The race to Mach 2.0 at scale | Nickolas Means |

[@alfonshomac]

yo I've been listening to this guy talk about planes for like 3 hours now ad I can't stop...

[@moviepedro]

same

[@lukasbieri]

KZbin recommendations doing great on this one :)

[@moviepedro]

FranK not gonna do it

[@CamRStanford]

samesies

[@Brian-qm8ft]

@@moviepedro Give up before you try, good way to be successful in life.

[@danremenyi1179]

This guy, Nikolas Means appears to be talking about technical things in the three videos I watched but he is actually talking about something much more important. He deserves an Oscar. Thank you very much. Excellent work.

[@GeneralKenobiSIYE]

An Oscar? Why? He isn't acting and giving presentations is not what they give those awards for.

[@TimPerfetto]

@@GeneralKenobiSIYE I agree. I have farted several times in the last 20 min and Im not sure how to describe the smell for you. It kindof smells like old hair mixed with beans and some kind of spicyness -- does that help?

[@alewis8765]

It starts out as an engineering-based discussion about aviation. And ends as a motivational speech. I applaud you, Nickolas Means.

[@nuwintimidates]

My latest obsession is watching talks by Nicholas. Not only are his topics fascinating, his execution is spell bounding.

[@dil6969]

I could listen to this guy talk about aviation stories and innovations all day long.

[@marcelb6214]

Me too!!

[@hubert1142]

I actually am :D YT autoplay sent me to one of his vids after watching the amazing story of Doug White so I let it run its course and this was his 3rd talk, more to come.

[@crazyportuguese]

True

[@Jewclaw]

This guy has the best presentations. Keep em coming!

[@TimPerfetto]

I have lived in France/America for 34 years and I flew in every concord flight including the ones that crashed. I dont know how to land a plane but I enjoy riding exclusively in the baggage compartment or inside of the fuel tank if necessary. I dont have time to decide usually and

[@Dhairyasd]

This guy is an excellent speaker, I can listen to him all day, any day.

[@EthanVandal]

I like the way you present with fact after fact and zero speculation, zero rhetoric and zero digression. Maximum information conveyed in the least amount of time possible.

[@TheDb351c]

Nickolas Means is a consummate professional speaker, he is fact professional in his presentation on all his speeches. I have listened to all of his presentations, I sit glued to my screen in awe of this man.

[@n0tyham]

This is a great series. As a retired senior systems analyst programmer with 30 years of experience, I've encountered almost all the scenarios he speaks about. I've worked as a full-time employee and as a contractor, and have worked for a wide range of commercial and government projects. This fellow has a wealth of great information. Good show!

[@TheBavaNeche]

I watched from afar the contest between the dealers of the flying sound barrier breakers. It was very exciting and fun! I'm American and have decades in the aeronautical industry. As a whole -- we Humans should be together --- VERY PROUD of the Concorde advances in technologies. Who cares if it didn't carry 600 passengers and burn a pint of beer to do it! We in the industry -- Love the Concorde! It was very much a success! It made millions of people the world over -- Very Happy! It gave us ALL -- Hope to do better! The Concorde made us in the World -- A much better Family of Human!

[@Ikbeneengeit]

More time has been spent obsessing about the Concord than has been saved traveling in the Concord

[@Phos9]

In regards to not raising the landing gear on the Tu-144's first flight, that's a common practice with experimental planes.

[@RoamingAdhocrat]

That's Concorde's first flight you're talking about there

[@dalesfailssagaofasuslord783]

Roaming Adhocrat he’s still right though. First flights very commonly keep the gear down as one less variable that can go wrong.

[@Ice_Karma]

Sooooo relevant right now. Nickolas Means is amazing!

[@DailyFrankPeter]

9:20 - as a double, or even triple nerd (besides aviation), let me point out how sharp this photo is (think about the lens used, and how hard it is, and WAS in those times, to get it in focus and not shaken, when shooting from a trailing aircraft).

[@antonymcmanus8182]

Watched one of your talks earlier, I'm now on my third back-to-back. Very interesting, informative and brilliantly presented

[@estouch]

I always enjoy Nicks talks. All informative, great content. Allot of deep research. Hope to see more of nick soon.

[@parkbench8606]

I love this guy, he's like a mash up of VSauce and Tom Segura in all the best ways. Keep rocking Mr. Means!

[@adityachakraborti8343]

Came for the airplane talk, left with great life advice.

[@marianmarkovic5881]

and in the end u find that its about SW dewelopment,...

[@ianheams2599]

Fascinating and informative, even to a Brit like me who liked to think I knew all about the fabulous design of Concorde. But the careful analysis of the lessons to be drawn from the points made in his talk and his ability to make them relevant to all his listeners is unexpected and uplifting, and makes the talk about so much more than aircraft design. I would say essential viewing for anyone managing or working in any kind of team. Thank you Nickolas.

[@jimmbbo]

Another excellent video! For clarification the controlability problems at high subsonic speeds are a result of the airflow reaching Mach 1 over the wing and the controls becoming less effective in the disturbed flow behind the local shock wave. Chuck Yeager experienced this problem with pitch control in the Bell X-1 and the horizontal stabilizer was redesigned from fixed to moveable to allow trimming of the stabilizer ahead of the local shock waves

[@QqJcrsStbt]

Do not get everyone hung up on Bernoulli. It helps golf balls and rotor ships and planes. There are planes with symetric section wings, NO Bernoulli effect. Angle of attack, control sufaces and engine redirection keep planes away from the hard stuff (with a bit of Bernoulli). You provide a beautiful case study at 04:50, the X-1, Perfect end shot of a symetric profile. Airfoil: #1 NACA 65-110 (10% thickness) #2, X-1A, X-1B, X-1D NACA 65-108 (8% thickness) X-1E NACA 64A004.

[@_skyyskater]

I came here for this comment. Most acrobatic airplanes have symmetrical wings. It's angle of attack and downforce that provides most of the lift, Bernoulli only helps a little bit.

