Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

We will not go quietly into the night; we will not vanish without a fight.

I might just take the rest of the day off and do even more nothing than usual.

We are learning that “working class” means “white” for way too many people.

The “burn-it-down” people are good with that until they become part of the kindling.

Trump’s cabinet: like a magic 8 ball that only gives wrong answers.

Stand up, dammit!

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

One way or another, he’s a liar.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

Our messy unity will be our strength.

With all due respect and assumptions of good faith, please fuck off into the sun.

We are aware of all internet traditions.

You come for women, you’re gonna get your ass kicked.

It is not hopeless, and we are not helpless.

Someone should tell Republicans that violence is the last refuge of the incompetent, or possibly the first.

I would try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

The unpunished coup was a training exercise.

Mediocre white men think RFK Jr’s pathetic midlife crisis is inspirational. The bar is set so low for them, it’s subterranean.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

We need to vote them all out and restore sane Democratic government.

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

The revolution will be supervised.

This has so much WTF written all over it that it is hard to comprehend.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / I Told Wilbur. I Told Orville. Now I’m Telling You…

I Told Wilbur. I Told Orville. Now I’m Telling You…

by | 96 Comments

This post is in: 

…that thing will never fly:
 

 

Someone mentioned the Mriya in our last wacky airplane thread (might need a new tag), and as it was this video that led me on to the Beluga photo that gave us all such nachas yesterday, here it is in all it’s glory.

 

What a beast.  It truly looks (to me) utterly incapable of slipping the surly bonds of earth. And yet it does.  And it allows me to say, with a straight face and no hint of double entendre:  check out the gear on that baby.

 

Anyway — it’s time for some more thread, and here it is.  Talk about whatever.

Reader Interactions

96Comments

  1. 1.

    Amir Khalid

    If you saw 2012, that bone-headed Michael Bay movie (I think there’s a redundancy in there somewhere) about the end of the world, you’ll have seen the Antonov 225’s most prominent appearance in a Hollywood movie. Quite a bit of the movie happens on board the plane.

  3. 3.

    jonas

    My first though: geez, what dirty engines. Like watching an old reel of a B-52 taking off — smokes like four old Kenworth rigs with cracked rings.

  4. 4.

    jl

    Note: I forbid a mention of one of the Dem candidates being an excuse to turn this thread into another Dem primary fight club. I forbid it.

    But interesting tidbit about how the Fox HRC/SandersTownhall came about last night. Fox tried to organize a Sanders/Trump one-on-one debate. Guess who chickened out? Couldn’t be the strongman could it? Could it?

    Fox News Tried To Make A Trump-Sanders Debate Happen
    TPM

    Sanders agreed to the debate and the Trump campaign was interested in pursuing the debate at first, according to the Times. But Trump ultimately pulled out of the debate, citing scheduling conflicts, according to the Times.

    talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/fox-news-sanders-trump-debate

    So Trump afraid to take on Sanders head to head? Interesting. I still think Sanders campaign is doing some good in the Democratic primary, though not sure which one would be stronger in the general, so don’t have a strong attachment to either, though prefer Sanders on the issues. Though I am kind of pissed at both right now since I think both HRC and Sanders have solidly mediocre health care reform and financial regulation proposals. Though both of course miles better than the junk the GOPers are offering.

  5. 5.

    Mike in DC

    Try googling the Lockheed CL-1201 some time. Nuclear powered, 1000 foot wingspan, and a weight of 5000 tons. Totally practical!

  6. 6.

    jl

    @jonas:

    ” old Kenworth rigs with cracked rings. ”

    Ah, thanks. Brings back fond memories of hauling hay when I was wasting my youth on CA farms.

  7. 7.

    Citizen_X

    @Amir Khalid: Wasn’t that an Antonov 225 in the climactic scene in that goofy 007 movie, where it’s on fire and falling apart (due to flying through a North Korean orbital laser) for about ten minutes?

  8. 8.

    Corner Stone

    @Tom Levenson: It’s a great show, no BS. Cheesy premise but awesome acting and over the top action/destruction. It’s one of those movies I flip to no matter where it is in the movie. Just a fun, great “very bad” movie.

  9. 9.

    Calouste

    The Guardian reports that Ted Cruz’s finance team has been bolstered by the addition of none other than Neil Bush (and his wife), a man of course best known for costing the taxpayers $1.3 billion in the failure of Silverado Savings & Loan.

  11. 11.

    Germy

    Mr. Devine speaks:

    The top strategist for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) floated the idea Monday that Sanders could be a running mate for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton even as he added that no one is talking about that in the throes of a primary battle.

