Why Does The Trident Missile Have A Spike On Its Nose?
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- Опубликовано: 7 дек 2022
- The Lesser known aerospike, the aerodynamic device found on the noses of missiles which have to have blunt noses to make them short enough to fit inside submarines. At supersonic speeds these reduce the drag by 50% and added 550km to the range of a Trident missile while still letting them fit in the same missile tubes designed for the original Polaris.
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"It needs to be pointy. Round is not scary. Pointy is scary"
"It sticks in the ground and then kaboom"
- General Aladeen
Nuclear warheads detonate a distance up in the air.
@@Safetytrousers Depends on the desired effect. Ground level maximizes dirty fallout if you want the target area unusable for some time. High altitude airblasts shorten the time until you can put boots on the rubble. Japan was kind of medium between these options as the bombs hadn't been optimized for invasion yet.
Damn, you beat me to it :D I was gonna comment the same thing :D
In these research films, is ther a duck, that when the rxplosion it happen the wind blows his bill around like this, and in order to speak he has to put it back around like this
@@Safetytrousers Have you consulted Professor Bobeye? Professor Bobeye, the one with the incredibly strong forearms that are miss-sized for his body.
Scott - Nice job! And thanks for the trip down memory lane. I worked Polaris A3 when it was still deployed by the Royal Navy. Also Poseidon, Trident I, and Trident II (being the designer of the subject of this video). I would go on to run the entire program. It was originally called the "Aerodynamic Spike", but that was just too many syllables and we usually shortened it to "Aerospike", leading to confusion with our favorite exotic engine type. We did trade other devices and one of my invention disclosures was the "Flaming Aerospike", which was a forward facing small solid rocket motor. Worked pretty well in the lab, but the Chief Engineer at the time (I job I would later have) caught me and set me back on track for what we have now (no sense of adventure). Sometime, I'll tell you about how I was very nearly killed by an Aerospike during a test in the lab...
This is the re Tory Bruno by the way y'all.
This is awesome, thanks for sharing with us Tory!
I have a mighty need to hear this story, maybe in interview format? 👀
Thank you Mr Bruno thats some amazing tidbits
Wow, was it because the Aerospike deployment?
Ah, I can see the REAL reason why aerospike engines are not used - with the bottom end being pointy as well, there's a real risk the rocket might be launched upside-down... 😀
in unrelated news, NASA announced a surprise expedition to the core of the earth
@@marcopohl4875 Wasn't that an Onion article?
@@iainballas yep
Yes indeedee!
@@iainballas so that means it legit!
Poseidon actually had a battle load of 10-14 MIRVs, Polaris A3 had a 3 warhead MRV "claw" configuration, all 3 warheads would be aimed at the same target and bracket it with 3 separate explosions. Poseidon's role, due to its still fairly short range was to mostly blast corridors for B-52s and supposedly B-1As through Soviet air defense so the bombers could take out high value targets with much larger yield gravity bombs. The B-52s and B-1s would also carry SRAM (short-range attack missile) to help punch through Soviet air defenses.
Nowadays you can apparently achieve the same result with a couple well-placed drones😉
Horrifying that they would put so much detailed planning into a doomsday scenario.
@@cal-native what air defense doing?
@@viliamklein apparently not much given the drone/missile strikes deep into Russian airspace 🤔
Can't defend if they're radioactive ash.
I love that you and other "space youtubers" watch out what others have done and admit that this is the best it's gonna get so you don't "recycle" already explained stuff from others! That way I always know I will learn something new.
"Its Not Pointy Enough" 😂
The pointiness of the rocket has nothing to do with aerodynamics. its about payload capabilities
@@tabeebrahman4843 I'm going with Elon and Aladeen, make it pointy
@@tabeebrahman4843 Rockets need to be pointy to work.
I thought it was a "French Tickler"?
If you dont make one end pointy how is it supposed to know which direction to take!
Mach 1 underwater blows my mind, I would love to hear more about it!
