Spitfghter mark 1 airplane Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Spitfghter mark 1 airplane - Essay Example It continued in these roles until the mid-1950, when production stopped. Until today, the Spitfire continuous to be a favourite aircraft with 53 being airworthy and many more being used as displays in air museums and schools (Zandvoort 1957). The Spitfires design started in 1931 when Mitchell wanted to meet the Air ministry’s new specifications for a modern craft that was capable of 250 mph. The design did not get off to a good start, the first one named Super-marine type 224, had a Rolls-Royce steam-cooled Griffon engine. Accordingly, the engine could only reach a top speed of 230 mph and had bulky gull wings with an open-cockpit. Mitchell and his team were disappointed but not discouraged; they immediately started on their next model designated Type 300. The aircraft went through several modifications, including smaller, thinner and elliptical shaped wings, an enclosed and blister-shaped cockpit, and oxygen-breathing apparatus and a more powerful Rolls-Royce PV-XII V-12 engine. The Air ministry adopted this model and its construction started. The model went into production, as the aircraft was in use over the years the design continuously improved beginning with the Mark I to Mark XIV, until the Spitfire went ou t of production (Axelrod & Kingston 2007). The plane used a semi-elliptical wing, which helped to reduce drag, house a retractable undercarriage while at the same time carried armament and ammunition. The ellipse-shaped and skewed wings ensured that the centre of the pressure aligned with the main spur and which prevented the wings fro twisting. As the aircraft performance Improve and it gained more power, the aileron reversal increased. It meant that there was a need for the design of new wings. The new models helped solve this problem by increasing their stiffness by 47% and the aileron reversals speed improved by the use of geared trim tabs and piano

Religious Skepticism in the Poetry of Thomas Hardy Essay

Religious Skepticism in the Poetry of Thomas Hardy - Essay Example The two poems previously mentioned prove to be excellent examples for this discussion. The point of views used in both of these poems are carefully crafted to induce a sense of proximity in the reader. The choice of first person in "Hap" immediately forces the reader to identify with the narrator. Moreover, the only other personalities listed are "some vengeful god" (1) or "Doomsters" (13), either of which is decidedly adverse characters, thereby strengthening the reader's empathy with the narrator's sense of torment. "The Convergence of the Twain," however, instead uses a limited third person point of view, thus describing all of the imagery from a distant detached perspective. Above water, this would be described as a bird's eye point of view; beneath the water, it must be viewed from the eye of a fish. Not only its depth below the waterline then distances the scene, but also the alien logic of the animal mind. Considering the religious overtones involved, there are also allusions to the miracle of fish multiplying of the masses to eat: yet here the people are lost, the fish is never caught, and perhaps, by inference, there is no Savior present. For the point of view is only a method by which Hardy discusses his themes of religious skepticism. H... sorrow would be easier to accept were it known to be directly stemming from divine displeasure, "that a Powerfuller than I / Had willed and meted me the tears I shed." (7-8). But the turn of thought, or "volta", in the poem declares it not so. Faith has been tainted by Reason and Logic. The process of scientific observation demands causality, a means of cause and effect, and the only credible source is what can be observed and repeated. If such is the case, then the narrator realizes he is just as likely to experience happiness as sorrow; if only the "Doomsters" (13), who are partially blind to the possibility of happiness, would stop drawing his attention to the pain in Life. The distance provided in "The Convergence of the Twain" implies a more questioning approach to the wreck of the Titanic. The "Pride of Life" (3) lies now at the bottom of the ocean, its riches covered in sea-worms and darkness. An iceberg designed by an "Immanent Will" (18) sank this ship, a symbol of mankind's industriousness and intelligence. On the surface, this would seem to imply a begrudging admission of faith from Hardy. But given his history of religious skepticism, other interpretations prove more applicable. For the ship and iceberg represent Science and Religion, the result of their crashing together can only be the sinking of mankind's faith. This loss is what truly "jars two hemispheres." (33) being both the Earthly and the Heavenly spheres. For Hardy rarely intends the reader to take his words at face value, but rather to impart some comment through the symbolic archetypes available through psychoanalysis. Because Hardy instills every aspect of his poems with multiple levels, even his form of writing must be examined. For whether Hardy concedes the pattern of a Great