#dihedral

[luispablocarmonaenjolras]

GÉNESIS UNIVERSO DIÉDRICO

[july-19th-club]

just remembered that when i first got really into turkey vultures i learned about airplanes bc i had to go look up 'dihedral' because the turkey vulture is one of the best soaring birds we have in my area and it's because of not just their wing shape, which is both more tapered toward the tips AND more spread out, excellent for taking advantage of wind currents and, say it with me everyone, thermals but because of their dihedral, which is the upward angle at which the wings sit, which allows them to soar without expending much energy for such long periods of time anway i quickly forgot all about how dihedral works on airplanes because i was too busy with my best friend cathartes aura aura anyway who wants to talk abt the noble turkey buzzard im simply dying to talk abt the noble turkey buzzard

[thedaily-beer]

Grimm Dihedral Synchro-Helix Actuation Door Double IPA (Picked up at Whole Foods in Plymouth Meeting, PA). A 4 of 4. The addition of phantasm takes this over the top -- tons of bright tropical fruit and white wine notes as well as quite a bit of citrus and stone fruit behind it. Just incredibly pungent. The body is nicely balanced with some fruity sweetness up front behind the hop profile and a dry and clean finish that's bitter, but not overly aggressive.

[some-teeth-in-a-trench-coat]

Is there a way to derive the dihedral angle of a regular polyhedron using only the Schläfli symbol without just looking it up how do you figure out anything about a spherical regular polygon with n vertices without knowing the angles only the sides am I just trying to do the impossible or are the articles I find just misleadingly short

[itsanautiething]

I don't know why I find this so funny, but I think it's fricken hilarious and therefore must share.

[possibilistfanfiction]

Prompt: Vi and gentleness, healing from prison trauma

[give vi seven million hugs!!!!!!!]

//

vi jolts awake next to you; it wakes you up, her panicked breathing coming way too fast.

'hey,' you say, trying your best to be comforting. she's told you some of what her life in prison was like, but she was seventeen — a child — when she went in, and you know that, whatever she's told you, the reality was so, so much worse. 'vi, it's okay.'

she's still panicked, though, pulling at her hair and curled in on herself, her muscles straining hard, sweat soaking down her bare back, shiny against tattoos and scars spread all over her skin. this is the first of her nightmares you'd woken up to; you know she's had them before, because you've woken in the middle of the night to a cold bed and found her on the couch, dark circles under her eyes with some animal documentary playing on mute, scared to fall back asleep.

vi, in the light, is so strong, with her broad shoulders and the serious set of her brow, the way she cares and cares and cares. vi, in the moonlight silvering through the window, in the dark, is small, and terrified.

she flinches away from your touch, still stuck in a different world. you turn on your bedside lamp and try one of the grounding exercises that you use for yourself when you start to spiral. she's reluctant but it's always easier to come back to reality when all you have to do is name four things you can see, or two things you can smell, rather than make sense of the whole present world at once, and so she tries.

her breathing slows and eventually, she deflates enough that she stops looking like she's going to punch through a wall at any given moment. 'sorry,' she croaks as you hand her a glass of water.

you roll your eyes: of course her first impulse would be to apologize after a real honest-to-god panic attack.

'violet,' you say, just that, and she softens even more. 'can i touch you?'

she nods, and your light touch on her shoulder turns into an engulfing hug, her arms wrapping around you tight while she rests her head in the crook of your neck, just trying to steady her breath further. you figured out early on that vi loved physical touch, from everyone she cared about, and it wasn't a mystery as to why. still, to hear her mumble, 'no one touched me gently for five years,' makes you want to cry.

you can cry later, though, because she needs you right now to be strong. 'do you want to talk more about it?'

she sighs. 'can we just... stay like this? just for now?'

you run your hand through her hair, gently brush it back from her face, and kiss the scar through her brow: from a guard's baton, her third night there, you'll learn one day. 'we can stay like this all night, vi,' you promise.