The real question is if it actually is Mach 1 under water that would be almost equivalent to Mach 5 in air.
well it's Mach 1 in the air... as you know, it's impossible to reach Mach 1 in water, because that would require travelling at 1500 m/s or 5400 km/h
The conclusion on the supercavitating torpedo was that it was a 'weapon of last resort'. They are really noisy and immediately give away the launcher's position. On top of that is a programmed course weapon, because sensors, like sonar, cannot operate through the cavity. However, if you have direct line of sight on a large enemy vessel/high value target, which was worth the detection risk, then it woudl be almost impossible to dodge, though very prone to explosive countermeasures. There is a US Navy, or RAND Corporation report on them, I forget which, that presented the conclusion that they would have a very limited use, but might be worth having one or two per attack submarine
@@profpep Meanwhile the soviets looked at their swarms of often diesel powered attack boats, compared them to a nuclear powered aircraft carrier and said "Yeah... seems like a fair trade."
@@Tomyironmane Not at all. Carriers and modern destroyers deploy submarine-hunting helicopters and aircraft, while supercavitating torpedoes have a very limited range. Russian submarines are notoriously noisy once they are no longer new, because Russia is terrible at keeping its hardware well-maintained.
Richard from Chabot Space & Science Center here (Scott, you and I have met). Having worked on the Trident I and Trident II missile program at Lockheed for 15 years, it was really interesting to hear you describe very accurately how the aerospike works and why it was used in this instance. I have been up-close and personal with the Trident aerospike many times including working with the team of engineers having to design for details like this. It is more like a upside down titanium dinner plate on the end of a thick telescoping rod and pops out almost immediately when the rocket engines fire.
12:03 Scott leaning forward to deliver his parting "Fly safe!" and all I can think of is his blunt dome not showing an aerospike on top 😀
The nod to Tim Dodd is classy. Very classy.
Agreed, it's not Everyday that one content creator acknowledges another one.
The inertia sensor to deploy that spike reminded me of a story we passed around when I served on the boat. That the missile when launched would actually rise up out of the water because of the force it was launched with. And it would start to fall back into the water and it was this 'falling' that triggered the rocket motor. (when the sensor detected 'near weightless')
Was it true?
@@tonyhawk123 The missile rides a gas bubble out of the tube and is thrown out of the water. The motor fires as the missile begins to fall back, according to film of launch tests.
@@kentw.england2305 cheers. I suppose that makes sense. They always appear to behave that way visually. Hadn't cottoned on to the zero gravity moment being ideal for a sensor.
@@tonyhawk123 Its probably not the only thing that tells the computer to ignite the motor.
@@obsidianjane4413 Yeah, you'd want half a dozen different inputs that add up to an ignition command. It would be kind of embarassing if the rocket went off in the tube.
I was an STS1 (Sonar Technician Submarines, First Class) in the US Navy, and I am probably one of a very small group of people who have heard a "Shkval" (Russian supercavitating torpedo) being launched. To my knowledge, they weren't very common at the time, and we were told by our Acoustic Intelligence advisor that we were hearing something pretty unique. Great video!
If unclass, I would love to know what it sounded like. I'm kind of an audiophile (not the over-priced stereo klind).
They didn't "figure out they could make larger missiles by stripping out some of the lining of the tubes". When they made the Ohio class subs they anticipate using the larger Trident missiles but they weren't ready yet so they lined the missile tubes with smaller launch tubes for the Poseidon missiles and later stripped out the smaller launch tubes for larger ones for the Trident missiles.
The early Ohio class boats were built for the C4 Trident I, not C3 Poseidon. They were later refitted for the longer D5 Trident II.
Flamey end, pointy end, with arrows! Mind blowing graphics are your calling Scott! Great content and accent.
Yeah i noticed that. Praises a competing channel for their graphics and then takes it to the next level. Very modest.
@@tonyhawk123 Rather interesting timing to be directing people to Tim's channel too, with his news today.
@@Thermalions that's true! Just about the biggest announcement anyone could conceivably make on their youtube channel. Probably had the heads up.
I served aboard a couple of C4 Backfit subs. The only thing I wanted to point out what that the "A" class missiles were inside liners that made the "C" sized tubes fit them. When they went to C-3, they removed the liner. It was a pre-planned evolution. Shout out to any SSBN-657 shipmates out there.
It’s rare that the government does something that makes so much sense! Forward thinking.
@@alphagt62
My thought exactly. Thank God the Social Security Administration doesn't design anything important.
I remember Dad pointing that feature out on take your kids to work day (at Lockheed).