[@madcavemantd2]

The first flight of the SR71, which is 92% titanium, took place on 22, Dec. 1964. And was built by Lockheed Martin Skunk Works headed by Kelly Johnson. I also realize that this was a top secret project, and I don't think any company could afford the money or the time to develop the manufacturing process and the tools to machine titanium, except a government. The funny thing is that the titanium to build the SR71 came from Russia! I really enjoy your talks very much and thanks for posting them. Would love to see more nuclear related topics like the Chernobyl talk. That was stellar!

[@HotelPapa100]

Please No. Not Bernoulli again for lift. I thought we had put that dead horse to rest a long time ago. Bernoulli is a part of it, but by no means the whole story. And the "the path is longer over the curved back of the wing" argument is demonstrably false. Vortices over the delta wing are shown rotating the wrong way as well.

[@dalesfailssagaofasuslord783]

I’m gonna pretend I understand that comment and nod in agreement.

[@butterflyreflections]

Could you please explain the rest of the explanation? I'm new to wings

[@HotelPapa100]

@@butterflyreflections The full explanation is really complicated. Very briefly: The sharp trailing edge enforces a flow pattern that has the flow not go around that sharp edge (which would result in infinite speed around that sharp corner). Depending on angle of attack, this results in a flow pattern, that deflects the air around the wing. There are various ways to look at it. The simplest to understand (but not easy to calculate numerically) is Newton's laws of motion: The wing forces a mass of air downwards by moving through it. This requires to exert a force on the air (second law), which (third law) results in an equal force acting back on the wing, lift. To calculate the resulting forces on the wing you have to integrate pressure and shear forces all around its surface. Part of the Navier-Stokes equations (look it up), which are used to do that, is Bernoulli (Bernoulli basically is the law of conservation of energy in a flow pattern; energy in a fluid can come in the form of potential energy, pressure, or kinetic energy, speed, the sum of the two is constant). But the more prominent part, in the case of a wing, is Euler's turbine equation, which calculates the force necessary to *deflect* a flow, change its direction, bend it. If you solve the whole problem, the surprising result is that lift on a wing is proportional to vorticity around it, how much a flow rotates around the lateral axis of the wing. This vorticity is also the reason for the wing tip vortices: A vortex can not end sharply in a flow pattern in an infinite medium, in an ideal fluid (no viscosity, i.e resistance to shear) it must close into a ring, so total vorticity is maintained at zero. So the bound vortex, which makes lift on the moving wing, must trail back in an U-shape where the wing ends. In an ideal fluid it closes with the "starting vortex", that is washed off the wing when it starts moving to form the flow pattern that is enforced by the sharp trailing edge; in a non-ideal medium the energy in the trailing vortices eventually dissipates in stochastic heat energy; the start vortex dies down after a short time. Now if you calculate vorticity around a wing producing lift, you will find that flow over the back of a wing is accelerated so much, that the air particles over the back of the wing arrive at the trailing edge *earlier* than those that go under the wing. Which lays to rest the argument that lift is caused by the longer path over the back of the wing. Air flows fast over the back of a lift producing wing independent of the shape (or flying inverted would not be possible). Wings with arched backs are *more* *efficient* at generating high lift, because they allow lifting flow patterns to form more naturally (and flow remain attached up to higher lift), but they are not necessary.

[@butterflyreflections]

@@HotelPapa100 wow! Thanks very much for your answer. I understood up to the deflection part (think we got taught that at school and it makes the most intuitive sense to me) but will now Google vorticity and wing tips...

[@HotelPapa100]

@@butterflyreflections You are welcome. If you REALLY want to dive in: Here is the book from which I learned this stuff: books.google.ch/books?id=lWe8AQAAQBAJ (Abbott & Doenhoff, Theory of Wing Sections. 70 years old, still good.) That textbook is surprisingly affordable. It's dry stuff, though, very math heavy. You don't have to understand everything in detail to get a grasp of the physical and mathematical principles governing this phenomenon. (I certainly don't)

[@whynotanyting]

Using fuel as a heat sink is one of those "so crazy it might just work" ideas.

[@ParanoidMaster]

Actually not ^^ You dont use your fuel tank as a heat sink. You use the fuel thats pumped to the engine at this very moment as a heat sink. And that is not crazy, just logical.

[@nick4506]

early jet fighters used fuel flowing to the engine to cool the engine oil. AgentJayZ has videos on it. point is that this was a proven system before Concorde.

[@niklasleandr]

Just want to say F1 rocket engine used its own fuel to cooldown engine and its exhaust nozzle. That must be little more heat than passengers warming up inside a concorde. :)

[@Fabelaz]

As a rocket engineering student, it's a "well, what else can you use as a heatsink, oxidizer?" moment. For context: rocket propulsion doesn't have the luxury of having an oxidizer built into environment, so conventional chemical engines use fuel and oxidizer (most efficient being H2 and O2) - and using liquid oxygen as a heatsink can make it so it eats through the rocket engine.

[@teamhall71]

Yeah unfortunately it is also a significant performance limitation on the current US F-35. So much so they have to figure out ways to make fuel trucks stay in shaded enclosures before attempting to refuel the F-35. Now, the plane dictates the ground service equipment and it is a significant challenge in hot desert operating theaters to get the fuel temperature below the operating envelope of the aircraft.

[@Paul1958R]

Nicolas, Great talk and video - thank you! Its interesting that I just finished reading Samme Chittum's 'Last Days of the Concorde: The Crash of Flight 4590 and the End of Supersonic Passenger Travel' which explains Concorde's origins, birth, life, eventual death, and supersonic legacy. I found it a good read and would recommend it to anyone interested in Concorde's history. Your points at the end of whether Concorde was a success or failure is very interesting and I appreciate that you addressed it as you did. God bless Paul

[@nathanvijaymr]

You are amazing. Make it look so smooth. I just saw 2 of your video's I am blown away

[@saultube44]

True, people don't think on the big picture, just living the moment, you have to make both. I like Airplanes a lot too, they're a engineering marvel, and computers too, so for me watching this guy is a must :)

[@SuperHaunts]

Absolutely wonderful and engaging! I learned more about what I already knew than I would have imagined.