//

vi flops down onto the mat when you get to the climbing gym, closing her eyes and taking a big breath, then letting it out slowly. she had been quiet in the car, but she'd smiled when you put on an old album she loved. you have a standing climbing date every other thursday afternoon, after she has therapy, and usually it only takes her a few minutes to fully come back to you: eventually, she's laughing and smiling like normal, leading the hardest overhangs in the gym with a powerful ease, joking that your knot is dressed to the eights while you do a safety check, kissing your cheek delightedly while you groan.

today, though, she stays quiet and serious. she's still encouraging and respectful, as she always, without fail, is, but she favors her left shoulder — her bad one, which you continue to gently pester her to get looked at — and still climbs the most intense dihedral chimney, holding her arm to her chest when you lower her.

'at least ice that, please,' you ask — a little desperate, a little out of your depth with this heavy and stubborn a mood — when you finish up and head back to your apartment to shower and order food. you debate texting jinx, but you had promised her that vi would be at your place tonight; apparently she and ekko had planned to have a small party and you didn't want to interrupt. vi is your girlfriend, and you can handle it. you want her in your life as long as she'll have you, and so you need to be able to handle it.

vi just grunts and leans her head against the window, flexing her left wrist a few times. you tell her to shower first, and she just nods, doesn't even try to give you any lines to convince you to shower with her. she comes out of the bathroom in boxers and wool hiking socks and one of your soft fleece quarter zips, her favorite on days where the past lingers a little too much. she pulls you in for a gentle kiss — an apology, a thank you — before you head to the bathroom, and when you finish and sit next to where she's curled up on the couch, your hair wrapped in a towel and dressed in your favorite knit palazzo pants and a bra, your glasses on, she sighs.

'hard day in therapy?'

'i — this is the anniversary of the day i went to prison,' she says, quiet, staring off into the corner at nothing. she won't meet your eyes, but of course you don't make her. 'i should've told you.'

'violet.' she accepts your upturned, outstretched palm. 'the only thing i need from you tonight is to stop apologizing. you, today, in this moment, have done absolutely nothing wrong.'

'huh. i'm sor—'

your glare stops her, and you exchange small, amused smiles.

'i'm still getting used to... this, i guess.'

it's been nearly a year, but you don't take offense.

'i talked about you in therapy today,' she continues. 'like, not bad, obviously, just that it's so hard to tell you about, like, the way my—' her voice breaks and she swallows once — 'my parents died, or, how hard it was to try to take care of powd—jinx, or... you know, i was just a kid.'

she's desperately fighting back tears; you scoot closer to her and lift her chin with your finger, gently, to meet your eyes. 'you were a child. none of that should have happened to you.'

she frowns, but a few tears fall freely, and she, thankfully, doesn't try to stop them. 'a lot of it was my fault.'

you shrug. 'maybe you did some stupid things. but so did i, and certainly so did jayce, and all that happened to us was a scolding. i know you know this, but it wasn't fair, or just, or right, what you had to live through because you were a dumb kid, or because you had only impossible choices to make.'

'i swear, you and my therapist are in cahoots.' her voice wobbles but she relaxes, just slightly.

'i have an idea,' you say. you know she doesn't have work tomorrow, and jinx is with ekko all night, and you can take the day off if you need. 'put some pants on.'

//

you lay out the warm blanket you'd brought on the sand; it's freezing, but the spiked hot chocolate you'd put in your to-go mugs is still hot, and vi is like a furnace when you lean into her side. you'd bought this small house on the lake a few months ago, had been waiting until it was finished to surprise vi on vacation. but this was more important: her eyes had gotten big when you'd driven up the long, winding driveway, and she'd reverently said, 'no fucking way, cupcake,' when you'd explained that, really, you hoped it could belong, in all the important ways, to the both of you. an hour and a half drive from the city; the wildflowers and one of her favorite climbing spots only twenty minutes away: a respite, from it all.