    During an appearance on Politico’s Glenn Thrush’s Off Message’ podcast, Tad Devine suggested that one way Clinton may be able to make up ground with young voters would be to add Sanders as her running mate.

    “I don’t know. Maybe they’re going to put him on the ticket then,” Devine told Politico as he laughed.

    Devine added that Sanders, like anyone, would consider being Clinton’s running mate, but he added: “I don’t think there is any plan for that.”

    “He wouldn’t ever think about a decision like that unless it was done in the right and proper way,” Devine said.

  12. 12.

    piratedan

    @Calouste: I’m sure that the Bush crime family syndicate wears it as a badge of honor since none of them ended up being wiped out by their malfeasance.

  13. 13.

    Ultraviolet Thunder

    To get an idea of the size look at the pilots’ windows compared to the ‘normal’ 787 Dreamliner.

  16. 16.

    jl

    @Germy: I think that is a clumsy public signal that Sanders will want to negotiate with HRC on terms for him to enthusiastically use his political revolution and his base for her election campaign. I don’t think Sanders would make a good VP nominee with HRC, I don’t think he is the kind of person who would even think that he would make a good veep nom or incumbent. But I could be wrong.

  18. 18.

    ? Martin

    @jonas:

    Like watching an old reel of a B-52 taking off

    The B-52 still uses the same engines, so a new reel will look the same. 1960s jet engines were pretty inefficient compared to modern ones, but there are only 600 engines in the fleet and the cost to design and construct and retrofit new ones would be prohibitively expensive compared to what they would save in fuel costs. After all, the USAF isn’t worried that much about direct flight distances – they just tank up mid-flight.

  20. 20.

    Amir Khalid

    @Germy:
    We’ve heard a lot more from Mr Tad Devine than we have from any of Hillary’s top campaign strategists. Could it be that her strategists know that their role does not include standing in the candidate’s spotlight?

    ETA: Why is the Tad putting this out in the first place? Is Team Bernie getting ready to throw in the towel?

  21. 21.

    JPL

    This tweet is so wrong on so many levels.. link
    One of these days, the gutter is going to open and swallow the RNC up.

  22. 22.

    jl

    I like the way the GOP primary is shaping up.

    Florida’s Sun Sentinel: No GOP candidate worth endorsing
    yahoo.com/politics/floridas-sun-sentinel-no-gop-candidate-worth-163139142.html

    I don’t have time to read it now, but will later. I wonder what is wrong with Kasich?
    OK, listening to the video. They think he is OK on merits, but also think he has no chance and it would be throwing vote away.
    OK, then. I disagree that Kasich is good on the merits, but the paperis spreading word he has no chance, that is fine with me.

  28. 28.

    Germy

    @jl: I think Sanders is the wrong choice for VP, but I’d like to see him head up investigations into the financial industry for HRC, if she wins the general.

    @Amir Khalid: Mr. Devine just seems wrong to be on many levels. Like his judgement is flawed.

  29. 29.

    ? Martin

    @Mike in DC: Reminds me of the Sea Dragon rocket proposal. 23m in diameter and weighing 39 million pounds. It would float vertically in the ocean and launch while partially submerged.

  33. 33.

    jl

    @Germy: Mr. Devine seems like the 2008 HRC Penn sometimes. Well, maybe he understands the primary delegate allocation rules better. But still presents an unpleasant public face, ans says goofy and/or nasty, or clumsy, stuff.

    Edit: ” Devine just seems wrong to be on many levels. ”
    But hating on propriety of a person’s existence seems a little overboard.

  35. 35.

    I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet

    @? Martin: There have been at least 3 serious investigations of B-52 re-engine-ing. The B-52 is supposed to stay in the air until 2040 unless things have changed recently.

    AW&ST from 2014:

    This represents at least the third attempt to re-engine the B-52, which is powered by eight TF33 engines similar to those used on the Boeing 707.

    Pratt & Whitney studied the idea in 1982, with four PW2000-series engines. In 1996 Boeing and Rolls-Royce jointly proposed to fit B-52s with four RB211-535s, with the government leasing the engines. The first plan was not taken up because all B-52s were to be replaced by B-1s and B-2s by the late 1990s, and the second failed because of resistance to leasing combat assets and a flawed economic assessment by the Air Force.

    According to a 2004 Defense Science Board report, the USAF failed to take the cost of air refueling into account. At that time, tanker-delivered fuel cost $17.50 per gallon, 14 times the cost of fuel on the ground. The DSB task force “unanimously recommend[ed] the Air Force proceed with B-52H re-engining without delay,” but no action was taken.