[@mattjacomos2795]

I've been into aircraft all my life, after only 4 minutes I've had TWO epiphanies...... AWESOME.

[@heinrichwonders8861]

3:14 That is wrong. Lift does not work that way. If this was the case why can aircrafts fly upside down? In truth the curvature diverts the low pressure airstream from above the wing downwards behind the trailing edge of the wing, thus exchanging momentum which turns into lift. Just a minor nitpick. Still a great talk.

[@reasonitout9087]

I carried the Coanda effect lift phenomenon in my comment above . you are correct.

[@kkonvicka25]

@@reasonitout9087 I agree with you guys. Lift mostly occurs by pushing air down. Perhaps the different curvatures of upper & lower surfaces makes air flow more smoothly around the wing.

[@heinrichwonders8861]

@@kkonvicka25 Low pressure, redirection of airflow and high pressure beneath the wing - in truth all three have a part in creating lift. You can find quite a few qood videos on that topic right here on YT.

[@heinrichwonders8861]

@Mae ! Have a look at this visualization! It should help you to understand: kzbin.info/www/bejne/l3eyZYN4pNGqfMk

[@sam-rs8wg]

Cambered, curved airfoils generate lift using AOA and their curvature, whereas aircraft which fly upside down fly at a large AOA to counteract the camber. Fighters use nearly symmetrical airfoils, which use AOA more than camber, as there is very little camber on a symmetrical airfoil. Camber is a more efficient way to generate lift however, thus its use on airliners and such.

[@grproteus]

Thank you Kratos, I've zoomed out and feel much better now!

[@mitch3443ful]

I remember as a kid looking up and seeing the Concorde in the sky's of New York. "hey look its the Concorde" I used to say, pointing up to my elementary friends. it made an distinguishable sound and all you had to do was hear it to know it was the Concorde.

[@marvintpandroid2213]

I grew up 30 miles to the west of London Heathrow Airport and it flew over every evening heading to New York. Sometimes if it was a quiet evening you could also here the sonic boom from 100 miles away before it slowed down over the Bristol Channel on the way back from New York. It was a big loss when they stopped flying but it was wildly inefficient and expensive.

[@TopPassports]

Really nice to see it in person: Filmed it this year: kzbin.info/www/bejne/omKbYaRmiNR9f68

[@mitch3443ful]

@@TopPassports Very cool I will watch it

[@greathornedowl3644]

Great presentation, lots of career lessons. Thank you for the learning moment. More of an SR71/P51 fan myself.

[@deusexaethera]

I really wish the myth that the Bernoulli Effect generates lift would die already. The overwhelming majority of the lift generated by an airplane's wing is caused by the leading edge being higher-up than the trailing edge -- or to put it more simply, _the wing pushes air down._ (this can easily be seen by airplanes that fly just above cloudtops, because the downward-moving air coming off the wings will "dig a trench" into the cloudtops.) Lift is very simple action-reaction mechanics -- air goes down, wing goes up, just like how a propeller (i.e. a spinning wing) generates forward thrust by pushing air backwards. The Bernoulli Effect _does_ increase the speed of air flowing over the top of a wing, but any lift generated by the Bernoulli Effect is negated by the downward force that the air exerts on the wing as the leading edge compresses the air flowing up over its upper surface.. The rounded surfaces on the leading edge of a wing don't exist to generate lift via the Bernoulli Effect, they exist to ensure smooth airflow so the air flowing over the wing doesn't separate from the wing surface. Flow-separation causes a vacuum-bubble to form that generates severe drag as air rushes in from behind the wing to fill the vacuum, and also ruins the effectiveness of the control flaps. (you can see these vacuum-bubbles form if you watch a fighter-jet performing aerobatic maneuvers in humid air -- the only reason fighter-jets can get away with doing it is because they have flight computers to maintain stability, and they don't care about fuel efficiency.) In fact, the _only_ thing that the Bernoulli Effect is responsible for is the adhesion of the airflow to the wing's surface -- while that is a very important thing, it has nothing to do with generating lift at all.

[@deltavee2]

Why a lot of aircraft never make it: They don't suck up!

[@alandaters8547]

Thanks for your post, I just repeated it- time to move on from Bernoulli regarding airplane lift!

[@youdoitillwatch]

Great comment. I like this guy's videos but aerodynamics is obviously far outside of his wheelhouse. I didn't really expect him to give an accurate description of how lift is generated but I was a bit horrified that he immediately launched into the patently false "equal time" argument. Crediting Bernoulli's principle, and unequal pressure, as the mechanism for generating lift is a classic example of a "lie-to-children." And while such things can be useful, it's certainly not acceptable when giving a technical explanation to a room full of adults.

[@leoa4c]

Ok. Lets break it down. There are 4 things which make a wing fly: 1 - Pressure delta. 2 - Air "bumping" on the undersection. (Newton's) 3 - Downward flow. (Newton's law again) 4 - If I told you, you would know as much I do. (Just think of honey running down a spoon and you will get there). What makes a wing fly should NEVER be answered using only one of the explanations. The reason why coding CFD accurately is so difficult is precisely because of the 4 effects previously mentioned. The Bernoulli explanation should never die, rather it should always be complemented.

[@deusexaethera]

@@leoa4c: Re #4: Pretty sure we're talking about the same thing already. I credited Bernoulli's Principle for the adhesion of the airflow to the wing, but that doesn't generate lift, it preserves lift created by other means by preventing the lift from being disrupted by turbulence. Anyway, the part that needs to die is the idea that the air moving faster over the top of the wing magically sucks the wing upwards.