'i've never seen this many stars,' she says, awe and grief in the frost of her breath.

you don't say that you've been in more remote places than this together; you just look out over the lake where they reflect back, blinking and shimmering. 'i know your brain and body don't always believe you, and that's okay,' you tell her, 'but you're free, vi.'

she sniffles, and then she nods, and then she laughs. 'my therapist isn't going to believe this.'

you end up laughing too, and you lie back with her on the blanket in the cold, and you teach her constellations. when you look out over the water, the horizon line lost between cosmos and earth, you realize it's the same as your love for her too: endless.

//

'i'm not hungry.'

you roll your eyes. 'you didn't eat lunch.'

'well, i haven't done anything today.' she fusses with the sling her left arm is snugly nestled in; she hurt her shoulder again on a call last night, and it was so bad this time she couldn't hide it from her captain. she's finally agreed to see a specialist next week, if only to stop you from nagging, or so she insisted.

'vi.'

'cait, just, stop.' it's harsh, harsher than she ever really is, and she sighs. 'please.'

you offer your hand quietly and she takes it with her good one. you fight every impulse you have to nag at her, or to offer a million different things for dinner. 'okay.'

she deflates in obvious relief, and you quietly make your way through a few episodes of a show that night until you both wearily head up to your bed. your house is beautiful, and you love sharing a home with her; you turn down the comforter and she tries to get comfortable with her sling, dutifully, still on. her stomach grumbles, and you know she must be starving, but you don't say anything. sometimes she still needs to process in her own time; sometimes her body is still convinced it's just on this edge of surviving.

you let her pretend to be asleep.

in the morning she picks at her breakfast, an egg and cheese with bacon on a roll from the bodgea down the street, her regular favorite. vi is still sweet — she always is, affectionate and bright and devoted and funny — but her smile is only half-hearted and she neatly wraps her sandwich up after she's only finished with half and then places it in the fridge.

you bite your tongue again, because she takes ibuprofen without any reminder and gets her computer set up at the kitchen island; she's doing some work from home, records and order forms, so that she can still help but doesn't actually need to go in today if she was just going to be stuck at a desk anyway.

eventually, you're getting ready to go meet jinx and ekko to have dinner and watch a wnba game at your favorite sports bar; you had spent the day working from home too in your office, occasionally checking on vi but mostly leaving her to her own devices. it's hard, sometimes, not to smother her, but she's her own grown up person, and you know from loving her that whatever's bothering her will, eventually, work its way out.

it does, when you walk into her closet after a light knock on the door and see her in her boxers, sling off, frowning at a pair of jeans with tears in her eyes. they're old, ones she's had the entire time you've known her, a light wash that sits loose and low on her hips, one of the knees tearing over the years. she tries to wipe her cheeks immediately when you walk in, but only ends up wincing and grabbing at her left arm in inescapable pain she can't hide quick enough. instead of asking what's wrong, though, you stay quiet and sit neatly on the little leather bench, pick up the discarded jeans from the floor and fold them neatly.

'they don't — they don't fit anymore,' she says. 'at least, not like they used to.'

it's not hard for you to understand, and it's another layer of grief for her: when you first met vi, she was all muscle, as lean and cut as anyone you'd ever seen. you'd gathered that she grew up with a combination of not having enough food, especially while she was incarcerated, and then being much more worried about jinx eating than herself. you think she enjoys food, and she'll happily cook with you, but left to her own devices, still lives off of protein shakes.

it's hard, to know how to navigate ghosts nestled in her ribs, in her hips, in the tender, torn and frayed ligaments of her shoulder. she sits down next to you. 'well, these were on their way out anyway,' you decide on, hoping a little levity will help her sort through her feelings.

'i — am i still hot?'

it's a question that surprises you, and it surprises her too, based on the look of horror that crosses her face and the way she brings her good hand up to cover her mouth immediately. you try so hard, but you can't fully fight the laugh that bubbles out of you, and vi shoves you weakly with a whine but she starts, after a few seconds, laughing too.

