Convair had experimented with parasite aircraft prior to advances in aerial refueling.  With the extended range and high cruising speed of the B-36 Peacemaker, fighters of the day had difficulty keeping up.  Jet fighters didn’t have the range, and prop fighters didn’t have the speed.  The solution was the X-85 Goblin, designed to hang from a hook in one of the B-36’s bomb bays.  It wasn’t a great solution; I’ll do a future post about it.

In this case, though, Convair proposed an two-piece parasite; one manned, the second unmanned.  The host aircraft would accelerate to Mach 2 so the ramjet on the parasite had enough airflow to fire up; once released, it could hit Mach 4, which made it invulnerable to fighters and surface-to-air missiles of the time.  It would land like the X-15; on a belly skid. 

There were immense problems with this idea.  First, the parasite was probably to heavy and produced too much drag to allow the host B-58 enough speed for the ramjets to fire up.  Second, the B-58B program was cancelled while development continued. 

The Fish (as it was called) was ahead of its time: it used ceramic materials to help with supersonic heat and absorb radar; it was shaped to limit radar cross-section; it featured a lifting body design to extend its range to nearly 4000 miles.  All this in the 1950s. 

Links to much more detail and excellent pictures over at aerospcaeweb.org.

Additional editorial commentary: it amazes me how little progress has been made in aerospace since the middle of the last century.  In the recent controversy over the Obama administrations proposed cancellation of the Constellation project, some key thoughts have been overlooked.  First, the great advances in aviation were often made by small teams of engineers at private companies like Lockheed and Convair (and even Boeing).  NASA today has become a huge bureaucratic mess; it takes 25,000 employees several months just to refurbish the Space Shuttle for one launch.  NASA’s plan to return to the moon and go on to Mars was described as “Apollo on Steroids”; but Apollo, while a magnificent feat, was done with unlimited budgets and the only motivation to beat the Russians.  After the moon, interest died and NASA turned into a jobs program.  People want more aerospace research; funding NASA is unlikely to provide progress, any more than funding the Post Office (contemplating 5-day delivery, still at a loss) is more likely to produce better mail delivery or funding Amtrak more (Acela – too many compromises and priced too high, especially compared to Asian and European systems) is likely to produce innovative rail service.  For innovation in aerospace, look to Scaled Composites, SpaceX, Virgin Galactic, and innumerable other small companies.

First, the hit points.  Diablo in Normal Mode of Diablo 2 has 13818 hit points (according to the useful Diablo Wiki).  So we can rule out that little piece of numerology.

Second, the error message.  We need to see a screen shot of the error before we can really be confident.  Otherwise, someone is just playing around with hex.

Third, the item.  I’ve never encountered a "Gnaw Fold" ring in my play, and I can’t see a note of it in the item lists I’ve checked.  Though I’m open to the idea, I don’t think it exists.  The solution might be to install and not update, then play through single-player in an attempt to find it. . .maybe someone else has the time.

So, with no item, we can’t test the theory and get a screenshot.  I call this a fun myth until someone can show me otherwise.

• The Engineer’s teleporters can now be upgraded to level three. It will recharge faster the higher level it is
• The Engineer’s dispensers can now be upgraded to level three. It will give out metal and heal faster as it is upgraded
• Spies will be able to recharge their cloaking ability by picking up ammo off of the ground or from health cabinets
• Some changes to the second part of the first stage of Goldrush to give the attackers more of an advantage
• Any weapons that fire bullets (shotguns, sniper’s machine gun, heavy’s minigun, etc.) can now break apart the Demoman’s stickybombs
• The icon on the HUD for a person calling for Medic will now give more information to the medic (if the target is low on health, on fire, etc.)
• Added an achievement tracker that will allow people to choose specific achievements that they are trying to get
• There is now a custom icon for death messages when the player was killed from a critical hit
• Added a new particle effect for when a player enters the water
• Added smoke to the feet of a rocket jumping soldier
• Players will now have some particles swirling around them so other players can see when they are overhealed

Kudos to the guys at Valve for sneaking a nice little update in.

Sorry about the stupid player and the ads. The vid loads pretty slowly, but just give it a few minutes. You’ll be glad you did.

“What is it?” you may ask.

Well, let me tell you. It’s the most essential piece of equipment for any 19th century time traveler. Behold the Steampunk Flux Capacitor! This unique piece was apparently part of some nerds Halloween costume last year. And although he doesn’t have any pictures of the complete costume posted, you can only imagine how sweet it must have been by looking at the rest of pictures in this set.

It’s just unfortunate that I don’t posses the necessary set of skillz to create masterpieces such as this. I suppose I’ll just have to continue admiring the work of others.

I got a chance to play with one of these, taking out some enemy armor.  The weapons selection seems very close to what’s in the current US arsenal.  The vehicles I saw were really well modeled; this is the same attention to details that we saw in the WWII games.

I can see they’re trying to give us a full-scale, near-symmetrical modern conflict.  That’s where I’m a little unsure of the realism, because we haven’t had a symmetrical war for more than fifty years, to my knowledge.  I can understand the political problems with presenting a game based on our asymmetrical fights in the Middle East, but that’s what we’re familiar with.  I see them trying to give us that as well: RPGs were flying everywhere in the demo. 

I think I can sum up the challenge this game will have.  The original CoD games put you into a historical context where you relived some of the most pivotal, defining, and heroic events in our history.  One of the best moments in any game, any platform was that final, frenetic push through the Reichstag.  The Volga crossing into Stalingrad is another.  Can CoD 4 give us moments like those in a fantasy conflict?