[@publicmail2]

The brits had the comet 8 years prior to the 707 and was a beautiful aircraft, they learned the hard lessons of fuselage fatigue at the windows, but were way ahead of the US at the time in jet travel. Also, developed RADAR and the jet engine with many naval innovations the US navy learned from.

[@legoman6049]

only just found this channel; where have I been ! thanks you :)

[@joshuaare1]

Excited to see a new talk by Nickolas Means

[@rogerbeck3018]

i have now watched AND ENJOYED this magnificent presentation 4 times and I know I will be back

[@azynkron]

Some of us need more time to comprehend apparently..

[@stephanregenass2411]

I was a Swiss Mirage 3C Air Force Pilot for 8 Years. And later F-18 C. The Mirage is still Nicer to Fly. The F-18 C is better in low Speeds and the Radar was like Star Wars. But i Love the Mirage in Speed, Rollrate, it makes more Fun.

[@Dave5843-d9m]

Excellent presentation. You might want to do another one discussing the success of the Miles M52. This was the design copied by Bell when they made the Bell X1. The M52 was turbojet powered designed to hit 1000mph. Miles invented the all flying tail, shock cone air intake and the special ultra thin stubby wings. A model was proven beyond mach 1 and the full size wings had been tested at low speeds. In 1944, the project was 90% done aiming to reach Mach 1.07 by the end of 1946 with Eric "Winkle" Brown at the controls. In February 1946, the project was abruptly cancelled with no reason given. In 1947 Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier in a virtually identical plane but his was rocket powered and had to be air dropped from a mother ship bomber. The Miles M52 was a practical aircraft sacrificed just before it could fly on the altar of who knows what. The reasons for cancellation were never released.

[@turricanedtc3764]

With all due respect, a lot of what you say is true, however you are making a couple of assertions which are arguably a bit of a stretch (full disclosure - I'm both an aviation geek and British...). Based on my reading and understanding, it's not entirely accurate to state that the Bell X1 "copied" the Miles M.52 - it's true that the research around the all-flying tail (among other things) was shared with the US, but the overall design of the two aircraft was significantly different, chiefly due to the difference in propulsion. While it's true that no "official" reason for cancelling the M.52 project was given, the documentaries, books and articles I've read on the subject mostly converge around a schism that developed within British aeronautical science immediately after the war. Specifically, all of the German high-speed fighter/bomber designs had swept wings, and the concern from some quarters was that the German aero scientists and engineers knew something that "we" didn't, and "theirs" weren't even capable of going supersonic. Another thing to bear in mind is that the M.52 was designed around jet propulsion and (as later engineers - including those who worked on Concorde - discovered), the behaviour of jet engines at supersonic speed was an unknown quantity. Both the X1 and the scale model of the M.52 (which belatedly proved the fundamental soundness of the airframe design) used rocket propulsion, which was riskier to the pilot, but in terms of thrust generation was far less potentially problematic. The engineers at Miles stood by their wind tunnel data which indicated that a swept wing was not necessary, and the Bell X1 proved them correct.

[@JerryDLTN]

23:25 I read that it took the pilgrims ~60 days by ship to cross the Atlantic in the 1600s

[@LazyBoyZR1]

Was excited you might talk about the Canadian AVRO Arrow. It was made using Titanium.

[@publicmail2]

Love any talk by Nick, but got me thinking, when you put your thumb over the hose nozzle, the water speed up because you reduce flow and increase PSI. This is not the same as the air inlets as the air can compress unlike a liquid. Am I right Nick?

[@SkigBiggler]

This is correct, but I believe that due to the increased mass of compressed fluids, it would compensate. If one side is denser, but at the same speed, you're still moving more mass, and the "equal and opposite reaction" will still apply. Like if you shot a cannon ball at the same speed as a normal bullet, you'd get a whole lot more kickback from it. Most physics concepts are symmetrical, you can increase one side and decrease the other and get the same result, at least for simpler stuff.

[@SkigBiggler]

I also expect that with air, the increased pressure inside the hypothetical hose would also increase the speed it would attempt to reach a location of low pressure.

[@reasonitout9087]

I thoroughly enjoy and learn from your presentations. Great content and style. Please explore Bernoulli vs Coanda...as it seems to me that Coanda effect explains so much more of how we hold a plane in the air...no strings attached! Bernoulli is "strings" vs. Coanda which is a glass table so to speak. Which one bears the weight? Newton is the judge. The faster we fly the "harder" the air is...until it is as hard as water under your windsurfer. Just stick your hand out of a car at 150 mph and you will attest to its hardness. After all the theory dust settles, the amount of energy in the mass of downward pushed air = the weight of the plane. Airfoil or no airfoil. (Why does your airfoil diagram not show the top and bottom layers of air converging with a resultant downward vector? Tran-sonic and super-sonic flight and Bernoulli don't mix as well. Planar wings that dont need thick spars still fly. The spars initially decided thickness depending on the material. Spars needed to go somewhere. Bernoulli principle accounts for only a small fraction of required lift. Tremendous downdrafts have caused many a crash in planes following too close to "heavy" aircraft. Plane weight = combined force of downward force of air . Just like kids' hands sticking out of car windows in the wind...going up and down.. on a Sunday drive. Wing tip vortices are another effect of this huge downward push...all due to the attachment effect of Coanda. kzbin.info/www/bejne/bIKbeaapprx3eqc In the end, my comment on one point does not in any way diminish the excellent nature and quality of your video. Thanks!

[@10babiscar]

'Planar wings that dont need thick spars still fly' this is the most telling observation against the bernoulli lift explanation. Wings don't need to be thick to produce lift, in fact thick wings are worse, hence thin airfoil theory.I think the guy knows how wings work but he uses one of the canned answers to make it simple for the audience. His explanation on how jet engines work is technically wrong as well but it's not a thing that can be understood with thirty seconds of theory.