    “Had we done it all those years ago, we’d be patting ourselves on the back today and telling everyone how smart we were,” Wilson said.

    GE’s eight-CF34-10 option could deliver more thrust than the current engines (variants are rated at 17,640-20,360-lb. thrust) and would avoid engine-out handling issues.

    Pratt & Whitney announced in May that it was launching the PW1135G-JM, aimed initially at the A321neo and rated at a 35,000-lb. thrust class, slightly more than two TF33s. The new engines would deliver an even greater performance and efficiency improvement than the engines proposed in 1996.

    The RB211-535 has been out of production since the end of the Boeing 757 line in 2004, and the last F117s (military PW2000s) are being delivered with the final C-17s, so neither engine is a strong candidate today.

    It might or might not be an easier sell now (minus is cheap fuel now, plus is much more concern about CO2 emissions).

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  36. 36.

    trollhattan

    @? Martin:
    Evidently, the first time the AF studied upgrading the B-52 engines they concluded the cost/savings ratio was poor and it wasn’t worth the bother. Then a Defense Science Board study of the study found they had mistakenly used a flat cost rate for fuel when airborne refueling is nearly 10x the cost of ground fueling and thus, the potential savings had been grievously under-estimated. Quelle surprise, and such. Increasing range and/or standoff time is its own reward.

    They’re taking another look at the task, now that they want to keep flying them until 2040. .

    ETA or what is says upthread.

  42. 42.

    SFAW

    Tom –
    What I want to know is: what the hell is that thing (Emirates Air, maybe?) that the Mriya passes at around the one-minute mark. It’s behind the Antonov, but it looks like it’s 20-30 feet taller at the fuselage. I’m trying to figure out how it could be an optical illusion, but apparently am not smart enough in that regard.

    Are you able to explain/ Am I just having a senior moment?

  44. 44.

    Iowa Old Lady

    @Linda Featheringill: I’ve tried to stay away from DK because they’re in the middle of a family fight over there, but it’s hard to resist. Today kos once again said these are the rules and they apply to everybody and people got snotty almost at once.

  45. 45.

    sigaba

    @Amir Khalid: “2012” was A Roland Emmerich movie. And I edited the sound effects so shut your mouth. That thing kept me employed for a year. (Come to think of it, it probably made the down payment on my loft.)

  46. 46.

    Summer

    For those of you who have been floating around the blogosphere since it was our refuge in the dark days of the Bush Administration, you might remember a little site called Pam’s House Blend run by Pam Spaulding. Pam hostessed a great blog in the days when blogging didn’t pay, and she is a lovely lady. She had to shut down Pam’s House Blend as her rheumatoid arthritis worsened and now, after 22 years, her not so lovely employer, Duke University Press, has let her go — the day after her FMLA leave was exhausted.

    There is a gofundme site if anyone who read her when would like to give back a little to help her now: gofundme.com/pamscomeback.

  47. 47.

    WarMunchkin

    @JPL: Holy crap. I just read their press response, too; they blamed the media for covering it.

  48. 48.

    Tom Levenson

    @SFAW: That looks like an Airbus 380 — the double decker one. It is almost 80 feet (24.09 meters) high. The Mriya logs in at a measly 59.5 ft/18.1 meters high. So no illusion.

  49. 49.

    SFAW

    @Summer:

    Saw that on Atrios, went over right after that. Pam seemed to be getting some good support, but I’m sure it won’t be enough.

  53. 53.

    WaterGirl

    Tom Leveson:

    Just want to say that I appreciate all the recent threads. Not sure if your schedule finally opened up a bit or if you are working to hold us all together as we get through this primary season, but I am grateful either way!

  54. 54.

    Tom Levenson

    @WaterGirl: Actually – crazed at work right now, but felt it was my turn to try to keep the blogfires burning. Glad you like the recent fare.

  55. 55.

    ? Martin

    @SFAW:

    What I want to know is: what the hell is that thing (Emirates Air, maybe?) that the Mriya passes at around the one-minute mark.

    Looks like an A380 based on the vehicle servicing the upper deck. The A380 isn’t as long but it’s as tall or slightly taller – both due to the upper deck but also because the Mriya has an extremely low ground clearance compared to almost all other planes. I suspect that taxiway is lower than the gates given that you can’t see the Mriya’s gear, so the A380 looks to be sitting on higher ground as well.

  57. 57.

