The post below, on personal helicopters, got me thinking: There must be a zillion technological wonders out there that are beyond hazardous to use. What are they? Let’s hear from you… Share your lethal gizmos (with links, if possible) below.
Reader Steve Weintz starts us off with a fine, fine suggestion: the steampunk jetpack.
Resembling a cast-iron uterus with whirring, razor-sharp dentata more than a jetpack proper, Andreas Petzoldt has spent the last decade perfecting every rocket lad’s dream on his own dime…
It hasn’t been tested yet, but… it’s hard not to imagine the test flight. With great ebullience, Andreas soars into the heavens. He sneers at gravity with contempt, a spurned mistress, a whore who embraces all but him. But suddenly he hears a horrifying choke and shudder and a sickening vertigo creeping up from his genitalia and into his bowels as he plummets back down to the ground, strapped to over 200 pounds of highly-explosive rocket fuel and whirring metal blades.
So what could give the steampunk jetpack and the personal copters a run for their suicidal money? Vote now, and vote often. Think of it as a cross between Popular Mechanics’ Breakthroughs (or Wired’s Raves or Pop Sci’s BOWNs) and the Darwin Awards.
Call it… “The Deadlies.”
{ 51 comments… read them below or add one }
Hungry Man All Day Breakfast
http://www.x-entertainment.com/articles/0744/
lol…this looks like it might be a contender for Earth’s Most Lethal Gadget (EMLG):
http://blog.scifi.com/tech/archives/2006/07/28/jet_pack_the_ro.html
(thanks for the ups!)
I don’t know if this qualifies, as the Army retired it many long years ago, but I always found the “Davy Crockett” nuclear bazooka to be a grand example of deadlytech:
http://www.guntruck.com/DavyCrockett.html
I think it may qualify as a “fossil deadly” in that it’s 1) truly extinct and 2) the weapon’s lethality zone (mostly radiation effects) was greater than its range…
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Actually the Davy Crockett was not dangerous for the crew assuming that they were not inept. The range of the weapon combined with the .01 kiloton yield meant that the crew was outside the direct effects of the blast, and if they stuck around long enough to have to deal with the radiation then they fall under the category of inept.
MOOSE – Man Out Of Space Easiest. Your own personal emergency reentry vehicle.
http://www.space.com/news/spacehistory/moose_000923.html
That was a good one Richard R. This line caught my attention though…
“Finally, GE tested MOOSE with a dummy inside, tossing it over an abandoned bridge near Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, to splash in the river below.”
It sounds like they were trying to get rid of the damn thing.
None of this can hold a candle to the older stuff.
Muzzleloading cannon: You have to ram a load of VERY spark-sensitive black powder down a bore still hot from the last shot. Hopefully, that swab of water put out any sparks from the cloth cartridge of the last one, and the guy holding his thumb over the touchhole will keep air from fanning anythng inside that. If not, goodbye right arm. Oh, and when fired it will bound back, crushing you if you don’t stand clear.
The matchlock musket. Dress yourself up with 1-2 powder flasks, and a chest covered with bandoliers full of black powder. Now equip your musket with a glowing match (treated rope that glows like a cigarette). This must constantly be adjusted for length, just above the tray that holds the powder that will fire the gun. Oh, and you should keep the other end of the match lit, too, just in case the first end goes out. And note that with each shot the flash back through the touchhole may blast your match free of its clamp and send it into your face and down your body, past all that gunpowder.
And since the powder is very sensitive to humidity, it’s commonly stored in barrels and only issued when fighting in imminent. And there’s always some guy who panics and lights his match before, instead of after, running to the powder keg.
How about this one.
When you desperately need to use it, it takes a second to warm up, works 90% of the time, and then kills you. Oh, and it is soon to be required in the Great State and Criminal Enterprise that is New Jersey.
The ‘Smart’ gun.
http://www.the-trainer.com/blog/001607.html
This link leads to a **** blog which lacks any information on smart guns.
trainer November 19, 2006 at 1:06 am
How about this one.
When you desperately need to use it, it takes a second to warm up, works 90% of the time, and then kills you. Oh, and it is soon to be required in the Great State and Criminal Enterprise that is New Jersey.
