Road-Rail Vehicles.

Today the most famous road-rail vehicle is the German Mercedes-Benz Unimog truck. It is capable of several great feats, one it has a 70% gradient ability and the other on the rails it can pull or shunt up to 1300 tones.

Other vehicles that can do similar feats are the Atlas road-rail truck. Many vehicles have been adapted to do this type of work and the history of them, began with the advent of the invention of the petrol engined car. It was first the military who devised in Germany, Austria, Poland and Russia the need to build armoured trains. Some parts of these trains had armoured cars and even for a time tanks/MBT were facilitated to be used in the same manner.

Russian phased out its last armoured trains in 1992, but the use of road-rail vehicles remains.

UAV...

Unmanned Ariel Vehicle.

The history of this type of aircraft, began in World-War-II (1939-45) when Nazi-Germany under the Dictatorship of Adolf Hitler demanded a series of vengeance weapons to be designed and built in secret if all else failed in his Axis conflict. It was the Von Braun (designer of the U.S. Saturn rocket and the Space shuttle) team who initially came up with the V-1 flying bomb (known in the UK as the doodle bug). 

After the war in 1945 both Russia and the U.S. made a mad race to capture as much German technology, and so work started on the modern family of unmanned aircraft we today see being deployed in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan to take out militant and terrorist strongholds.

Israel over the years has built up its series of unmanned aircraft in it Scout and rangers, which much smaller than the U.S. counterparts but do the same jobs. This technology in combination with satellite guidance, saves troops on the ground, but it also has been adopted into civil aircraft flight systems, the various space programmes, Mar's lander's and the ISS.

Fishing Boats.

There are three kinds of fishing trawlers/boats, inshore, deep water and production vessels or factory ships.

Today many people are describing the fisherman as the reaper of the sea. But we are also being told by the medical world that fish is a good food for fighting many illnesses, such as coronary heart disease and diabetes, because it contains large amounts of Omega-3 oils. 

Fishing has been one of the oldest professions in the world, and for may so called third world nations it is their only source of revenue.

But admittedly the introduction of certain type of nets, factory ships has resulted in over fishing and the decline of certain breed, disease of various kinds, because of the breakdown of the food chain in the oceans.

Fishing boats are built with massive hulls below the water line to be able to deal with difficult sea conditions. The crews who work these boats do take great risks going to sea in all weathers. But basically all the vessels have similar equipment, just on different scales.

Cessna 0-2 and Dornier Do-335A

Both of these aircraft are unique in the aviation world for having both a rear and forward propeller. The Cessna 0-2 was developed for psychological warfare in the Vietnam wars and is powered by two engines. It also belongs to the twin boom family. Meanwhile the Nazi-German Luftwaffe Dornier DO-335A has both a similar engine layout, except the rear propeller is engine less. 

The Germans required a new fighter and despite plans laid down in 1942, it was not produced until late1944. At end end of World-War-II only about 30 aircraft had been built and 80 remained unfinished.

The Cessna O-2 Sky master has been built in the thousands and under licence in France as the FR-337. 

Performance wise, the Dornier was much faster. But by 1944 it was being superseded by the early jets. 

The O-2 could operated high-low and had a good range. 

Recently it has been discovered that this type of layout is much more economical on fuel consumption and a whole plethora of new types are being experimented with in the U.S. One of them being the Adam A500.

Aircraft Carriers. Part-Two.

Many of the worlds developing navies have sought over the years to top off their fleets with an aircraft carrier. They believe that it is an essential part of any advanced navy to have such a vessel in service. The aircraft carrier could then be described as a sea naval air power system, giving that nation an great advantage over the lesser. But is that really true? 

Israel has one of the most sophisticated and advanced navies in the world, yet it has no need of a sitting duck.

Many nations have sought to build dedicated carriers just for V/STOL aircraft and helicopters, even now the U.S. Navy is starting to think on those lines, with its Wasp class. 

The development of the Boeing-Bell OV-22 Osprey has lead to a much improved delivery system?