'darling,' you say, relieved to see a real smile on her face, even if she's turned red in embarrassment, 'you're so hot. so unbelievably sexy.' you run your hand through her hair. 'even with this less-than-ideal mullet monstrosity you've chosen at the moment.'

she rolls her eyes. 'it's in right now.'

you shake your head, but it's all so fond, all so warm. you trace the strong line of her thigh, make a little swirl with your finger in the hair along her knee. 'these are so sexy.' you lean over to kiss her good shoulder, its broad expanse, and then tap along her bicep, not as lean as it used to be, but still defined and so, so strong. 'these too.' you touch her cheeks, slightly fuller, and kiss the freckles on her nose, which makes her smile. 'you know i love these.' and there's a layer of fat now, over what used to be the most intimidatingly shredded abs you'd ever seen; there's a line of defined muscle down vi's stomach still, but not the same as the eight pack that used to sit prominently. 'this might be my favorite part, though,' you tell her, and lay your hand there, run your thumb along the soft trail of hair that runs from below her boxers to her belly button.

'there's... there's no way.'

there's a million quips you could make, and you sense that this is going to take more therapy, more tough choices, more bad days, to really sort through. vi has always needed to be the strongest and fastest and fittest in the room; it's the way she survived, the way she made it out of what is truly a hell still alive. so instead, you just answer honestly: 'you're healthy.'

it seems to occur to her, all at once, that maybe that's true: she climbs better than she ever has, and she still sets new records at the fire department for strength and conditioning not infrequently; she's been sleeping through the night more often, and, during the good patches of time that stretch further and further without interruption, she tries all kinds of different foods with you, more adventurous than you'll ever be, and enjoys telling you her favorite parts. not for nothing, either, but she drinks enough actual water, not just protein shakes and a sip from a water fountain at the gym at the end of every session.

'i — i'm not used to it.'

she doesn't sound nearly as upset as before, mostly confused and a little curious. you play your knuckles against her ribs lightly, still pressing into her skin when she breathes, but not fully visible like before. 'this? or eating enough food without thinking about it?'

she laces her fingers with yours. 'i guess, both? i wasn't thinking a lot about it, but now i can't climb or lift and, well, i just. food was calories, and i wasn't burning as many, and then, well.' she sighs and meets your eyes. 'i'm still kind of confused, to be honest. there's a lot going on.'

'you've got time to figure it out,' you assure. 'and, according to your sister,' you hold up your phone and read off jinx's text, just ordered wings, sliders, jalapeño poppers, loaded fries, brussels sprouts, and a pitcher for everyone so pls finish up whatever u two are doing (no details!!!!) bc i am NOT paying for all that :) xoxo

vi laughs, deep and real this time, and brings her hand up to hold your jaw in her palm. 'thank you.'

'there's no need. you really are the hottest you've ever been.'

she blushes. 'still, cait. thank you.'

you nod; you'll accept it for now. she gets dressed in a relatively new pair of thick cotton barrel pants she loves, ones you’d shopped for together, and puts on a beanie just to humor you; you kiss her for it even when she rolls her eyes at your clear delight.

you meet your family — hers, at first, sure, but yours too, a collective — at the bar, and of course, you do pay, and jinx toasts to your black card, and you roll your eyes but you laugh too. your home team wins and vi's favorite player gets a triple-double and when you get home later, full and a little tipsy, you're careful of her shoulder but you still show her all the ways you think she's sexy, and wonderful, and hot as hell.

when you wake up the next morning, she's still sound asleep next to you, naked and absolutely gorgeous. you, allegedly, were supposed to meet jayce for a run, but you text him for a raincheck. instead, you curl into her strong, capable side, and decide to let you both rest a little longer.

