Benny Kirk
1,726 ARTICLES
Tupolev Tu-116: A Soviet Luxury VIP Airliner That Started Life as a Nuclear Bomber
21 Feb 2023, 00:19 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / Allow us to paint the scene for you. The year is 1957, and you're an average pencil pusher Politburo-Red Air Force liaison at a frosty airport in Vladivostok. For the last decade or more since the end of the Great Patriotic War, you've tr...
37 Years After Chernobyl, RBMK Reactors Are Still Operating in Russia
20 Feb 2023, 03:29 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / There's more bad mojo wrapped around the RBMK class nuclear reactor responsible for the Chorbobyl (Chernobyl) disaster than nearly any other machine in the world. Images of meltdowns, explosions, radiation sickness, and general nightmare fuel ...
Spotlight USA: NYC's Grand Central Madison Station Is Eerily Quiet, Won't Be For Very Long
18 Feb 2023, 22:22 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / I'll be honest, I never thought New York City's East Side Access project to bring the Long Island Rail Road to Grand Central Terminal was ever, and I mean ever, going to be finished. I had it in my head that New York was a town that did l...
Mitsubishi Sigma: A Forgotten JDM Luxury Sedan That Desperately Wished It Was German
17 Feb 2023, 00:57 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / We love Mitsubishis around here. That's despite the laundry list of faults we could point to, showing the company is going in the opposite direction it should be at this juncture. You hear a lot of talk about a lack of identity with Mitsubishi...
A Deep Dive Into VIPER, the Adorable NASA Moon Rover That Will Scout for Artemis Missions
16 Feb 2023, 19:21 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / There's a short list of the greatest creations to come out of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It includes Terry Bradshaw, the world's biggest bicycle museum, and deli sandwiches with french fries and coleslaw inside. But if you ask us, that lis...
I Bought a War Thunder Premium Jet for the First Time, It Changed My Whole Experience
14 Feb 2023, 20:33 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / Ten years and around 1,000 hours. That's how much time I've wasted playing nothing but air-arcade battles in the vehicle combat game War Thunder. Because playing this mode earns you enough in-game currency to buy an expired slice of bread...
Thorium: The "87-Octane" of Nuclear Fission Fuels
12 Feb 2023, 18:19 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / We took a look at the element tritium a short time ago. A "high octane" and ultra-rare nuclear isotope of which we have a global supply you could fit in an XL-sized suitcase. A supply that small could only power the average fusion reactor...
The Future of Spaceflight Will be Fraught With Danger, Humanity Shouldn't Shy Away
11 Feb 2023, 10:10 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / I had a thought to myself this past February 1st, with the 20th anniversary of the Space Shuttle Columbia's and all seven of its crew tragic loss. For a certain group of space geeks, the Columbia disaster was one of our very first lucid memori...
This Couple Flew Cross Country on America's Most Hated Regional Jet, Not a Fun Experience
11 Feb 2023, 03:46 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / Jeb Brooks makes his living documenting his worldwide travels to his 532,000 subscribers on YouTube. He and his wife have traveled on just about every airliner and airline service available in North America. But this time around, Jeb was introduced...
Boeing YC-14: Proof That Old School Boeing Succeeded Even When They Failed
10 Feb 2023, 18:58 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / Back in the '70s, Boeing could do no wrong, it seemed. That's especially poignant knowing what a mess of things they'd make later in the 2010s. But even in the earliest days of the 747, a military project was underway at Boeing that ...
Airbus A320neo: The European Twin-Engine Airliner That Dunked All Over Boeing
5 Feb 2023, 19:11 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / For decades, American domestic passenger travel was the domain of Boeing, McDonnell Douglass, and not much other than that. There are exceptions, of course. We didn't forget you, Convair, Embraer, Lockheed, and Bombardier. But the fact remains...
This Man Was the Warbird Whisperer, Tested the "Quirks and Features" of Over 400 Planes
4 Feb 2023, 19:39 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / If you ask modern petrolheads who they most want to walk in their shoes for a while, many will tell you it's none other than the YouTube automotive juggernaut Doug DeMuro. As of the early 2020s, Doug's reviewed between 300 and 400 bespoke...
de Havilland Hornet: Like an E-Type Jag With Wings, The Perfect Twin-Engine Piston Fighter
4 Feb 2023, 01:12 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / Sports cars and fighter planes may share a place in our hearts, but their respective worlds are pretty different than what you might think. With power-to-weight ratios being even more important in the air than on the ground, this usually means airp...
Helion Energy Built the V8 of Nuclear Fusion Reactors, Company Rep Explains How
3 Feb 2023, 18:06 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / A surprisingly small footprint, immensely powerful, and able to be shoved under the hood of just about anything. These are some of the traits that constitute a great sports car engine, your General Motors LS V8s and such. Because of Helion Energy, ...
Blackburn Beverly: Proof America Built Better Cold War Cargo Planes Than the British
3 Feb 2023, 06:15 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / Back in 2018, the YouTube page for the niche aviation forum hushkit.net posted a video in which they labeled one particular post-WWII cargo plane as number ten on their list of the ten worst British military aircraft ever made. Surprisingly for suc...
Australia Wants to Examine America's Newest Stealth Bomber, Can They Though?
3 Feb 2023, 00:22 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / Australia might be the most strategically valuable NATO ally in Oceania that isn't itself a part of the organization. That said, the spirit of cooperation between these two entities is as strong as ever. Strong enough that the Aussies are keen...
20 Years Ago, Space Shuttle Columbia's Tragic Loss Changed Spaceflight Forever
31 Jan 2023, 21:09 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / Over the next 24 hours, you're bound to see an outpouring of tributes online or on the news eulogizing those lost aboard Space Shuttle Columbia 20 years ago. The purpose of these eulogies is and should always be to celebrate the lives and the ...
Stellarator Reactors: The Once Forgotten, All-American Approach to Nuclear Fusion
31 Jan 2023, 02:32 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / Nuclear fusion is nothing new, don't let science fiction movies tell you otherwise. But the key to fusion being commercially viable involves outputting more energy from a fusion reaction than was required to induce the reaction in the first pl...
ITER: A Global Scientific Dream Team Building the World's Largest Fusion Reactor
29 Jan 2023, 19:43 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / The world is in a constant state of chaos and everyone is up in arms at each other. At least, that's what you're liable to believe if you watch too much of the news. But the spirit of international cooperation is still strong, whether or ...
Aero L-159 ALCA: A Millionaire's Toy Fighter Equipped Like a Legit Attack Jet
28 Jan 2023, 19:10 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / The Czechoslovakian Aero L-39 Albatross is best known for being the go-to personal toy of the eccentric, multi-millionaire aviation geek. That's on top of its accolades as a decent jet trainer and attack plane. But the L-39's reputation r...