Driftless

Donor
One of the 6 North Sea Class airships acquired by the Royal Victorian Navy in 1919 that were still serving in 1941.

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Weather permitting, airships like the NS class could have been useful on the Western Approaches for convoys from North America. Pretty fair endurance. Just stay present and out of AA range and radio any U-boat sightings along. Just the airships presence may keep U-boats submerged more than they'd like. Also, maybe lure the stray predatory Condor in for another Coastal Command aircraft to deal with.
 

Pangur

Donor
Weather permitting, airships like the NS class could have been useful on the Western Approaches for convoys from North America. Pretty fair endurance. Just stay present and out of AA range and radio any U-boat sightings along. Just the airships presence may keep U-boats submerged more than they'd like. Also, maybe lure the stray predatory Condor in for another Coastal Command aircraft to deal with.
I was thinking the very same thing
 
Can the V-1 be reverse engineered by the Soviets into a early nuclear armed GLCM ?
Would it be a big threat in the 1950s? Esp in Western Europe where flight distances are short
 
Can the V-1 be reverse engineered by the Soviets into a early nuclear armed GLCM ?
Would it be a big threat in the 1950s? Esp in Western Europe where flight distances are short
The early types of nuclear weapons are way too heavy for the V-1 and you would have to build a significantly bigger version. The regular warhead for that thing was about 850 kg while the 50s nuclear bombs of the sovjets are all >1 tonne in weight, as far as I know.
Accuracy would likely be very low but thats less important with a nuclear warhead. Major problems of any design derived from the V-1 will also be its reliability and the its slow speed making it rather easy to intercept even by rather simple means.
 
The early types of nuclear weapons are way too heavy for the V-1 and you would have to build a significantly bigger version. The regular warhead for that thing was about 850 kg while the 50s nuclear bombs of the sovjets are all >1 tonne in weight, as far as I know.
Accuracy would likely be very low but thats less important with a nuclear warhead. Major problems of any design derived from the V-1 will also be its reliability and the its slow speed making it rather easy to intercept even by rather simple means.
Flying interceptions against nuclear armed V-1s sounds like a rather short career path for the pilots.
 
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Flying interceptions against nuclear armed V-1s sounds like a rather short career path for the pilots.
While early nuclear devices are less safe than later ones, they are still not all that likely to actually detonate just from beeing destroyed. There have been a number of pretty severe accidents invloving nuclear weapons and none resulted in an accidental detonation:
Though im not entirely sure what happens if the destruction itself is caused by explosive shells or missiles.
 
The early types of nuclear weapons are way too heavy for the V-1 and you would have to build a significantly bigger version. The regular warhead for that thing was about 850 kg while the 50s nuclear bombs of the sovjets are all >1 tonne in weight, as far as I know.
Accuracy would likely be very low but thats less important with a nuclear warhead. Major problems of any design derived from the V-1 will also be its reliability and the its slow speed making it rather easy to intercept even by rather simple means.
But the shorter flight times would mean that there might not be enough time to scramble fighters to intercept them as they might go undetected for a while
 
2016

The Royal Victorian Naval Air Service orders 5 Airlander 10 Hybrid Airships to meet its requirement for new maritime patrol aircraft.



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Could the USSR have benefited from having something like the JL-9?

With accommodation for just a pilot, and as a combat aircraft rather than a combat-capable trainer?
Definitely.
That type of design improves on wing shape (better suited for low-speed abilities), it has Fowler flaps (present on Chinese MiG-21-derivatives, not present on MiG-21 - one is never too old to learn), and frees a lot of space for more capable electronics and, possibly, fuel.
 
As of yesterday, Elon Musk, the president of AVF (Aston Martin-Ford-Volvo)'s electrically-driven Tesla division released specs on the Model F3. Latest in a series of dual-role ground and air transports, the noe all-electric vehicle was touted to have a range of just over 750 miles on its revolutionary Gemini battery from a promising Michigan startup company.

Given the standard of such 'dual drive' vehicles since the end of the Second World War, abd the fierce competition from Greater Germany's BMW-Benz along with Volkswagen, not to mention the zaibatsu of Honda-Mitsubishi-Toyota the international race for the first viable all-electric dual drive is moving fast...
 
As of yesterday, Elon Musk, the president of AVF (Aston Martin-Ford-Volvo)'s electrically-driven Tesla division released specs on the Model F3. Latest in a series of dual-role ground and air transports, the noe all-electric vehicle was touted to have a range of just over 750 miles on its revolutionary Gemini battery from a promising Michigan startup company.

Given the standard of such 'dual drive' vehicles since the end of the Second World War, abd the fierce competition from Greater Germany's BMW-Benz along with Volkswagen, not to mention the zaibatsu of Honda-Mitsubishi-Toyota the international race for the first viable all-electric dual drive is moving fast...

Oddly enough I got a "suggested" from YouTube on why flying cars are a bad idea with a thumbnail of a high-rise building upper floors on fire with the caption "Drunk driving suspected in downtown accident" :)

Seriously I don't trust half the driver on a 2 dimensional surface I KNOW I don't trust them with 3 to work with :)

Randy
 
Oddly enough I got a "suggested" from YouTube on why flying cars are a bad idea with a thumbnail of a high-rise building upper floors on fire with the caption "Drunk driving suspected in downtown accident" :)

Seriously I don't trust half the driver on a 2 dimensional surface I KNOW I don't trust them with 3 to work with :)

Randy
Shoot, I don't trust half the drivers when they're not even operating a vehicle in the first place.
 

I wonder if other nations can try similar techniques of modifying business jets for other tasks
Argentina used several for recon during the Falklands War- the problems with confusing British air defences in regards to legitimately civilian aircraft led to widespread condemnation.

Nonetheless, more purpose-built proposals to use mid-sized jets for everything from AEW to Maritime Patrol remain reasonably common, though in general the more modifications to the airframe, the more expensive the resulting plane, the less advantage over a purpose-built design which will almost certainly outperform it.
 
Argentina used several for recon during the Falklands War- the problems with confusing British air defences in regards to legitimately civilian aircraft led to widespread condemnation.

Nonetheless, more purpose-built proposals to use mid-sized jets for everything from AEW to Maritime Patrol remain reasonably common, though in general the more modifications to the airframe, the more expensive the resulting plane, the less advantage over a purpose-built design which will almost certainly outperform it.
They could have confused the British defenses with older mid size military jets too like trainers probably a lot cheaper
 
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