[animal-forgeries]

today's mimic: zone-tailed hawk, buteo albonotatus

the zone-tailed hawk has been suggested to mimic turkey vultures, most obviously in their flight pattern: the hawks fly unusually with wings raised dihedrally, and will rock back and forth in a similar manner to turkey vultures. additionally, the silhouette and the shape of the flight feathers resemble a turkey vulture much more than other similar hawks. this is an example of aggressive mimicry, since turkey vultures rarely hunt animals, while the zone-tailed hawk is an active predator. its prey will be more likely to ignore the presence of the bird, believing it to be a harmless scavenger. the kettling behaviour of turkey vultures aids the zone-tailed hawk, as it can blend into large gatherings of vultures. although up close the two animals are very different, even experienced birders may have difficulty identifying a zone-tailed hawk from its deceitful silhouette and flight pattern.

model:

photo by roy lowe

flight pattern comparison:

[xyymath]

Symmetry: The beauty of Mathematics

Listen, symmetry isn’t just aesthetic. It’s the backbone of mathematics, the reason your equations behave, and honestly, the only thing keeping some functions from spiraling into utter chaos. And here’s the truth: symmetry isn’t just about looking pretty; it’s about mathematical harmony, balance, and the deeply satisfying moment when everything aligns perfectly, just as it should.

The Y-Axis Mirror Selfie (a.k.a Even Functions)

2. The Rotational Drama Queens (a.k.a Symmetry about the Origin; odd functions)

3. Group Theory Symmetry : the reason your Rubik's Cube works and why physicists don’t spiral into existential despair when studying quantum particles.

Cyclic groups, Dihedral groups and Lie groups

4. Polar Coordinates—aka the Art Students of Math

Polar graphs SCREAM symmetry. Roses? Circles? LEMNISCATES?

the bottom line : Symmetry is how we recognize order in chaos. And symmetry isn’t just confined to math. You see it in biology (DNA), art (da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man), and even in the way we naturally find faces with symmetry more attractive. It's everywhere, from the humble parabola to the complex eigenfunctions of quantum systems. So next time you plot a graph, take a second to appreciate the sheer elegance of its symmetry. Or lack of symmetry—because asymmetry can be just as hot.

[locally-normal]

Don't worry, if you spend a while considering a space with a group action up to homotopy you can conclude that no one really understands group actions.

Seeing that the Weyl group W_G(H) := normalizer of H in G / H is the set of equivariant (ie group action preserving) maps from G/H to G/H is pretty neat though, would recommend, it's a fun exercise. G/H here is the set of H cosets of G, with a G action given by g . H = gH. (Remember that for G/H to be a group H must be normal, but you can always write a set of cosets G/H).

I did that one a while ago and then recently had to remind myself and do it for the case G=O(2) and H=Z/2 generated by a map with determinant -1, ie a flip. Good stuff.

Finally understanding group actions and all it took was looking at this picture (from Michael Artin’s Algebra)

[msexcelfractal]

steven wolfram generated sierpinski's gasket with a cellular automaton. the rule of action for this automaton is logical xor. I notice loxigal xor is equivalent to addition modulo 2. I make a bunch of art, mostly in addition modulo 2 or 3.

I think to myself, modular addition is the operation of cyclic groups. Why restrict myself to cyclic groups? why restrict myself to abelian groups even? Just because Excel's architecture assumes cell contents are real numbers? Pah. I write a formula to iterate wolfram's sierpinski rule using arbitrarily defined group operation. B11=INDIRECT(ADDRESS(A11+3,B10+3)). This will compute B11 as group operation A11⊕B10, where ⊕ is designated by the cayley table whose upper left corner is C3. Since B10 is above B11 and A10 is to B11's left, the pattern formed by ⊕ cascades down and to the right.

Here's a sierpinski gasket "modulo" [the dihedral group of order 6]. The group D6 is generated by the actions of [horizontal reflection] and [120° rotation] on a plane.

[captain-price-unofficially]

An old straight-dihedral B-25 contrasts with the crank-winged Mitchells behind it at Felts Field, Spokane, Washington. 1941

[usafphantom2]

OTD in 1969, The Iconic XB-70 Valkyrie Mach 3 Super Bomber Made Its Last Flight

February 4, 2021 Military Aviation, Military History

Three drag chutes were needed to slow down the landing roll of the XB-70. (Image credit: Reddit edit The Aviationist)

The massive XB-70 Valkyrie is the largest and heaviest airplane ever to fly at Mach 3.

