Things that were…

1- Capromi ca 60 Noviplano – An Airplane the likes of which the world has never seen… again since!

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This monstrosity was actually intended to be a trans-Atlantic passenger craft, capable of carrying up to one hundred persons.

I’m sorry, but just looking at it should have been enough to deter even the most daring of stuntmen! Alas, it flew, after a fashion: in 1921 it undertook a test flight over a lake in Italy, managing to reach an altitude of 60ft before crashing and killing both pilots!

2- Benz Patent Motorwagon – Progenitor of our own wonderful vehicles!

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In truth there is nothing spectacular or impractical about this… it is a very reasonable first design that has done nothing but grow since its conception. But still, it doesn’t half look odd!

3- The Turtle – The First Attack Sub!

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Designed to sink British blockade ships in1776 this ‘thing’ was the first of the U-boats, kind of! What it lacked in ability it more than made up for in manpower… literally! The luckless person whose duty it was to pilot the Turtle achieved motion by turning screws on the top (for ascent and descent) and on the side (all ahead full!). Another tiny screw on the top supposedly allowed the sub-submarine to drill holes into the hulls of the blockading ships.

Things have gotten better for worse (who really wants nuclear-missile carrying subs anyway?) since, but this is where it all began!

Things that are…

 1- The V-22 Osprey – Helicopter and Plane all in one!

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The rotors can stand vertically or face forwards, making this nothing less than a fast, long range heli-plane! Looks good, performs well and, as always, designed to facilitate the killing of people. Sometimes the only thing that supersedes ingenuity is bloodlust!

 2- China Central Television Headquarters Building – an unusual structure, to say the least!

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It just looks great, and is really quite massive (has 51 floors covering a total area of 4,100,000 square feet!). Made up not of one big tower but of a distorted loop of six structures, this is a modern wonder for so many reasons: why and how chief among them!

Things that have not yet come to pass…

1- “IT” (From Southpark) – and let us hope it never, ever comes to this!

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I dare not dignify this device with a description: if you do not know it you are blessed; if you do then you can cringe with me now…

2- The Ringworld – only a few small discoveries away and we too could build one of these!

Image provided by ME!

A continuous ring, about 1million miles in width, encircling a star. The idea might be science fiction (and was conceived long before the game Halo, incidentally), but there is nothing ‘impossible’ about it, provided enough raw materials were available.

This would be the ultimate solution to a lack of Lebensraum (the Ringworld in the book (by Larry Niven) would have land enough for about 3 million earths!), and could be the thing to end all wars! Yeah right…