[@reasonitout9087]

@@10babiscar Yes, I totally agree with your understanding of why the presenter stayed at the "top" level of simplicity. Thanks for your comment!

[@5000rgb]

Glad to see this. I'm so tire of Bernoulli being used to explain lift. Newton and Coanda are much better in my opinion. The air is forced down due to the Coanda effect and because of Newtons third law the wing is correspondingly forced upwards. You can clearly see the air forced down when a rotary wing aircraft (helicopter) lands. The prop wash from a prop driven plain also shows this. An experiment you can try at home is to turn on the tap and hold a spoon dangling by the end of the handle. Move the convex side of the spoon towards the stream of water. When the spoon touches the water the water will stick to the spoon and be flung outward and the spoon will get sucked into the stream. This picture shows how the smoke is forced upwards by the wing on an F1 car as a result of the redirected airflow lh3.googleusercontent.com/proxy/ptF6-MHYoG37CqD1ivYgM6ks1xDwoVe8avoNn_ObEZwefsBPDjr13ajRk1Eae-vMFyBWb7efUthbqoLnU6iMOkiPXR9716o Here is a plane flying above clouds clearly showing the depression in the clouds from the air being forced down by the wing i.pinimg.com/originals/33/5b/44/335b44c8150d303720d50732e881cc2c.jpg Rlevant xkcd xkcd.com/803/ And here's NASA www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/K-12/airplane/newton3.html Oh, yeah, lemming don't run off cliffs either.

[@lddeckert]

Great presentation sir, thanks much!

[@kainhall]

28:16 the guy in white..... was the designer.... he checked each plane just before takeoff..... failures were that common

[@jiricapek2603]

I like the tone and the conclusions ( I like to fly .. myself...and the SW dev. as well...

[@bigfutus]

Hey Lead Dev, Nickolas here. Love to watch these!

[@964cuplove]

Really great video - thx

[@andraslibal]

If you go to Sinsheim, Germany, you can climb aboard both the Concorde and the Tu-144.

[@robinwells8879]

Powerful and empowering message at the end. I may not be as crap as I always thought. 😌. Thank you.

[@funnygeeks8126]

0:00 41:24 what's that sick base drop at the intro and end of the presentation?

[@funnygeeks8126]

Domos by the artist SAM AM has the background chords but no bass and doesn't have the melody.

[@nhzxboi]

Unreal. Who can stand watching this know it all?

[@cmancuso4070]

skipped the fact that Canada had the Avro Arrow in 1957 fully maneuverable supersonic interceptor that the Concorde and shuttle were based on...

[@otherhalf]

And you've skipped the fact that the military aircraft couldn't carry many passengers though could it . . .

[@BurnedSpace]

nobody was talking about supersonic fighters. But if you insist the US has that first achievement as well with the F100 super sabre. predating the Arrow by 3 years.

[@garylee8132]

Amarillo tx. had a SAC base and thru the 1960s the city was subjected to constant sonic booms, and the air force restricted flying faster than sound over the city limits. I was pre teenager at the time and the first sonic boom caught my attention but after among of them I didn't even notice them.

[@michellonergan8517]

You are gooooood ! merci.

[@mytech6779]

Project bongo was using fairly low altitude flights and part of it was actually testing to see if sonic booms could be used as a tactical weapon. Really Bongo data was completely unrepresentative of commercial flights. Almost like the military wanted to prevent civilian supersonic flight; though more likely it was just a typical for the time misguided and excessive testing and without consent of the test population.

[@jigurd]

Also seems like a very convenient way to get an excuse to cripple Europe's flagship plane's ability to fly in the US But why would a federal agency want to prop up american industry /s

[@deltavee2]

Same as the early US nuclear tests way too close to a city or two. What's a couple of citizens one way or another?

[@mytech6779]

@@deltavee2 Bongo wasn't an accident, it was purposefully over the city, they installed sensors in vacant buildings in the city

[@deltavee2]

@@mytech6779 Hi. Wasn't talking about Bongo. I was talking about this: "St. George, Utah, received the brunt of the fallout of above-ground nuclear testing in the Yucca Flats/Nevada Test Site. Westerly winds routinely carried the fallout of these tests directly through St. George and southern Utah. Marked increases in cancers, such as leukemia, lymphoma, thyroid cancer, breast cancer, melanoma, bone cancer, brain tumors, and gastrointestinal tract cancers, were reported from the mid-1950s through 1980."

[@mytech6779]

@@deltavee2 Then this whole post has no relation to your comment.

[@roberta.6399]

Prolific storyteller. Thanks

[@rdubb77]

SR-71 and A-12 used fuel as a heat sink, that's probably where they got the idea from. The fuel transfer / CG change was similar in the SR and A-12 as well, that plane at Mach 3 could have no parasitic drag. Oh wait, the SR and A-12 flew in afterburner for its entire cruise at well, and precisely modulated the shockwave in front of the engine using a moveable spike. All designed by Lockheed in 1959.

[@captainsceptic3559]

"You brain will stay in shortcut mode if you let it." Ironically, that is the shortcut answer to this video.

[@daszieher]

In contrast, a good one.

[@dalesfailssagaofasuslord783]

Captain Sceptic * brain explodes*

[@mrkiplingreallywasanexceed8311]

An interesting treatise on management, evaluation techniques and self image - rather than Concorde - but it works i think, on both counts. .

[@Skiddy1963]

I enjoy your presentations. Maybe you could do one on the Avro CF-105 Arrow.

[@MarcGXE95]

Was the Arrow not 1958 flight past mach 2!

[@gatekeeper65]

@@MarcGXE95 yes, but Americans don't recognize that achievement, because it's not theirs.

[@J0nny61]

Very inspiring, thank you.