His contribution to the missile was designing rollers that guide the nose cone housing as it is jettisoned to expose the warheads. (can't just blow it off randomly, have to make sure it doesn't clip anything important).
I remember the missile on display in a hanger, but the payload area covered in shrouds; since they couldn't let the public know exactly how many warheads it could carry.
I remember remembering Dad on display in the missile cone housing but he cant just blow it off randomly since the public cant know
@@TimPerfetto good
Old dad.. I was remembering remembering him blowing off too
Sunnyvale
@@mrbaab5932 Yep
This reminds me of the whole bulbous bow destructive interference thing for large ships. It's another one of those structures that reduce drag but just doesn't look right.
1:09 - thank you for providing that simple yet elegant graphics, so we don't get confused thinking if that missile was shot backwards. This is the type of content that can make other youtube creators jealous!
"somehwhat compatible with the laws of physics" is my personal favorite quote from this video
I imagine this is the same reason unicorns have a spike in front - to reduce drag in the front caused by the expulsion of unicorn farts out the back. Amirite?
This is something I had wondered about many times over the decades but failed to research it further. Thanks Scott.
Thanks so much for the video!! I personally have always been extremely interested in reducing drag and you covered some of the ideas I’ve had since I was a kid!!!
I love this so much. Such a "simple" problem solving innovation
Engineers tried to push this idea early on but nobody got the point.
🤣
thanks Scott, brings back memories. lots of touchy-feely work went into the maintenance.
Neat. Very clever engineering. It sounds like one of those wild ideas that don't get past the drawing stage, but this actually works.
This made me think about the spike at the front of the J58 engine in the SR-71 and how it would move to adjust the inlet shock.
I have a drawing from my school days where I drew a shuttle like craft that vented gases to slip past the hot plasma. Later I would learn of many of the examples you just spoke of. Great video on the subject.
Thank you for taking this topic on as it warmed this old Missile Technician’s heart. I served on board SSBN’s 738 & 742 from Feb. ‘94-Dec. ‘97 & Oct. ‘01-Apr. ‘05, respectively. Covering the entire family of SLBM’s I figured some old(er) FTB, MT or WT would weigh in on those platform capabilities, but you did a very good job in presenting the material on the aerospike and the SLBM family. Keep up the great work!
Thank you for you service. I myself was an ftb on ssbn 727 and a tm on ssbn 738. I would weigh in if I could but all the inner working is classified
@@albobarhop ahhh...FTBs...whenever there was missile handling ops they were First To (the) Beach 🤣
I was a Missile Tech (Trident Backfit, NEC 3315) back in the 1980s. SSBN 641. It doesn’t seem that long ago but the minor aches and pains in my body tells me differently. This video did bring back some memories.
This took me back - Served at an MT on 658,641, and 643, also served at POMFLANT and SWFLANT
"Flamey end and pointy end" - Thank you, always get confused.
I think a more in depth video on super cavitating torpedoes would be a great sister video to this!
Very cool that you added in a blurb about supercavitating torpedoes, too! Those things were amazing!
I've had this exact conversation with Gordon England at ULA back in 2012. He was telling me about the aerospike engine and I introduced him to the similarly named device on the trident SLBM.
The motors on the SR71 used aero spikes on the front to control the air speed going into the motors. Those motors deserve a program all their own from Scott
Those are shock cone intakes, a completely different type of device.
@@scottmanley air conditioner inlet lol
@@MrJay_White Balls compresor, cause those pilots would be too big to fit
@@derrekvanee4567 sr71 had no parachute. in emergency the pilots where expected to glide down like magic tanuki.
Scott is correct. Those devices were designed to control the impingement point of the shockwave from the supersonic air on the intake of the engines. They were necessary to prevent unstarts. Also they would move forward/backwards depending on the speed of the aircraft.
On a Rocket Test Group tour at China Lake, our host led us into a test cell where a Trident stage 1 motor was being prepped for a test firing the next day. It was a little chilling to stand right in the exhaust zone of a solid motor with something like 80,000 lbs of double-base propellant.
Two NASA guys excused themselves to go outside and were visibly relieved to step out in the parking lot on the other side of the cell, until I reminded them that if it went high order we'd still be in the fireball.
