Question About Nuclear Decay By Alpha Particle Emission

WBahn

Joined Mar 31, 2012
29,976
A few, such as some versions of the BF-190, had a cannon that fired out of the center of the propellor, the engine being slightly offset from the gun and propellor. That eliminated the need for a synchronizer, of course, and also required no convergence adjustment.
The P-39 Airacobra was other such aircraft, which fired a devastating 37 mm cannon through the hub. The space needed for the cannon also ended up requiring that the engine be placed behind the pilot, moving the center of gravity dangerously aft. With full ammo loads, it tended to tumble when stalled. But this configuration also made it very streamlined and responsive.

It had a number of advantages and weaknesses. It was pretty thoroughly outclassed in the type of higher altitude engagements the U.S. and Britain fighters operated in, but the Soviets put it to very good use because the nature of most operations there were at low altitude were the single-state supercharger could breath.
 

WBahn

Joined Mar 31, 2012
29,976
So you're saying the propeller's shaft was hollow, and that bullets were being fired through it? Very interesting, I wonder why the design didn't become more popular.
If the engine was up front, then it required a much larger nose profile which is not good for drag. If the engine is set back, then it creates weight and balance issues.

It's also more mechanically complex, which is away from goodness for an aircraft that has to operate at the forward end of a supply and maintenance chain.

But probably the biggest problem is that nose-mounted armament was intrinsically limited in the case of a single engine fighter and the kind of targets that they had to go after required a heavy punch that you could only get from six to eight wing-mounted heavy machine guns, though that meant that they had to be converged properly and that pilots had to try to attack heavily armored targets at the "sweet spot" where the bullets all converged -- but that allowed them to punch through most tanks and even quite a bit of shipboard armor plate.
 

Thread Starter

Glenn Holland

Joined Dec 26, 2014
703
Getting back to the topic of nuclear decay, I read that the Neutrino is particle with no charge and no mass.

So I'm wondering how it could be detected. If it has no charge, that may not be a problem because most life size objects have no charge, but they can still be detected. If it has no rest mass, that would be a problem however I believe a neutrino does have relativistic mass and momentum. So that might be a tell tale sign of the particle's existence.

Does a neutrino have volume? If so that could be used to detect the particles passing through a fluid in the form of bubbles or trails like a cloud chamber..
 

WBahn

Joined Mar 31, 2012
29,976
Getting back to the topic of nuclear decay, I read that the Neutrino is particle with no charge and no mass.

So I'm wondering how it could be detected. If it has no charge, that may not be a problem because most life size objects have no charge, but they can still be detected. If it has no rest mass, that would be a problem however I believe a neutrino does have relativistic mass and momentum. So that might be a tell tale sign of the particle's existence.

Does a neutrino have volume? If so that could be used to detect the particles passing through a fluid in the form of bubbles or trails like a cloud chamber..
http://bfy.tw/Cvwe
 
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