    ? Martin

    @Tom Levenson: That’s the tail height – and the 380 has a very tall single tail compared to the Mriya’s twin tails. The fuselage heights are pretty similar.

  58. 58.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Summer:

    her not so lovely employer, Duke University Press, has let her go — the day after her FMLA leave was exhausted

    Seriously? You can’t do that anymore since the ADA was revised. She should talk to a lawyer. Like a real lawyer, not some 14-year old kid in Singapore who pretends to be a US labor and employment on the internet.

  59. 59.

    Amir Khalid

    @SFAW:
    It’s not an illusion. The Antonov’s humongous fuselage, like those of other giant cargo planes, sits as low to the ground as possible, much lower than a 747’s. So you can drive a truck with bigger items right into the plane via the ramp at the back.

  60. 60.

    ? Martin

    @efgoldman: The premise is fairly sound – it’s basically just a really fucking massive sub-launch ICBM. But the structural challenges in building something of that size that can survive both an ocean environment and then the stress of launch must be overwhelming – particularly in the days before computers.

  63. 63.

    WarMunchkin

    And I’m not advocating for Hillary or Bernie. I like them both but frankly I wish the next president was a conservative only because we had Obama for eight years and we need balance. And not because I particularly enjoy the conservative agenda. I just think the government should reflect the people. And we are about 40 percent conservative and 40 percent liberal.

    Louis C.K. is on my shit list now. Sigh. #bothsides

  64. 64.

    Brachiator

    USA Today reports that Romney’s impassioned attack on Trump had no effect.

    The Morning Consult survey found 31% of registered GOP voters are more likely to vote for Trump given Romney’s speech, while 20% are less likely. Another 43% said it didn’t have an impact either way.

    “The poll, which was conducted March 4 through March 6, also finds that only 5% of Trump supporters said they are now less likely to vote for Trump,” the pollster said in a release. “And, of those who voted for Romney in 2012, 30% said they were more likely to vote for Trump, compared to 20% who said less likely.”

    Word is that Trump is going to hire Romney to wrestle with Chris Christie before his next round of speeches.

  65. 65.

    Summer

    @Steve in the ATL: This is what the site says: “A request to extend job protection under the Americans With Disabilities Act had been declined by my unit. They were moving on.” I don’t know more than that at this point, except she’s a local gal and Duke has a certain tradition of behaving badly.

    So glad this was on Atrios’s site, in spite of the fact that I went to see and accidentally found myself in the comment section, weirded out.

  66. 66.

    ? Martin

    So California filed a brief supporting Obama’s immigration policies. Noted was that the undocumented population in CA produces about $130B in GDP for the state – or about the economy of Iowa, and that LA is the largest manufacturing region in the country in part due to immigrant workers.

    These sound like things that the public is in favor of.

  67. 67.

    piratedan

    @JPL: Jim Wright just lost his shit over this on the book of faces…

    I get the idea that there’s a room of semi-sober trust fund babies high-fiving themselves over this and saying “buuuurrrnnnnnn” when they tweeted that out knowing that the short attention span theatre that they serve will eat this shit up….

    yet.. teh record shows, that the GOP has repeated slashed spending over at the VA

    They vote for weapons being made, not dealing with the aftermath of their decisions to put boots on the ground. They’ll stand for the photo-ops and then it’s outta sight outta mind. These fuckers can’t even invade the right fucking country and they want us to believe that their cherry picked out of context take on how a REAL veteran voted can be taken seriously…

    oh yeah, Max Cleland, John Kerry… nvm…

  68. 68.

    sigaba

    @Amir Khalid: It was actually quite successful, “White House Down” was a disaster by comparison. I was just working on the “Independence Day” sequel recently… It’s something.

  69. 69.

    john w casey

    GE, Pratt & Whitney and Rolls Royce each manufacture engines that have sufficient thrust so that only 4 would be needed instead of the 6 Russian smoke generators.

  72. 72.

    WaterGirl

    @Tom Levenson: It’s funny, I’m not into planes at all, but it’s such a relief to have people talking about something that is not you-know-what! So keep ’em coming! :-)

  73. 73.

    WaterGirl

    @WarMunchkin: I never took Louis C.K. for an idiot. I might have to revise my opinion. He sounds like the idiots in Illinois who said they were going to vote for the Republican candidate (whose name I can’t even bear to type) because the budget was a mess with the current governor.

    Yeah, I hope they’re really happy that we’re nearly a year without a budget and we have a state university that may have to close its doors. Totally fucked up and predictable. It’s maddening.