[@arontesfay2520]

Believe it or not, the way a wing generates lift is one of the most controversial topics in physics/engineering. Bernoulli's principle is one of the factors but the conventional explanation is a misconception. There is no law in physics that says that air at the top of the wing has to travel faster because it is traveling a further distance

[@tonyduncan9852]

@@OKuusava The distance is _not_ the same if there is the slightest angle of attack. There is an inertial curve downwards to the expanding air passing over the upper wing surface, where it is more prone to turbulence, and increased velocity (reduced pressure), which is _not_ matched by the air compressing beneath the lower wing surface. This becomes slower and more laminar and stable. And, of course its pressure rises. . . . Zooming out, an aircraft may also be thought to keep itself at a constant altitude by constantly _throwing downwards_ the equivalent of its own mass in air so that Newton's 3rd Law can demonstrate itself.

[@tonyduncan9852]

@@OKuusava Water is not the same as air. The Coanda effect is strong because water is denser and a liquid doesn't expand under reduced pressure (at least until it boils). Bernoulli's Law still obtains, as it applies to *gases,* as do aircraft.

[@tonyduncan9852]

@@OKuusava I disagree. I can think of a couple or three of 'new' things, apart from the information I have just given you. One is a) you don't understand Bernoulli's Law, and b) nor do you understand the difference between water and air, yet c) you venture your opinion. This may not be new to other people, of course, but it obviously is (or should be) to yourself. Maybe it's you that should 'try to be smart'. Persistent effort on your part should ensure eventual success.

[@ALRIGHTYTHEN.]

14:35 Concord has a much different meaning between the British and Americans. The only agreement between them concerning Concord is that we were at war.

[@nraynaud]

An airplane where my wife wouldn't talk to me for the entire duration of the flight? can we resurrect this Soviet magic?

[@VroodenTheGreat]

My wife and I fly all over the world, and we're usually at each other's throats on the way home because no one wants to come home and go back to work. One flight back from Australia, we got in a fight on the way to the airport. We didn't speak to each other the whole way home. On one leg of that flight, the plane was pretty empty and the stewardess came over to me and offered to let me sit in an empty row a few rows up (my wife and I hadn't spoken or even looked at each other the whole time). I looked at my wife and we both started laughing. I told the stewardess "Heh, no I think I'm better off here." My wife and I still didn't speak for the duration of the flights. But there WAS that little snicker about how silly the whole thing was. Still married... 28 years.

[@JohnnyWishbone85]

Wife bad.

[@dalesfailssagaofasuslord783]

nraynaud1 you just made you tube history with comment, I salute you sir.

[@tlpNZ]

The only plane we would stop and watch every day as it flew over our house. Although not surprising it was a bit noisy.

[@dongiovanni4331]

Interesting to note is that the US would go on to develop a swing wing supersonic bomber, the Rockwell B-1B Lancer, though they had a bunch of problems in development and maintenece. The US is looking to retire the bombers soonish, as the B-21 Raider is introduced.

[@turricanedtc3764]

15:05 - And therein lay the fundamental problem with the US SST programme. Concorde's performance specifications were considered relatively modest in the early development phase, however the unexpected issues the designers and engineers ran into in order to meet that "modest" specification were severe and numerous enough to cause an order-of-magnitude sized cost overrun. The only way to achieve Mach 3 would involve repurposing of SR-71/XB-70 technology, and that meant titanium construction (thus absurdly expensive per-unit cost) and specialised engines which required exotic fuel formulas (not only expensive, but a logistical nightmare to tanker to airports they proposed to serve). I know we have the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, but I'll never understand why Boeing and Lockheed's very capable engineering departments didn't simply turn around and say "we can't fscking do this" at the very beginning...

[@ianwallace4127]

He said “you’ve never flown on an airplane with an afterburner unless you were in the military” but he’s assuming that no one in his audience ever flew on the Russian supersonic transport!

[@inyobill]

Not a horrible bet that in that audience that no one had flown on the TU-144 or Concorde.

[@luiszarate6442]

Dr Alexander Liepish is considered the father of the Delta wing, one of his early projects was the rocket propelled Messerschmitt 163 komet, secretly supervise the aerodynamic design of the Concord.The main designer of F-102A Delta Dagger, the F-106A Delta Dart interceptors so the fantastic and spectacular B58A Hustler Bomber between so many projects in the USA and Europe. For the info of this man.

[@sorgfaeltig]

Sorry that I have to crrect what was said at time 2:55 till 3:05. The reason why a wing produces lift is not due to Bernoulli's principle, it's not because the distance of the upper surface of the wing is longer than the lower surface and thus a difference of speed in the flow. A sailboat on a lake has a sail that produces lift almost perpendicular to the direction of wind. Both surfaces of the sail have the same length - the wind speed at both sides of the sil is the same. But there is a huge amount of force produced by that sail. Also the newer wing profiles that are called "supercritical" have an identical length of surface at the upper side as on the lower side as measured from the leading edge to the trailling edge. I'm aware that this misconception of how lift is produced is still widely believed in schools - as you are a testimony and victim of. Lift is produced by accelerating the airflow in a curve - THIS produces the underpressure at the upper surface of a wing.

[@rogeratygc7895]

That is such a good,clear statement of what does and doesn't happen. I have given lectures on the principles of flight before, and if I ever do it again I mean to use your example of a sail. Excellent! If anyone wants a clear, authoritative statement on lift, see: www3.eng.cam.ac.uk/outreach/Project-resources/Wind-turbine/howwingswork.pdf (I'm a retired physicist and long time glider pilot). Professor (of aerodynamics) Holger Babinsky posted - somewhere - a video showing how the airflow over the wing goes from leading edge to trailing edge *much* faster than the airflow below.

[@AmbientMorality]

That would indicate the supercritical airfoils have a lower coefficient of lift - which isn't really true.

[@sorgfaeltig]

@@AmbientMorality No, the supercritical airfoils do not have a lower coeficient of lift. But the length of the upper surface from the leading edge to the trailing edge of those wings is not greater than the length of the lower surface from the leading edge to the trailing edge. So the lift is NOT generated by the upper surface being longer, and NOT generated by the Bernoulli effect.

