Tag: fighter

Counterintuitiveness – Psyched vs Calm


Pic: source

Counterintuitive Series: Psyched vs Calm

Counterintuitiveness makes life more interesting. It also briefly reveals gaps or lags in our understanding or mindsets.

From time to time, life demands that we get charged for something. Could be the commencement of a big project, a project with a tight deadline, a school or college assignment due the next morning, a job interview, and so on. And we feel the need to get psyched about it. Get in the zone, get charged up, and whatever other phrases there are for it.

And there seem to ways to do it to. The most common of course, being chugging down an energy drink or copious amounts of coffee.

The only problem with many of these methods, is there is a guaranteed crash after the initial ‘charge’. And sometimes, that can be worse than not having consumed or performed whatever ‘charge-up’ action. Like staying up all night working on the assignment and falling asleep in the morning and ending missing class itself. Or worse.

Calming down seems to have more than the same benefits that ‘charging up’ options offer, but without the subsequent crash.

But that’s the tough bit at least I often grapple with. The calming down. Most people suggest meditation, though that is sometimes easier said than done.

A few things that work for me, include standing against a wall or cupboard for a minute. Or lying down in a reclined position with arms stretched out and closing eyes for a minute or two.

And of course, brain dumps really work. Writing down each and every thought and to-do that comes to mind.

Before complex or creative projects, even a short nap helps clear the head and even make sense of some of the complexity.

Compared to the psych-you-up options, calmer ways to get in the zone often provide similar (or better) results, are more efficient, make you expend less energy, and are effective longer.

Leaving you with my favourite counterintuitive trivia question for some years now:

Q: Fighter jets normally take-off off aircraft carriers at a speed of around 270 km/hr.
What might be the approximate speed at which they approach the aircraft carrier to land?+

A: Most of us would imagine they would approach to land on an aircraft carrier at a much lower speed, given the short runway on the carrier. However, they approach at take-off speeds (~270 km/hr) or higher, because if they miss all of usually four arresting cables on the carrier that help it stop, they would need to take-off before they reach the end.

For more posts on ‘counterintuitiveness‘.

And remember, as US Marines probably say..

‘Slow is smooth, smooth is fast.’

+ except aircraft like the Harrier, Osprey, some F-35s and such of course.

A Lego Stealth Fighter/ Drone

Just built a Lego stealth fighter/ drone.

It does need a little imagination to smoothen the edges, etc., bear with me on that…

But that said, have a look and let me know what you think.

Image above: Side-view. Completely collapsed for hangar/storage

 Image above: Wings fully extended (it folds at two points, one, the grey section mid-wing, and the other, at the edge of the body)

Image above : Top view. The Forward Swept Wing (FSW) & delta canard design, similar to the Sukhoi-47

Notice 4 jet engines (2 running), and stealth cover on the sides, to minimize heat signature in-flight

Image above: The wings also swivel at a point just off the main body. This dramatically improves Angle-of-Attack (AOA).

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Fly-by-satire

Today, another MIG-21 crashed in Haryana. Thankfully the pilot was safe and apart from a big ass crater in a field, there was no major damage.

With 6 MIG-21 crashes in this year alone, the IAF has lost over 100 pilots in 283 accidents between 1993 and 2002. Till date it has lost over half the 976 MIG-21 fleet in air crashes. The Indian Air Force seems to have an innovative method of retaining only the best pilots. Send them all up in MIG-21s, if they survive, they must be damn good or bloody lucky.

The world has moved on to the fifth generation fighters with Short Take-off & Vertical Landing, Stealth, Internal weapons, the works, and yet we’re hell bent on sticking to flying coffins from the 1960s.

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