When trying to improve a warplane, they were looking at the planes that returned and reinforced the parts that had bullet holes, until someone remarked they should reinforce the parts that didn’t have holes, insinuating that if a plane was hit in those places it couldn’t have returned to be inspected, since they were the actual weak spots and would have been shot down.
A machine purpose built to withstand bullets does well at withstanding bullets. We could still build them to withstand bullets, but as it turns out, being almost invisible to radar is better for the survival of the aircraft.
It’s kind of like how when they started issuing helmets to soldiers, there was a sharp uptick in head injuries. Suddenly more soldiers were surviving getting hit in the head.
We’ve made it harder to detect aircraft, and the technology for bringing them down has advanced significantly. They’re much less likely to be shot at, and what they’re being shot with isn’t something any aircraft will survive a fight with.
There’s an interesting story of a tail gunner surviving a fall from 30k feet in the tail section of a B17. The aircraft kept a steady coarse long enough for one other tech to safely escape after it had been shot to hell and everyone else inside had died. Looking very much like this image, without the tail section. But the thing is, these aircraft required fighter escorts because the were essentially sitting ducks. They were big, slow behemoths and they had to send in swarms because half of them would be shot down before reaching the target.
To become more agile, the aircraft also had to become more unstable. Meaning the technology for controlling these aircraft had to get more delicate. But not being hit at all is still better than soaking up damage. Where 30 bombers were required before, a handful of stealth bombers, or even just one, can deploy ordinance and escape the mission area without ever being detected.
This image is of a caveman crushing a skull with a rock, saying the rock is built better than a pistol that jams occasionally.
It’s simpler, it’s effective, but it’s not necessarily better.
A machine purpose built to withstand bullets does well at withstanding bullets. We could still build them to withstand bullets, but as it turns out, being almost invisible to radar is better for the survival of the aircraft.
The image is a somewhat famous incident in which US studies of a certain WW2 plane initially suggested that the marked areas, which were hit more often on returning planes, should be armored to increase survivability.
Luckily, a Jewish-Hungarian mathematician, Abraham Wald, pointed out that this was actually survivorship bias - the study was looking at the right data, but drawing the wrong conclusion - it was the parts which weren’t hit on surviving planes which needed to be armored up - because those were the bits that, if hit, the plane would not survive to limp home after.
This saved dozens of planes and hundreds of American aircrew lives.
When people talk about how much better things were in the past im always reminded of this image:
I don’t get it, can u explain?
When trying to improve a warplane, they were looking at the planes that returned and reinforced the parts that had bullet holes, until someone remarked they should reinforce the parts that didn’t have holes, insinuating that if a plane was hit in those places it couldn’t have returned to be inspected, since they were the actual weak spots and would have been shot down.
A machine purpose built to withstand bullets does well at withstanding bullets. We could still build them to withstand bullets, but as it turns out, being almost invisible to radar is better for the survival of the aircraft.
It’s kind of like how when they started issuing helmets to soldiers, there was a sharp uptick in head injuries. Suddenly more soldiers were surviving getting hit in the head.
We’ve made it harder to detect aircraft, and the technology for bringing them down has advanced significantly. They’re much less likely to be shot at, and what they’re being shot with isn’t something any aircraft will survive a fight with.
There’s an interesting story of a tail gunner surviving a fall from 30k feet in the tail section of a B17. The aircraft kept a steady coarse long enough for one other tech to safely escape after it had been shot to hell and everyone else inside had died. Looking very much like this image, without the tail section. But the thing is, these aircraft required fighter escorts because the were essentially sitting ducks. They were big, slow behemoths and they had to send in swarms because half of them would be shot down before reaching the target.
To become more agile, the aircraft also had to become more unstable. Meaning the technology for controlling these aircraft had to get more delicate. But not being hit at all is still better than soaking up damage. Where 30 bombers were required before, a handful of stealth bombers, or even just one, can deploy ordinance and escape the mission area without ever being detected.
This image is of a caveman crushing a skull with a rock, saying the rock is built better than a pistol that jams occasionally.
It’s simpler, it’s effective, but it’s not necessarily better.
The image is not me saying airplanes were better in the past
The image is a somewhat famous incident in which US studies of a certain WW2 plane initially suggested that the marked areas, which were hit more often on returning planes, should be armored to increase survivability.
Luckily, a Jewish-Hungarian mathematician, Abraham Wald, pointed out that this was actually survivorship bias - the study was looking at the right data, but drawing the wrong conclusion - it was the parts which weren’t hit on surviving planes which needed to be armored up - because those were the bits that, if hit, the plane would not survive to limp home after.
This saved dozens of planes and hundreds of American aircrew lives.
I did not double check the numbers but if they are somewhat correct this is not survivor bias
There was a lot of shit in the past that was
Well shit
But that does not mean some things werent better