The North American XB-70 Valkyrie was the most ambitious super-bomber project of the Cold War. The massive six-engine bomber was slated to be the ultimate American high-altitude, high-speed, deep-penetration manned nuclear bomber designed to fly high and fast, so as to be safe from Soviet interceptors.

Two Valkyrie prototypes were been built at North American Aviation before the Kennedy Administration cancelled the program as a consequence of the doubts that surrounded the future of manned bombers believed to be obsolete platforms. The threat posed by Soviet SAMs (Surface-to-Air Missiles) put the near-invulnerability of the strategic bomber at high altitudes in doubt. In low-level penetration role, the B-70 offered little performance improvement over the B-52 it was designed to replace (!) and it was much more expensive with shorter range.

Some fascinating variants of the aircraft were proposed. Some envisaged the B-70 carrying an Alert Pod, or flying as a Supersonic Refueler or as a Recoverable Booster Space System (RBSS). You can find all the details about these crazy concepts in this story we have posted last year.

Ezoic

The B-70 program was canceled in 1961 and development continued as part of a research program to study the effects of long-duration high-speed flight with the two XB-70A.

XB-70A number 1 (62-001) made its first flight from Palmdale to Edwards Air Force Base, CA, on Sept. 21, 1964. The second XB-70A (62-207) made its first flight on Jul. 17, 1965. The latter differed from the first prototype for being built with an added 5 degrees of dihedral on the wings as suggested by the NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA, wind-tunnel studies.

While the 62-001 made only one flight above Mach 3, because of poor directional stability experienced past Mach 2.5, the second XB-70, achieved Mach 3 for the first time on Jan. 3, 1966 and successfully completed a total of nine Mach 3 flights by June on the same year.

Photo of the XB-70 #1 cockpit, which shows the complexity of this mid-1960s research aircraft. On the left and right sides of the picture are the pilot’s and co-pilot’s control yokes. Forward of these, on the cockpit floor, are the rudder pedals with the NAA North American Aviation trademark. Between them is the center console. Visible are the six throttles for the XB-70’s jet engines. Above this is the center instrument panel. The bottom panel has the wing tip fold, landing gear, and flap controls, as well as the hydraulic pressure gages. In the center are three rows of engine gages. The top row are tachometers, the second are exhaust temperature gages, and the bottom row are exhaust nozzle position indicators. Above these are the engine fire and engine brake switches. The instrument panels for the pilot left and co-pilot right differ somewhat. Both crewmen have an airspeed/Mach indicator, and altitude/vertical velocity indicator, an artificial horizon, and a heading indicator/compass directly in front of them. The pilot’s flight instruments, from top to bottom, are total heat gage and crew warning lights; stand-by flight instruments side-slip, artificial horizon, and altitude; the engine vibration indicators; cabin altitude, ammonia, and water quantity gages, the electronic compartment air temperature gage, and the liquid oxygen quantity gage. At the bottom are the switches for the flight displays and environmental controls. On the co-pilot’s panel, the top three rows are for the engine inlet controls. Below this is the fuel tank sequence indicator, which shows the amount of fuel in each tank. The bottom row consists of the fuel pump switches, which were used to shift fuel to maintain the proper center of gravity. Just to the right are the indicators for the total fuel top and the individual tanks bottom. Visible on the right edge of the photo are the refueling valves, while above these are switches for the flight data recording instruments. (Image credit: NASA)

A joint agreement signed between NASA and the Air Force planned to use the second XB-70A prototype for high-speed research flights in support of the American supersonic transport (SST) program.