The ‘Smart’ gun.
http://www.the-trainer.com/blog/001607.html
Hey, if we all waited until risk was zero, would the Wright brothers have tried that first manned launch? Would they have “lit the candle” on that first Mercury/Atlas? Six test pilots died in the F-100 development program – they still went up, and we fielded a great aircraft. I’m in the flight test business. Every launch is a calculated risk. You do all the testing you can, then you put a man in it and pull the cord. After the Challenger accident, I told people I would happily sign on to ride a shuttle the next day. It’s always a risk/benefit calculation.
A few comments (http://coyoteatthedogshow.blogspot.com/2006_11_01_coyoteatthedogshow_archive.html#116395341243611100) on cannon — they’re a ton of fun — and a nomination for heavy machinery of all kinds. Is there anyone with so little Peter Pan left in them that a drilling rig isn’t fascinating? But they provide a nearly infinite variety of ways to maim or kill yourself. And farm machinery, probably the most dangerous category of gadgetry on earth..
This sport killed 14 people I knew before I gave it up. The 14th was my best friend.
http://www.hanggliding.org/
DIY robotic machine gun, anyone?
http://www.techeblog.com/index.php/tech-gadget/video-home-built-robotic-sentry-gun
how about working on a system to pick up explosive devices on the ground warning the driver on military vechiles and aircraft. this device could pick up anything on the ground on traveling roads and rural areas where there is a detection of a explosive device on that road there traveling on. or areas where our troops may travel or patrol.
There’s one gadget that kills around 400,000 Americans a year. People know how dangerous it is, but that doesn’t seem to stop them.
It’s called a cigarette lighter.
Sweet Jeebus:
Fly by wireless aircraft and drive by wireless cars…
http://www.newscientisttech.com/article/dn9176-flybywireless-plane-takes-to-the-air.html
Yes, you too can contemplate the future where stringing a SINGLE WIRE (uhh, next to say, the POWER CABLE YOU NEED TO MAKE IT WORK AT ALL!) to each aeroron in a plane or to the BRAKES ON YOUR CAR is too complext and costly!
If you too are heartened by the idea of a simple bluetooth jammer or noisy transmitter causing a planecrash or 50 car pileup, this future is for you.
Not quite deadly, but less lifesaving than it sounds:
I’ve always wondered about those inflatable rafts they tell you about in your safety instructions before a flight. Sure, if my plane went down over water I’d like to have a raft to hang out in till the rescuers came, but when was the last time a commercial airliner went down over water sufficiently intact that the rafts were deployed? Has anyone ever heard of these things being used?
any male sex device that accurately mimicks any part of the female anatomy.
or the space shuttle
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonov_A-40
I was always fond of the Antonov A-40 “Tank Wings” – it was a set of glider wings the Soviets could fasten to a T-27 tank. The tank would then be towed by a heavy bomber or other large plane to be released near a battlefield. The Ruskies weren’t dumb enough to drop a manned tank, but they did scrub the idea because the vehicle tended to crater upon landing. It probably would have been smarter to drop the thing on Germans, it might do more damage that way.
http://blog.modernmechanix.com/2006/07/10/flying-tanks-that-shed-their-wings
Walter Christie tried to sell the same idea, but got nowhere.
Two more great ideas:
http://blog.modernmechanix.com/2006/07/20/spaniards-mirror-system-creates-an-invisible-army/
The Spanish thought mirrors could render their troops invisible by reflecting their surroundings – when the mirrors and your enemy are perfectly aligned. Otherwise, an opposing force might be suspicious of the noonday sun being so close to the ground.
http://blog.modernmechanix.com/2006/05/21/snipers-in-camouflage-nets-difficult-for-invaders-to-spot/
I just think this picture is hilarious. The net may help obscure the sniper, but I bet it is hard to move in it.
My candidate:
Secretaies of Defense from Industry:
Robert Strange McNamara and Donald Rumsfeld.
The De Lackner HZ-1 Aerocycle.
You only fall off this cycle once.
Coal power plants put about 2 billion tons of carbon into the air. Harvard studies indicate that 178,000 die prematurely each year from coal pollution in Chinese cities. Double that to include rural areas. The American lung association indicates that 27,000 americans die prematurely from coal pollution. Coal also puts out 20,000 tons of radioactive uranium and thorium (how many dirty bombs is that?). Thousands of tons of mercury and arsenic every year. About 10,000 die in coal mining accidents each year. So over 400,000 premature deaths (over 1,000 every day) directly from pollution each year not including deaths from climate change or increased disease from higher temperatures. Coal use is increasing. The world adds about 200 Gigawatts of electrical power each year. Solar provided 1.7 GW of added power in 2005. Wind added 12 GW in 2005. Mass produced nuclear power will need to be a major part of the answer. At least nuclear waste can be kept in vats instead of in your lungs and air. We can also make closed cycle reactors or accelerators that can process the transuranic waste that lasts for 10,000 years leaving the several hundred year waste or shorter.
