Last night at Balticon, @ClanKorval (Sharon Lee) accepted her 2025 Robert A. Heinlein Award for outstanding published works in science fiction and technical writings that inspire the human exploration of space at #Balticon!
Congratulations, Sharon!
Breaking:
SpaceX announces results of mishap investigation for Flight 8 (and no, it wasn't the same problem from Flight 7!)
Flight 9 officially targeted for May 27th, Tuesday, at 6:30pm CDT
Retractable 20mm cannon turrets on the Convair B-36 Peacemaker strategic bomber
The aircraft was built by Convair and operated by the United States Air Force from 1949 to 1959. The B-36 is the largest mass-produced piston-engined aircraft ever built. It had the longest wingspan of any combat aircraft ever built, at 70 meters. The B-36 was the first bomber capable of delivering any of the nuclear weapons in the U.S. arsenal from an internal bomb bay without aircraft modifications. With a range of 16,000 km and a maximum payload of almost 40 tons, the B-36 was capable of intercontinental flight without refueling.
The defensive armament consisted of six remote-controlled retractable gun turrets, and fixed tail and nose turrets. Each turret was fitted with two 20 mm cannon, for a total of 16. Recoil vibration from gunnery practice often caused the aircraft's electrical wiring to jar loose or the vacuum tube electronics to malfunction, leading to failure of the aircraft controls and navigation equipment; this was a factor in the crash of B-36B 44-92035 on November 22nd 1950.