A friend of mine used to work on Titan II missiles years ago when he was in the Air Force. He told me a story about some guys that were working in a room with a solid rocket motor that was, IIRC, supposed to separate stages, when they screwed up and set it off. It fired for maybe a second and those guys were essentially erased from existence.
@@RCAvhstape Hot time in the old test cell tonight!
There was a case at Hill AFB, Utah in the late 50's or early 60's in which some airman where performing unauthorized maintenance on a AIM-9 Sidewinder rocket motor. The rocket motor ignited and raised the temperature of the maintenance bay, incinerating the airmen. The incident happened on a weekend, and they had to preform a total recall of the section to determine who exactly was killed.
@@RCAvhstape Geezus....what a horrible way to go.
If I may say so, Scott, an enthusiastic "hullo" and a silly Scottish accent are necessary for the pinnacle of aerospace edutainment.
Scott, I remember reading, back in the eighties, that they had designed the standing shock wave in such a way that it blocked/moderated cross wind. Apparently, the shock wave which was a distance away from the body and not attached, could collapse a bit under side pressure before actually effecting the missile. Clever fellows these rocket scientists.
An excellent dive into hypersonic bow shock reduction.
That was fascinating. Fluid dynamics is fun. Thanks for a great video.... as always.
AGAIN. FABULOUS. Love your vids. They are VERY cool and informative. Thanks.
I heard about the super-cavitating rocket torpedoes while I was in the Military, mostly used as a break-away weapon to distract your opponent while you break off from the engagement. Quite the nasty trick actually, very hard to aim, but noisy enough to cover whatever else you wanted to do. Served at Polaris Point on Guam
Doesn't any manned rocket with a Launch Escape System tower also effectively have an aerospike?
besides vostok and gemini, sure. but those systems aren’t under the same length constraints as the rockets discussed in this video
Possibly if they had shaped it for that purpose, but they may have just seen the tower as an appendage that needed to be somewhat aerodynamic, and they didn't really go beyond that in designing the shape of it.
They did do supersonic wind tunnel tests to see if the shockwaves would negatively effect flow. Probably as long as it didn't do that, that was good enough. The margins on man rated launchers were such that any benefit would have been negligible.
Interesting point. I’m wondering if this had an effect on reducing the atmospheric drag on the Apollo Service Module RCS quads. I always thought it was miraculous that the Service Module RCS quad nozzles could survive the supersonic atmospheric drag over the course of a Saturn V launch.
@@obsidianjane4413 I think the Saturn V engineers (at least) were keen to scrape every last bit of performance out of their rocket. The second batch of Saturn V's would have removed the first stage fins for a STAGGERING 97kg additional payload* to LEO (not the moon, just LEO). This second batch would have incorporated many other changes as well, but sadly it was cancelled when the Vietnam war started to put pressure on the space budget.
*With a very strong dose of "IIRC."
Another thing to be aware of is sometimes on aircraft its not an aerospike, its a pitot tube as the front of the aircraft is the only place it can get a clean airflow.
He did mention that.
It's not the only place, but a convenient one. There are also trailing cones and trailing "bombs" that you can tow for static pressure measurements. The boom (the industry term for the "spike" we're talking about) can also be fitted with a Yaw and Pitch Sensor (YAPS) head to measure AoA and sideslip.
But it's worth mentioning that all of those are for flight test. Production air data sensors (pitot-static, AoA) are placed wherever is convenient and calibrated to the flight test data.
Love these kinds of videos, thank you for the research effort, it’s really appreciated.
In case anybody wants to look it up, the Russian supercavitating torpedo is the VA-111 Shkval. Iran has a clone of it called Hoot (Whale). The German one, though, despite not advancing beyond a prototype, has the most fun-to-say name: Superkavitierender Unterwasserlaufkörper (Supercavitating Underwater Running Body). (They changed the name to that from Barracuda, for some reason.)
It serves the purpose of pleasing the General
Fascinating. I wonder if this would also work on handgun bullets, which are blunt-nosed for the same reason: their length is limited because they have to fit in the grip of the gun.
The 1848 Colt Dragoon revolver used a sugarloaf-shaped bullet not unlike the sort you'd fit into a rifle, making it one of the few (if not the only) handguns that can shoot a long, sharply pointed bullet.
The downside? The cylinder of a Dragoon is about as big as a hand grenade and the gun itself is almost twice as heavy as a typical handgun.