The solutions to the inconvenient truth are that we will have to do a lot more than change our light bulbs to make a significant difference.
DARPA’s “human cannonball” device to put SF on top of buildings…
http://www.newscientisttech.com/article/dn9170-invention-human-cannonballs.html
Driving in New Mexico, especially on a weekend night:
http://www.state.nm.us/tax/pubs/dwi.htm
New Mexico Motor Vehicle Division
DRIVING WHILE INTOXICATED
If you are between the ages of 15 and 34, you are more likely to die in an alcohol-related crash than any other single cause. Although tougher laws and greater enforcement has resulted in a drop in DWI deaths over the last 10 years, New Mexico’s rate of impaired driving deaths still tops the list nationally.
“… Harvard studies indicate that 178,000 die prematurely each year from coal pollution in Chinese cities. Double that to include rural areas. … About 10,000 die in coal mining accidents each year. [Also mostly in China.]
The solutions to the inconvenient truth are that we will have to do a lot more than change our light bulbs to make a significant difference.Yeah, we need to send Algore to China, where the problem lies. How, oh how will we keep 1.3 billion Chinese down on the farm?
Okay, under pressure from the proprietor of this fine blog to vote for a single “coolest, deadliest gadget” the wickedest I’ve ever seen is the A-10 Warthog. Not deadly to the user, but the ground effect is awsome in the extreme.
Okay, I can take a hint. Embedded HTML doesn’t work here, eh? Sorry for the scrambled quote below.
I think that this data is incorrect in stating Million Tons! I think it was more in the range of Kilo tons. That would make the Davy Crockett 10-20 times more powerful than that which was dropped on Hiroshima or Nagasaki.
We made the obligatory Davy Crockett reference, but no one has mentioned nuclear satchel charges, like the Special Atomic Demolition Munition:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SADM
The thing was a dial a yield that could go from 10 tons up to 1 kiloton. Considering that the world record swimming speed is a little over 5 mph, I hope that its timer was longer than 10-15 minutes.
More importantly, I would hate to be UDT or SEAL who has to jump from a plane with that thing strapped between his legs. Not that it would go off during the jump or anything, I’d just like to have children one day.
I’ve also heard rumors that the Army considered a SADM-type nuclear satchel charge. Let’s just hope they were planning to have a wired detonator.
On the topic of nukes, how about the MK45 ASTOR torpedo. This was a nuclear tipped anti-submarine torpedo fired from a torpedo tube from a US submarine intended as a last-ditch defense. It was said to have a Pk (probability of kill) of two – the sub being targeted and the sub firing the ASTOR (Hansen: US Nuclear Weapons, p208).
The MK45 ASTOR had a range of 10-12 miles, a speed of 22 knots, and was 19 inches in diameter and 18 ft 9 inches long. The W34 warhead on the ASTOR had a yield in the 10-20 kiloton range.
Two nominees:
1. The Japanese Type 94 pistol. Any gun with an exposed sear *has* to be on the list, IMO : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_94_8_mm_Pistol .
2. And in that same vein, while not deadly per se, just really, really painful, the Type 89 Grenade Launcher, aka “Knee Mortar”, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_89_Grenade_Discharger . A lot of GI’s wound up with broken legs after trying to use it the wrong way.
Hang gliding?? You gotta be joking. Hang gliding only kills between zero and 8 people a year on average.
Try automobiles. 50,000 to 60,000 deaths a year!
Dude, Noah, you have to put the flying battering ram up there.
http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=553
This quote says it all:
“If all went according to plan, the bomber would be fatally wounded and the ramming plane and its pilot would survive the impact, ready to move on to the next victim.”
If all went according to plan, eh? What about that old axiom about battle plans not surviving first contact with the enemy? lol.
With regard to the development of bunker busting bombs, the question should be asked, why not go with proven designs? I refer to Sir Barnes Wallis’ designs fromm WW2. Does the name “Tallboy” ring a bell?