  74. 74.

    Davebo

    A neat pic of an 18 Wheeler doing a drive through of a 225. Gives you an idea of the size. They just drive in the back, drop the trailer and pull the truck out through the nose loader door.

    The last one I was on had a crew of 17 (for a freighter!). The upstairs sleeping area was pretty rank smelling!

  75. 75.

    WaterGirl

    @efgoldman: Sociopaths, all of them. I get that it works, but there appears to be nothing – no heart, no soul, no ethics, no morality – to keep them behaving as actual human beings. It’s appalling how many of them are in politics.

  79. 79.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Summer:

    This is what the site says: “A request to extend job protection under the Americans With Disabilities Act had been declined by my unit. They were moving on.” I don’t know more than that at this point, except she’s a local gal and Duke has a certain tradition of behaving badly.

    Obviously I don’t know the facts, but if a doctor says a person can’t return to work yet then the company should grant ADA leave as a matter of course. I got summary judgment on an ADA suit just yesterday because we gave ADA leave after FMLA was exhausted and the judge (Article II judge, not the magistrate!) said we did everything right by the employee. Duke may not care or may have relevant knowledge of her medical condition that we don’t. At any rate, she should talk to a lawyer.

  80. 80.

    WaterGirl

    @efgoldman: I completely agree. It’s very sad, but the fourth estate has lost the plot. They are supposed to be an integral part of our checks and balances.

    Republicans have pretty much lost the plot, too, across the board. They don’t get that they are there to serve the people and they don’t get that it’s not responsible to try to tear down our democracy. The display being put on by the R. presidential candidates is appalling. It’s not just democrats; the world is looking on with horror.

    (I know I’m not saying anything new, sometimes you just have to vent!)

  84. 84.

    Robert Sneddon

    Here’s a link to a manga about Mriya in which she’s a high-school girl being pestered by the school’s papparazi, U-2…

    The An-225 was originally built as a carrier for the Soviet-era Space Shuttle vehicle, Buran hence the “piggy-back rides” reference.

  85. 85.

    satby

    @WaterGirl:

    fourth estate has lost the plot. They are supposed to be an integral part of our checks and balances.

    Quoted for truth. I shared Tom’s “Journalism I Disdain” post with my journalist friend on FB, who opined that the fault is Hillary’s for giving a complex answer to a question rather than the NYT for not fully reporting the exchange. They don’t even recognize their bias or how they fail no matter how clearly it’s pointed out. Talk about closed loop.

  86. 86.

    sm*t cl*de

    My first though: geez, what dirty engines.

    Whackyweedia sez the plane was mothballed for 8 years, and partly dismantled for spare parts (i.e. the engines). Then they brought it back into service and bolted on new engines, or possibly old ones.
    All that must be reassuring for the pilots.

  87. 87.

    sm*t cl*de

    @WarMunchkin:

    @JPL: Holy crap. I just read their press response, too; they blamed the media for covering it.

    “It would be great if reporters would pay as much attention to a deleted tweet as they should to Tammy Duckworth being sued by VA whistleblowers for ignoring claims of mistreatment and corruption,” the statement said.

    Wait, what? They want journalists to pay attention to their blunders?

  89. 89.

    slag

    What a beast. It truly looks (to me) utterly incapable of slipping the surly bonds of earth. And yet it does.

    It’s the albatross of airplanes.

  90. 90.

    Kurzleg

    Two summers ago while on a bike ride in the western Mpls suburbs I saw one of these on it’s way into Mpls Int’l Airport. My friend and I caught a good view of it over the trees as it approached for landing about 10-12 miles out from the airport. It was a surreal experience to see something that big in the air. We routinely see airliners making their approaches, and the difference in size between the airliners and this thing was stark, to say the least.

    Here it is departing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8a1A–C1T0

  94. 94.

    David Evans

    @SFAW: It is an Airbus A380, which has a 24m tall fin compared to the Antonov’s 18m. That surprised me too, but the Antonov has 2 fins so they don’t need to be as tall.

  95. 95.

    Grumpy Code Monkey

    It truly looks (to me) utterly incapable of slipping the surly bonds of earth. And yet it does.

    The F-4 Phantom is proof that if you put a big enough engine on a brick, it will fly.

    And this thing at least looks somewhat aerodynamic. But check out how much the tail was moving around while sitting on the runway.

  96. 96.

    Jazzman

    Holy crap. If the Soviet Union had had this monster of an airplane, big enough to deliver the Tsar Bomba, back in 1961, we might not be here having this discussion today.

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