It's been done. Très Haute Vitesse (very high speed) aka THV and Monad rounds back in the 80s. You can't make it longer as you noted so they cut the rest of the bullet back. That resulted in lower mass and that was offset with higher velocity. They tested well including on animals but didn't catch on. Lehigh brought it back a few years back as the Xtreme Cavitator and they pretty much left the scene. Hard to feed in some pistols, won't fly right if the tip is deformed, and 50/50 on the terminal effects - if the spike flattened on some bone then you're left with a smaller equivalent of a full metal jacket. If you're still interested, check out the Xtreme Defender series, they look like Phillips head screwdriver tips. Same idea but far more practical.
Most handgun rounds are just barely supersonic. I'm not sure this type of system would have enough benefit to be even close to being worth the complexity of developing a telescoping aerospike for a relatively tiny bullet. Just a wild guess based on the angle of the shocks in the test video, but it looks like they're talking about Mach 2.5+ where this effect comes into play.
Seriously interesting mate. (Also, I love that you have a copy of Matter, on the book shelf. Well, definitely one of the IMBs either way). Keep up the good work sir!
Solid video thanks for being a role model Scott 🙏
Also worth mentioning the NASA X-15 Quiet Spike project
I think you meant F-15.
@@StevePemberton2 i meant F-15B, but i'm both lazy and dyslexic
I always thought this was what the rod on the nose of older supersonic planes was for, but I guess not if it affects steering that badly.
The word MASER is dead. :(
"Somewhat compatible with the laws of physics". Good line! :D Also, it's always good to see a new crazy idea.
Thnks Scott for the info.
You and Tim are both AWESOME!
Excuse me, a supersonic underwater torpedo?
In air at sea level, sound moves at a velocity of 343 m/s. But IN WATER sound moves at a velocity of 1,461 m/s- over four times as fast.
I presume when they are talking about a supersonic torpedo they actually mean the speed of sound through air.
Yes, speeds greater than 330m/sec underwater.
"Do you know how to use that thing"
"Yeah. Pointy end goes into the other man."
into?
@@dubious_potat4587 Sword. At least I guess that's what he meant.
@@dubious_potat4587 It's a quote from Zorro
Flamey end … pointy end … I love it when you talk technical! 😄
luverly stuff Scott. Thanks for the vid.
I served on 2 Trident submarines and worked on all of them.
Some guy named Vlad would like to you... in private
OMG that is so amazing you must have a lot of hair to remember with and love other phallic objects like one time I saw you and you couldnt see through all the hair but you knew you could just launch off into somewhere else like when or where ok
Wow, I'm looking up the fastest known torpedo, the Soviet one Shkval; it uses a *water*-ramjet. I didn't think a "water-breathing" engine was possible... incredible.
Doesn’t it use solid rocket engines?
Sounds like BS to me, what is your source for that?
@@benbaselet2026 en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/VA-111_Shkval it is.
@@joshuahadams at first to get to high speed, then the water ramjet takes over.
@@benbaselet2026 Was curious, checked Wiki, on the VA-111 Shkval it says: "Once accelerated, speed is maintained by an underwater ramjet fueled by hydroreactive metals using seawater as both reactant and the source of oxidizer". There's some useful info in the wiki article references, #6 is particularly interesting. Apparently magnesium based?
One of the questions i never knew i wanted to find the answer to... thanks!
Good to see we’re getting technical jargon like “flamy end” and “pointy end” out of the way early on this video.
Does the launch abort system on the Saturn V behind you or on SLS also act as an aerospike?
don't mind me, just hanging out here so I get notified when you get the answer
Well, yes and no. First of all, a difference has to be made between telescopic aerospikes and a "spiked nose". The first one allows you to choose wich aerodynamic profile suits you best depending on your needs, without needing two physical nosecones, the other is just a design choice (as said in the video, for equipements, weight or length among others) to emulate a pointy nosecone.
The M51 rocket (on wich i've worked) and other sub-launched rockets use telescopic aerospikes to change their aerodynamic profile because they goes through two very different environnements. The parabolic nose is the most aerodynamic profile underwater (wich is why torpedoes have such a nose and not pointy ends) but it is very unefficient in the air. Pointy noses are very loud underwater (due to cavitation among others) but ideal in the atmosphere. That's why telescopic aerospikes are used, in order to choose the aerodynamic profile depending on the medium it is going through.