[@AmbientMorality]

@@sorgfaeltig Ah, got it. Agreed that it's not generated by equal transit hypothesis, though Bernoulli is not equal transit

[@sorgfaeltig]

@@AmbientMorality Yes, "Equal Transit" is shown to be wrong. But also Bernoulli's theorem in NOT applicable to the physics of the upper wing surface. Bernoulli's theorem applies to enclosed systems - a tube with an airflow passing from a wide diameter tube to an area where the tube becomes gradually more narrow and then wider again - this gives a higher speed or airflow at the narrow area and also a lower pressure at the narrow area. But the upper surface of a wing does not form a closed system with the airflow that is above it. The air is not "squeezed" into a narrow area. The reason for the lower pressure at the curved upper surface of the wing is the gradual downward acceleration along the curve of the wing surface. According Newton's law that action of accelerating the air downward (the upper surface of the wing does that) creates an opposite reaction = lift.

[@derekjohnson2465]

Does anyone know what the intro/outro song is?

[@wonderfultrucks]

"you've never been on a plane with an afterburner unless you were in the military"... 20 seconds later. "the Concorde had afterburners as well"

[@RiotBadger]

[At this time]

[@zzubra]

It’s disappointing to seemingly hear a common but basically incorrect explanation (Bernoulli’s principle and equal transit times) be offered for how lift is generated in subsonic flight. [See en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lift_(force) ] I suppose the descriptions are too high level to allow for more precision?

[@trif55]

Yea I cringed at that bit

[@forgotaboutbre]

​@@trif55 Cringed so hard. All credibility straight out the window.

[@Nezarus0]

Only in the comments to see if anyone else already posted about it. NASA has a great couple of pages on the myths of flight for those that wanna cry, "Wikipedia isn't a source." www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/K-12/airplane/wrong1.html

[@rattler254]

@@trif55 It was more disappointing that he didn't expand just a bit more. The Bernoulli effect DOES occur, but it doesn't singlehandedly provide all lift.

[@trif55]

@@rattler254 yea isn't it something like the low pressure caused by the long top path causes air to rush in from above and that increased downward airflow causes the lift? (equal and opposite reactions etc) which is actually a more powerful effect than the air under the wing getting pushed downwards?

[@olsonspeed]

You should include the pioneering work on delta wing aviation of Alexander Lippisch. National prestige aside, I believe the future of long distance, high speed flight will not be in earth's lower atmosphere due to inefficiencies imposed by aerodynamic drag, there must be a better way.

[@batchint]

mary goldring did a tv programme for channel 4.. via juniper production in the eighties on the concorde how she got in there was from scientific education

[@Maderum]

19:24 "Nobody had any experience building planes out of titanium at this point" Lockheed had produced the SR-71, but for obvious reasons nobody had heard of that

[@UnePintade]

Ah yes because SR.71 were mass produced europeans planes ?

[@QqJcrsStbt]

Soviet Titanium.

[@andrewp734]

@@UnePintade 20 concorde 32 SR71... soo yes?

[@UnePintade]

@@andrewp734 no I meant that they're were put on sale

[@allangibson8494]

@@andrewp734 There wasn't just the SR-71. The A-11 and subsequent dozen A-12s preceded them and the YF-12 came out at the same time as the SR-71.

[@yutakago1736]

Many technology used by Concorde comes from other failed project. Example TSR super sonic bomber. The experiences from one project can be carry over to other project.

[@EnigmaWector]

Great talk mister Nickolas

[@aa1ww]

Concorde 1st flight = March 2, 1969; XB-70 Valkyrie 1st flight = September 21, 1964 (top speed Mach 2.5)

[@reasonitout9087]

Thanks Jeff...good comment! I walked under the only surviving of 2 XB70s at Wright Pat Dayton USAF Museum. HUGE!!

[@KolyanKolyanitch]

Vostok rocket 1st flight September 23, 1958, top speed over Mach 3. You say that comparing rocket to plane is not fair. But is it fair to compare civilian plane and experimental bomber?

[@aa1ww]

@@KolyanKolyanitch Take a look at the XB-70 then take a look at the Concorde. Concorde borrows a lot from the XB-70. I'm saying that the engineering for propulsion, aerodynamics, and control for a much larger and more challenging plane was accomplished in advance by others. Nicholas Means makes it sounds like the Concorde was totally original and hadn't been done before. And yes, Russian/Soviet rocket technology was the envy of the world. We all had to study and catch up.

[@KolyanKolyanitch]

@@aa1ww Yeah, at first glance I thought that it looks like a Concorde or Concorde looks like XB70. But more I look at it more i see predecessor for the flanker family in it.

[@aa1ww]

@@KolyanKolyanitch amazing continuing engineering in the flanker family

[@martentrudeau6948]

The Concorde flew 27 years in service, it was designed and built in the 1960's, it super cruised at mach 2.02 (1334 mph), it carried 100 passengers plus crew and tons of luggage in style. The F-35 today could not even catch a Concorde and doesn't even super cruise. it's one of the most beautiful airplanes ever made, it's a mile stone in aviation history.

[@simonm1447]

There are only a couple of other military jets which can do super cruise, like the Eurofighter or the F-22. The F-35 is not that fast, it's design is compromised because of the big lift fan built in the Vtol F-35 B, which demands a voluminous fuselage.

[@ericcosta7142]

I came for the airplanes and I stayed for the motivational talk :)

[@tonybutler3502]

Check out articles on the Miles M52, a jet repeat jet aircraft which would have exceeded the sound barrier in the late 1940s, the whole project was cancelled by UK Government. Some of the most advanced information was supplied to the U.S.A.

[@tjm3900]

Concord's success or failure depends if you are an Engineer, an Accountant or a Politician. Would Nicolas consider the American attempt at an SSC a worthwhile venture ?

