syria’s Alawite community and other minorities within the country. He pointed to the massacre in Hama in 1982, when Bashar’s father, Hafez, bombarded the city to exterminate the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood and in the process killed 15,000 civilians.
    “This regime has been preparing for what is unfolding now for the last three decades,” Crocker said. After Hama, “they knew a day of reckoning would come. … Americans barely remember Hama but no Sunni or Alawite will ever forget it.”

140,000 Syrians have been killed in the ongoing civil war, roughly ten times as many as were killed in the Hama massacre. Note we are talking about the 1982 massacre, not the 1981 Hama massacre or the 2011 Hama massacre. Ain't religion wonderful?

Crazy

I am fat and getting fatter, at least five pounds in the last year. I now tip the scales at 255 pounds. I probably should weigh something closer to 175 pounds. I have tried numerous schemes to lose weight but none of them have worked. I am pretty well convinced it's all in my head, but what can you do about that?
    Once more I am going to make an attempt. I have an idea for a scheme that might work. I let you know if it pans out. Or not. Meanwhile, I thought I'd see what the internet has to say and I found this quote on the dreaded HuffPost:

"What drives our behavior is not logic but brain biochemistry, habits and addiction, states of consciousness and what we see people around us doing. We are emotional beings with the ability to rationalize -- not rational beings with emotions. If we are stressed, depressed or addicted, no matter how good the advice we are given, chances are that we will not be able to act on it. The more primitive, emotional brain generally has precedence over the newer, more rational brain." - Dr. Rankin

I think that sums up the situation pretty well.