However, on June 8, 1966, the XB-70 62-207 was involved in one of the most famous and tragic accidents in military aviation when it collided with a civilian registered F-104N while flying in formation as part of a General Electric company publicity photo shoot over Barstow, California, outside the Edwards Air Force Base test range in the Mojave Desert. The aircraft were flying in formation with a T-38 Talon, an F-4B Phantom II, and a YF-5A Freedom Fighter.

North American XB-70A Valkyrie just after collision. Note the F-104 is at the forward edge of the fireball and most of both XB-70A vertical stabilizers are gone. (U.S. Air Force photo)

As explained in a previous post here at The Aviationist:

Towards the end of the photo shooting NASA registered F-104N Starfighter, piloted by famous test pilot Joe Walker, got too close to the right wing of the XB-70, collided, sheared off the twin vertical stabilizers of the big XB-70 and exploded as it cartwheeled behind the Valkyrie. North American test pilot Al White ejected from the XB-70 in his escape capsule, but received serious injuries in the process. Co-pilot Maj. Carl Cross, who was making his first flight in the XB-70, was unable to eject and died in the crash.

The root cause of the incident was found to be wake turbulence: wake vortices spinning off the XB-70’s wingtip caused Walker’s F-104N to roll, colliding with the right wingtip of the huge XB-70 and breaking apart. As explained in details in this post, wingtip vortices form because of the difference in pressure between the upper and lower surfaces of a wing. When the air leaves the trailing edge of the wing, the air stream from the upper surface is inclined to that from the lower surface, and helical paths, or vortices, result. The vortex is strongest at the tips and decreasing rapidly to zero nearing midspan: at a short distance from the trailing edge downstream, the vortices roll up and combine into two distinct cylindrical vortices that constitute the “tip vortices.

Although research activities continued with the first prototype with a first NASA flight on April 25, 1967, the last one was on Feb. 4, 1969.

The only remaining XB-70 Valkyrie super bomber in on display at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force at Wright-Patterson AFB in Dayton, Ohio. In October last year, it had to briefly moved outside for display maintenance. Here you can watch a video of the monumental move.

A view of the six massive afterburners on the XB-70 Valkyrie as the aircraft is towed out of its display hangar temporarily for museum maintenance. (Photo: National Museum of the U.S. Air Force via YouTube)

About David Cenciotti

David Cenciotti is a journalist based in Rome, Italy. He is the Founder and Editor of “The Aviationist”, one of the world’s most famous and read military aviation blogs. Since 1996, he has written for major worldwide magazines, including Air Forces Monthly, Combat Aircraft, and many others, covering aviation, defense, war, industry, intelligence, crime and cyberwar. He has reported from the U.S., Europe, Australia and Syria, and flown several combat planes with different air forces. He is a former 2nd Lt. of the Italian Air Force, a private pilot and a graduate in Computer Engineering. He has written five books and contributed to many more ones.

@TheAviationist via X

[jomindraws]

Fifth Phylum !!111! Opposed Elasmochordata STILL in Superphylum Near Bilateral !!

PHYLUM OPPOSED ELASMOCHORDATA

Phylum containing a bidirectional, plated, segmented nerve column and an exoskeleton of calcium carbonate.

(AN1 A2-c) Clade: Chamatae

A clade of opposed elasmochordates that contain a calcium carbonate shell, respirate with an active muscle valve, and locomote via ciliary or muscular valve locomotion.

Class Opposed Clamoids

Class of chamatae that consume organisms through a baleen-analagous filter located on one of the valve ends of the opposition.

Class Dihedral Mollusks

Class of chamatae that consume organisms with an extending tooth-barbed muscle located on one of the valve ends of the opposition.

(AN1 A2-d) Clade: Findopseudopescadae

A clade of opposed elasmochordates that contain an enamel shell, an interior support structure of hyaline cartilage, respirate with pseudo-gill structures, and locomote via water jet excretion or rotation.

Class Walking Steeples

Class of findopseudopescadae that have a semi-flexible exoskeleton, 3-4 long and rigid appendages, a central dorsal node head lined with sensing pili, and are completely benthic.