The Saturn 5 does not change medium during flight. This means no need to change the aerodynamic profile, an thus no need to make it telescopic. The Saturn 5 could have made a pointy nosecone with the LAS close to the astronauts (as in Blue Origins New Shepard), or, the final decision, make the LAS solid propellant tank as a "spiked nose" (long an slim) and put it above the astronauts. A safety driven aerodynamic choice.
So no, it does not act as an aerospike, as it is not meant to change the aerodynamic profile. But the design choice is based on the same aerodynamic principle : a physical nosecone isn't mandatory as long as you can emulate it by changing the airflow in the same manner. And in fact, the spiked nose of the Saturn 5 and Orion actually create a lot of airflow disturbances because of the four LAS exhaust nozzles... but it is apparently ok in the general design choice.
@@WawaDvdis transitioning from sub- to supersonic similar to a medium change? If so, do they help there?
@@marcopohl4875 - Subsonic and hypersonic regimes are not a change in medium, just a change in the flow surrounding an object (up to molecular level and atomic division, on wich I do not know much).
Aerospikes help in hypersonic regimes, by changing the shape of the nosecone... in a simplified version, the faster the pointier. You, amongst others, have to factor in bending (much more fragile than a physical nosecone) and oscillations of the aerospike but the idea is there.
Going hypersonic doesn't make aerospikes mandatory. They have advantages and inconveniences, you just have to design your object depending on the constraints you have.
I'd like some software to sim hyper/supersonic shockwaves!
Not sure my PC could handle it well however! :D
Look for OpenFOAM
@@scottmanley Nice!!
Open source, is my favourite flavour of source! :)
Downloading now...
Scott, love the mention of super cavitating torpedoes. Cavitation is presumably understood in normal manufacturing settings these days but there needs to be much more characterization of it soon at high pressures imo.
Oh you love his mention ooohhhhhhhhhhh super cavitating torpedoes ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhahahaa misunderstood cavitation
Thanks. Lots of new information.
So with the significant drag reduction, why isn't this used more on say, the Falcon 9/Heavy? Obviously the Saturn had the eject tower that probably served a similar function as does Artemis. Is it just not worth the added complexity? Or is the steering element you mentioned the reason?
I think he said that a pointy cone is better, and this is just better if u need to make a blunter shape
Probably keeping it simple at this stage of evolution. This concept seems like it would need a lot of research for a comparative small amount of gain. Look for it on the model 16 Heavy 🤪.
Remember, the purpose of this was to fake having a pointy nose... they didn't have room for a real nose cone on the missiles, so they used this deploy-after-launch spike to get some of the benefit anyway. It's clever, but nothing more than a workaround for a design limitation.
Civilian space launchers aren't length, width or mass-limited in the way that military missiles usually are. Falcon 9 could be made much longer and heavier with improved engines to enable it to launch heavier payloads, but you can't do that so much with a missile that has to fit inside a sub or an aircraft weapons bay. That's also part of the reason why propellents for space launch haven't changed much over the years (first methane /oxygen rocket flew in 1931 for example), because the ones we have are good enough, safe enough and cheap enough to do the job and if we need more performance we just use more. In contrast, solid propellant research is ongoing to get around the limitations imposed on military rockets, and improve things like safety and long term stability.
In the 1980s the Soviets deployed a rail mobile ICBM (SS-24) that used an inflatable nose cone for a similar purpose - so that the missile could fit in a standard rail car.
You can only fit the first 2 stages of the d-5 in a railcar.
Now with Ukraine war, i think most of the Soviet/Russia military hardware are inflatable. They were just to scare NATO.
Great and Interesting Video. Thanks for mentioning supercavitationing torpedos. Immediately thought about that. Seems like you know your audience well!
I don't really follow your channel. But this is a nice no bullshit clear and informative video. Take this compliment and go on with the beautiful work!
Any possibility of Spacex using a spike under the starship launchpad to make a supersonic shockwave diverter? Will be great if the diverter could be implemented without a huge structure.
No. There is no possibility.
The spike is for added "deterrence" 😂. The spikes make the missiles look pointier and scarier, a la The Dictator film🤣.
