Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2003/09/01
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]nice, but the king is the GAU-8: http://www.securityarms.com/20010315/galleryfiles/0900/929.htm the A-10 is built around this behemoth, and when it fires it produces 19,000 lbs of recoil. each of the two engines on the A-10 produces 9,000 lbs of thrust. do the math. i had a buddy in the service in hawaii, and he told me when he saw the A-10s doing exercises, you could see them appear to stop in mid-air when they opened up on the target. the basic technology for the A-10 weapon, the AC130 gunships and the Phalanx close-in-weapons system on navy ships all of which we currently use is very old, having been invented by richard gatling in 1862 during the civil war. by the turn of the last century, the gatling had been obsoleted by gas and recoil-powered machine guns and the multi-barrelled rotary gun concept lay dormant for 50 years. then in the 1950's when GE resurrected the gatling gun for aircraft use, this incarnation hooked up to an electric or gas-powered motor and named Vulcan. and what does this teach us about leica? that good things can have more than one life, that obsolecence is sometimes temporary, and that engineering diversity is a good thing. oh yes, and that oldies can be goodies. - -rei On Mon, Sep 01, 2003 at 07:40:57PM +0200, animal wrote: > http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/equip/m61a1-vulcan.jpg > - -- Rei Shinozuka shino@panix.com Ridgewood, New Jersey - -- To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html