It was quite effectcive.
The F-104 Widowmaker or the “flying lawn dart” comes to mind, as a deadly.
Project Pluto the nuclear cruise missile may not qualify as it was never flown.
The French Chauchat light machine gun with its open magazine and inability to fire sustained fire, and it inability to accurately fire at anything beyond point blank range, is a contender.
Well, if you’re going to include the atomic car, the airborne equivalent must be even more deadly. The details here: http://www.csd.uwo.ca/~pettypi/elevon/baugher_other/x-6.html
Note the Russian equivalent – a 1000-ton, 130-metre wide flying boat with four reactors onboard. Bad idea from start to finish.
How about some much larger scale deadlies…
Almost anything advocated by Edward Teller, like Project Plowshare/Project Chariot.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Plowshare
Or more recently Lowell Wood’s sugestion of dumping particles of burnt sulfer into the atmosphere to control golbal warming.
http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/12343892/can_dr_evil_save_the_world/1
These ideas wouldn’t be directly deadly to the operator, but they sure could end up being deadly to nearly everyone else.
Anyone remember the M202 Multishot flame weapon. It looked like a 4 barrel derringer on steroids and fired a 40mm rocket. It was supposed to fire them one at a time, but more often than not it would fire all 4 at once and scare the crap out of the shooter and anyone that happened to be close by.
There’s a whole plethora of radiological wunder things from back in the day, but this one stuck with me.
Shoe Fitting X-Ray Device
“In the late 1940′s and early 1950′s, the shoe-fitting x-ray unit was a common shoe store sales promotion device and nearly all stores had one. It was estimated that there were 10,000 of these devices in use. The primary component of a shoe-fitting x-ray unit was the fluoroscope which consisted essentially of an x-ray tube mounted near the floor and wholly or partially enclosed in a shielded box and a fluorescent screen. The x-rays penetrated the shoes and feet and then struck the fluorescent light. This resulted in an image of the feet within the shoes. The fluorescent image was reflected to three viewing ports at the top of the cabinet, where the customer, the salesperson, and a third person (your mother?) could view the image at the same time.
The radiation hazards associated with shoe fitting x-ray units were recognized as early as 1950. The machines were often out of adjustment and were constructed so radiation leaked into the surrounding area.
By 1970, shoe fitting x-ray units had been banned in 33 states including Minnesota and strict regulation in the remaining 17 states made their operation impractical.”
http://www.mtn.org/quack/devices/shoexray.htm
A little belated, and at this point played out, but apparantly turkey deep fat fryers, according to teh various news investigative reports are gonna kill us all, clogged arteries aside.
“Here’s why using a deep-fryer can be dangerous:
* Many units easily tip over, spilling the hot oil within the cooking pot.
* If the cooking pot is overfilled with oil, the oil may spill out of the unit when the turkey is placed into the cooking pot. Oil may hit the burner/flames causing a fire to engulf the entire unit.
* Partially frozen turkeys placed into the fryer can cause a spillover effect. This too, may result in an extensive fire.
* With no thermostat controls, the units also have the potential to overheat the oil to the point of combustion.
* The sides of the cooking pot, lid and pot handles get dangerously hot, posing severe burn hazards”
http://www.ul.com/consumers/turkeys.html
The F-22 raptor is a dinosaur indeed. While the entire world has now embraced the Swedish canard forward concept for combat aircraft, the F-22 remains a conventional layout. Canards are small wings forward of the main wing and give an aircraft a landing ability only second best to the harrier. This allow it to operate from remote airfields where they are far less likely to be destroyed.
What sits firmly in my mind is the German Ferdinand/Elefant tank destroyer of WWII.
A giant steel box with sub-par armor holding a gun with EXTREMELY limited transverse and no protection against enemy infantry except friendly infantry standing on its sides. Not only that, but anyone who could pass a high-school level fitness exam could outrun the thing. And this thing was designed by Porsche!
While I hail the innovation in new “cleaner cars,” I do not think I would drive Hydrogen or Nuclear powered car. On one hand, you could go out like the Hindenburg in an accident, or you could be a dirty bomb.
As far as the m16, it is a piece of junk and will always be a piece of crap. The Liberator main intention was ONLY to shoot one time to get a weapon from the bad guys, and to continue to fight with that captured weapon.
The F-104 deadly? Hardly… If flown by the book, you will have no problem with it.
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