[@mudkatt2003]

great point. This is why in america we don't have goverment run companies, cause governments suck at everything. oh they can do things, just never effeciently. in the USA we let for profit companies do their thing which means when stuff doesnt work it dies. concorde was a failure because it was a government run version of 'the emperor has no clothes'....

[@johnburns4017]

@@mudkatt2003 You are writing complete tripe.

[@amitaimedan]

Excellent!

[@patthewoodboy]

Concorde and the Spitfire , beautiful aeroplanes. I would see it regularily , my grandson will never see it flying , big shame.

[@LexieAssassin]

As someone who knows a bit of German, he _almost_ got Küchemann right. It's sort of like... uhm... "Kuoo-kyuh-maah-nuh" He failed to mention why so few Concordes were purchased. The TU-144 crash at the Paris Air Show severely hurt public perception on the safety of supersonics, particularly in the eyes of the airlines.

[@roycarroll5433]

Also the 747 arrived and cheaper seats trumped speed.

[@Demun1649]

My manual, mechanical lawnmower doesn't make 95 decibels. What are you pushing to get 95 Db?

[@ThoughtinFlight]

Bernoulli's principle is not the reason for lift. Air does not have some magical "stick with my mate" reason to meet up at the same time. Its a simple "mass of air goes down, mass of craft goes up" thermodynamic equation. Good talk though

[@MagnarNordal]

Bernoulli's principle explains lift correctly. And so does Newton's third law. The problem here is that Bernoulli's principle is used in the wrong way. The figure shown from 2:42 onwards is completely wrong. The assumption that the air has to move faster over the wing because of the curvature of the wing is wrong. To explain lift, you have to understand viscosity of air, the Coanda effect that causes the air to follow a curved surface and accelerate in the process, which reduces the static air pressure over the wing (Bernoulli), that air has a mass that creates a force when accelerating (Newton's second law), and that the air is pushed downwards and has a moment (because of the mass of the air) that pushes the wing up. And do not forget the effect the angle of attack has on the lift coefficient! And this is just the tip of the iceberg. Explaining lift is utterly complicated, especially if you are an airplane designer.

[@ThoughtinFlight]

@@MagnarNordal Yes. and I'm glad you typed all that XD, I was going for tl;dr. aerodynamicists aren't called black magicians for nothing.

[@richarddoyle689]

Re the X1, horizontal suitability was the problem, discovered by the British. The British had discovered that the supersonic shockwave that you mentioned developing at the approach to Mach 1 masked the tail elevator flaps. Solution an all moving horizontal tail. A solution previously shown to US engineers (on the British Miles M52) in exhange for ongoing information exhange from the X1 program. Another agreement the US did not honour.

[@scotthix2926]

Correction. The ramps on the engine intake actually slows down the air so that the air is not supersonic into engine.

[@Fabelaz]

I would ask you to provide source for that statement, but since speaker didn't do it, you don't have to really.

[@scotthix2926]

Fabelaz Nyan no problem, I am a nerd when it comes to engineering. So you are going to get it. Fluids at supersonic speeds behave the exact opposite of subsonic fluids. The ideal gas law and Bernoulli work great at subsonic. The issue is that they assume that the other molecule of fluid does not get in the way of the other. This compression slows down the air molecules. Thus you get the compression wave on the wingtips mentioned in video. www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/K-12/airplane/inlet.html

[@Fabelaz]

@@scotthix2926 wait is it reverse de Laval nozzle they were trying to get? Then I understand, as I'm familiar with this concept.

[@scotthix2926]

@@Fabelaz very much so

[@Philip271828]

Came for the talk. Stayed for the posts about how wings work.

[@gasdive]

The droop noise was a terrible solution. Quite unlike the previous talks about skunk works where the teams identified what didn't matter. What the concord needed was windows in the floor and a revised seating position for landing and takeoff. But lying down is undignified and windows go on the top, no matter what. So concord carried a couple of tonnes of nose mechanism that could have been spent on an extra 20 paying passengers.

[@coriscotupi]

Even it the mechanism did weigh a couple of tonnes, this wouldn't directly relate to 20 more passengers. That much more passengers would require more internal space, which would mean more structure, which would increase weight further.

[@gasdive]

@@coriscotupi OK, 10 extra passengers. Even if it was just 2 extra, it all makes a difference to the profitability. Airlines didn't buy it because they couldn't profit from it. Profit is all that matters for a passenger plane.

[@coriscotupi]

@@gasdive Of course, it's all about profitability. Concorde's payload was only some 5% of its gross weight. This made sense in pre-1973 world, when oil costed US$3 per barrel.

[@mpccenturion]

1958 - The Avro Arrow - 1.9 M - in level flight.

[@UnePintade]

1958 - The Dassault Mirage III - 2.2 M - In level flight

[@mpccenturion]

@@UnePintade Cool - History is always interesting. Avro was Canada's High Tech -industry. The entire brain drain - went to USA. Thank you! Cheers

[@JamesSmith-lz1xu]

@@mpccenturion shame.. then they give us corona virus

[@gerryrozema8338]

@@mpccenturion Quite a few from the Arrow project went to Britain to work on Concorde

[@nunyabidness674]

Minor observation. "No one has been on a plane with an afterburner unless you were in the military." "Concorde used afterburners for take-off." Ummm, paradox unless Concorde only carried military personnel or veterans?

[@eliotgillum]

If this guy doesn't stop giving talks, I'm never going to get any work done.

[@blademonkey]

hahahahaha so true

[@MarcGXE95]

As the 1958 supersonic Arrow CF-105 programme got shut down, I wonder where the engineering went?

[@zapfanzapfan]

Engineers largely went to the US space program if I remember correctly.

[@MarcGXE95]

At Boeing, Lockheed, CAE, NASA, and the mechanical and avionics systems subcontractor companies Rockwell-Collins, ...

[@johnburns4017]

The Bell X-1 is essentially a British Miles 52. The Miles development was stopped by the British government with the plans given to the USA. A scale model was built of the Miles 52 which broke the sound barrier.