Sorry if I missed this in a previous update, but have you guys thought about centre of gravity? It's no good having working control surfaces if the aircraft is massively tail heavy (was looking at pic with all those batteries in the back). The COG ideally needs to be at the point of lift from the wings so that the control surfaces are just pivoting around it. Unless of course you're deliberately making it "relaxed stability" like the Eurofighter for maximum turn-and-burn performance?!
Posts by dsdetective
4 publicly visible posts • joined 5 Jul 2010
LOHAN in FIGHT to DEATH with brace of cantankerous canards
RAF Eurofighter Typhoons 'beaten by Pakistani F-16s'
Thursday 9th June 2011 09:45 GMT 
Retraction?
So it appears the RAF were never even there, and nor were any eurofighters. If there was any integrity to this journal a retraction is clearly warrented. Unlesss of course, this really is all just about entertainment and there was never any serious intention at serious journalism.
I too though would definitely echo the view that I have always enjoyed these articles. That's why I think it's such a shame this sneaked through the net, it rather undermines anything published in the future.
In any case, I'll still look forward to reading the next Frigates are a Waste of Time rant as much as the next man. Never fails to make me smile :)
Wednesday 8th June 2011 15:43 GMT 
Eurofighter worse than Spitfire - clearly! Someone think of the children!
The Eurofighter (a relaxed stability aircraft made of light weight composites) represents a step change in manoeuvrability over any aircraft of the F16 era. This is a matter of mathematical fact and can easily be shown from widely known performance data. There are also a number of well cited examples of Eurofighters coming up with devastating kill to loss ratios over far more capable aircraft in close-in scenarios.
I have, however, read numerous articles by fast jet pilots asserting the idea that within visual range combat is essentially suicidal at best for any aircraft in the modern arena because the dog fighting missiles are so effective, and even relatively old aircraft sport helmet mounted sights. That is exactly why modern air-to-air doctrine is designed around avoiding that scenario at all cost. Your article therefore pretty much ignores every possible sensible argument and instead jumps to the most blatantly preposterous conclusion imaginable. It’s the sort of thing you usually read in the comments section on youtube! Good job!
Apple's iPhone 4 denial: insulting or ignorant?
Monday 5th July 2010 12:35 GMT 
This could be big!?
So I finally managed to get my hands on an iPhone 4 today, having managed to cram into an O2 store on the Strand past the fairly large crowd (yes still) waiting to get their hands on the 2 or 3 they had back in stock.
They had 3 iPhone 4's on display clamps... All 3 of them had large yellow blotches on the left, and to a lesser extent, the right of the display. These were sort of visible all of the time, but where very apparent on a white background such as the Safari browser. Two of them also had black marking in the middle, almost like the circuit board was visible through the display - it looked like a smudge at first but clearly wasn't...
OMG I thought. Three in the shop and the displays on all of them were already broken? I looked at the crowds queuing up and wondered if anyone else had noticed or even cared. I looked to see if an o2 person was there that I could ask to see if this was common. They were all too busy though. Lots of people ordering, so why bother answering questions?
So, I thought I'd test the hype (which I honestly believed it was) and with my thumb only, covered the gap between the bottom left corner and the side. 5 bars, 4 bars, 3 bars, 2 bars, 1 bar.
OMG I thought. So, if Apple are to believed, either the phone only ever picks up 1 bar in the middle of London (the 5 bars being a display illusion), or it loses 4 bars because you pick it up. Again, I looked around at all the people queuing. They hadn't even bothered to try out the phone, they weren't interested. Had everyone gone mad?!
But then I remembered that I had almost bought one the day they came out without trying first. It's an iPhone, the others were awesome, this must be better.
So is it good or bad for Apple that loads of people will buy them regardless? I'm worried that it may be VERY BAD, because if the screens all screw up that quickly, and the reception is really that bad, then I doubt those people will be crowding the o2 stores for an iPhone 5...
Biting the hand that feeds IT