Class Bifin Aquatics

Class of findopseudopescadae that have a flexible outer shell, 2 ends ending in forked or lunate fins, and use labriform locomotion to swim in pelagic environments.

You may have noticed two things with these guys ! First of all, they are split down the middle! The head end of the nerve column ends at two tails ends as opposed to one. This allows for both enhanced growth and sensing, a splitting and managing of different tasks (most observable on the opposed clamoids and dihedral mollusks) and also redundancy in the event of a predator attack! These guys are also "elasmochordata", which means their nerve chord is segmented into many plates that can be bent and stretched, acting as both a "spine" and a "nerve cord" that can be separated into different functions (similar to how each vertebrae of a mammal can control different body systems)

The second thing you may have noticed is that there are quite a lot of phyla ending in "cord" or "chordata", while on Earth Chordates are just ONE phylum. Well, on Jom'Gol, these different creatures have had a longer period of time to differentiate and speciate-- they are already distinct enough on phylogenetic records. However, the physical differences are very unique as well ! Each type of "nerve cord" has a different time, material, shape, growing structure, and placement that it develops in during the embryo-- and although some creatures may look similar, even an inspection of the spinal cord both during adulthood will show wildly different shapes between phyla!

[legosaurus]

McLaren & Lego Unveil Lego Technic McLaren P1

The British supercar maker McLaren Automotive and the Lego Group today unveil their latest collaboration paying tribute to the world’s most pioneering hybrid hypercar, with the introduction of the Lego Technic McLaren P1.

The McLaren P1 redefined automotive high-performance as the most exciting, most capable, most technologically advanced and most dynamically accomplished supercar of its time. The P1 leveraged McLaren’s advanced motorsport-based engineering, featuring ground-breaking advances in weight reduction, packaging, high-speed performance, powertrain and aerodynamics.

Created with the intention of being ‘the best driver’s car in the world on both road and track’, the design and technical specifications of the McLaren P1 provided the ideal foundation to deliver on this ambition. The remarkable hypercar is recognized as a landmark both for McLaren and the development of high-performance hybrid vehicles.

The incredible engineering and technology underpinning the performance, style and functional design the McLaren P1, made it the perfect challenge for the Lego Technic team to replicate in 1:8 scale.

Unveiled as part of the Lego Technic Ultimate Car Concept Series, the all-new 1:8 scale Lego Technic version consists of 3,893 elements and each car features a unique serial number which unlocks special behind-the-scenes content. The model has a 7-speed gearbox with 2 shifter drums, suspension, V8 piston engine, adjustable rear wing, and opening dihedral doors with advanced mechanism – all guaranteeing an immersive building experience from start to finish that is authentic to the real McLaren P1.

The Lego Technic McLaren P1 set will be available from 1st August 2024 priced at €449.99 / £389.99 / $449.99.

[locally-normal]

I take it back, Dihedral groups of order 4n, that is, symmetries of a regular 2n-gon, suck. Fuck 2 it's a problem.

[iwannakissasopwithcamel]

Ritter Model S ‘Fink’ - "Astrid Ritter's Magnum Opus"

Role: Scout Served With: Macchi Republics First Flight: 1597 Strengths: Supreme Dogfighter Weaknesses: Unstable, Overspeed Inspiration: Sopwith Snipe (1918) Backer: Tom

Description:

The last Ritter rotary, the Model S consumed nearly half a decade of the designer’s life in perfecting it. A redesign of the Model F, improved in every way, the Model S carries the frightening W.O.3 230 horsepower engine. Both wings had to be given dihedral angles to compensate for the immense torque.

The Fink had aggressive turn characteristics, robust construction, and could outrun anything that could outturn it. Though they never completely replaced the Model F, it was soon known and feared by its enemies, and it was the last, best chance for the doomed Macchi Republics.

Though rare, many dogfight aces consider them to be the best rotary biplanes in the world. Few survived, most of them cut apart for the engines after Macchi surrendered, so each one is treasured