Curtiss Model F

The Curtiss Models F made up a family of early flying boats developed in the United States in the years leading up to World War I. Widely produced, Model Fs saw service with the United States Navy under the designations C-2 through C-5, later reclassified to AB-2 through AB-5. Several examples were exported to Russia, and the type was built under license in Italy.

Design and development

In configuration, these were biplane flying boats powered by a single engine mounted amongst the interplane struts and driving a pusher propeller. The pilot and a single passenger sat side by side in an open cockpit. The wing cellule was derived from the Model E landplane and was of two-bay, unstaggered, equal-span construction with large ailerons mounted on the interplane struts and extending past the span of the wings themselves. The earliest examples of this design were built and sold by Curtiss in 1912 without any designation applied to them; the Model F name only coming into use the following year. Confusingly, Curtiss also used the designation Model E to refer to some early machines in this family, although these were quite distinct from Curtiss landplanes that bore this same designation and all but identical to the Model Fs.

Baté

Baté is a village in Somogy county, Hungary.

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McDonnell XP-67

The McDonnell XP-67 "Bat" or "Moonbat" was a prototype for a twin-engine, long-range, single-seat interceptor aircraft for the United States Army Air Forces. Although the design was conceptually advanced, it was beset by numerous problems and never approached its anticipated level of performance. The project was cancelled after the sole completed prototype was destroyed by an engine fire.

Design and development

Origins

In 1940, the U.S. Army Air Corps issued Request for Proposal R-40C, requesting designs for a high-speed, long-range, high-altitude interceptor intended to destroy enemy bombers. The specifications were very bold, encouraging manufacturers to produce radical aircraft that would outperform any existing fighter in the world at the time. The aerospace parts manufacturer McDonnell Aircraft, eager to begin manufacturing its own aircraft, responded to the proposal with drawings and specifications of the proposed Model I, which would be powered by an unusual geared drivetrain with a single Allison V-3420 engine buried in the fuselage powering twin wing-mounted pusher propellers in the wings. However, 22 other manufacturers also issued proposals to meet the Army’s request; the McDonnell proposal had relatively unimpressive anticipated performance, and its odd drivetrain was unproven. The Model I fell in 21st place when the 23 proposals were examined and scored. The proposals that were accepted included the similarly ill-fated XP-54, XP-55, and XP-56. Despite the apparent setback, Air Corps leaders were impressed by the nascent company’s efforts, and granted McDonnell a $3,000 contract to re-engineer the aircraft.

Metasyntactic variable

A metasyntactic variable is a placeholder name used in computer science, a word without meaning intended to be substituted by some objects pertaining to the context where it is used. The word foo as used in IETF Requests for Comments is a good example.

By mathematical analogy, a metasyntactic variable is a word that is a variable for other words, just as in algebra letters are used as variables for numbers. Any symbol or word which does not violate the syntactic rules of the language can be used as a metasyntactic variable. For specifications written in natural language, nonsense words are commonly used as metasyntactic variables.

Metasyntactic variables have a secondary, implied meaning to the reader (often students), which makes them different from normal metavariables. It is understood by those who have studied computer science that certain words are placeholders or examples only and should or must be replaced in a production-level computer program.