People will poop their pants imagining that the missile would impale them on impact 😁
@@nkronert But it would only hurt for a little bit until the warhead exploded!
@@mikehipperson Nuclear warheads detonate a distance up in the air.
@@Safetytrousers Most of them do. However there are some in pretty much every arsenal that indeed detonate when hitting the ground. IIRC both the US and Russia have a fair amount of nuclear warheads that do exactly that and would be used to specifically target missile silos and hardened defensive positions such as Raven Rock and Cheyenne Mountain.
@@squirrelguy2195 That knowledge also defuses the joke.
Fascinating! Thank for this glimpse into this otherworldly technology. 🙂
Top video so many bits I've never heard of and its awesome
clever, thanks scott for teaching us something new!
"All I could add to a video like that would be an enthusiastic hulloo..." that's all we ever wanted Scott.
This is more technical, much more like your channel should be carrying. Thanks for this, Scott.
My grandfather worked on some of those missles at Lockheed, there was a lot of really neat stuff going on with them. Really pushing the envelope of the technology at the time.
IIRC, there was a high-speed ejection seat developed (Martin-Baker?) that deployed a pylon to place an aero-disc in front of the pilot to shape the shock wave around the seat, putting the pilot in a low pressure 'bubble' of sorts, making the ejection survivable. Don't know if it was ever put into production, but a similar type of idea.
That's just too damned cool! Really nice video! Could listen to this stuff for hours.
11:20 yes the pitot tubes for measuring air pressure and speed using the Bernoulli's principle. They are an interesting subject themselves.
Thanks for the video
Eskimos put extended prows on their Kayak bows to break the waves before hitting their hull. Same idea? excellent show!
You mentioned the Everyday Astronaut at the beginning of your video. He posted a video I watched just before yours where he announced he had been invited to join the #DearMoon mission. Lucky bastard.
Anyway, you make great videos too. Keep 'em coming, my friend. Love to hear an update on your pilot training...Or maybe I missed an update saying you're done, and got your license. Good luck with that, fly safe.
I recently saw an experimental boat with a supercavitating drive, in Portsmouth, NH.
Love the video!!! On another note congrats Tim Dodd he got picked to go on the dear moon mission!!
I like how the space news community is supporting each other. I follow most of you. Everyday Astronaut...fellow from Iowa is always well researched and entertaining. You both do an excellent job! I wish there weren't so many click bait naysayer fake news chinese bot aerospace channels. You could probably do an episode on those idiots too. There must be at least a 100 me too spacex news youtube channels.
I am very glad he mentioned super cavitating torpedoes, I was thinking of them the entire video.
the RF powered lenticular craft gave me a flashback to watching the original tv show "mr. & mrs.smith" (not the movie) this was actually the premise of an episode, I didnt realize at the time it was or at least could be a real thing... very cool!
One of the big reasons for the aero spike on the igla is actually to reduce the heating of the sensor dome. The missile is supersonic and without it the rather poor sensor in the nose would be blinded by the seeker dome getting superheated. Behind an expansion wave shock your temperature drops
I really love that the mac in the background has his image of the moon-mars occultation, something that happened about 12 hours prior to the video being posted
The original AIM-4F air-to-air Falcon missile carried on the F-106 had a similar spike protruding from the front of the radome The spike actually screwed into a threaded stud that projected from the front of the radome. Soon after the introduction it was determined that any added value was not worth all the associated maintenance hassles. The mounting stud was dropped in later manufacturing. Still there were some radomes with the threaded stud on missiles for many years after the spike was discontinued.
Love the quality graphics at 1.12 ❤
Scott Manley for The Dear Moon MIssion!!
The people at ARCA are experts at aerospike technology Scott. You could learn a lot from them.💥
Pretty cool. Never knew about these
1:09 thank you for the caption pointing to the flakey end of the rocket. That'll help anyone who doesn't know their arse from their nose cone
Interesting. I love your physics and engineering content.
If it was a trident missile it should have had three spikes. Such a missed opportunity.
The first time I heard of the principle was in the German Bundeswehr the DM12 HEAT (like a US M830) also has a forward spike with fuse, that also functions as an aerospike.
I love this channel.
Scott, thanks for explaining what those pointy things are on the from of ht rockets.