A perfect shot of the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor pulling a high-G turn and a great example of what real-world aerodynamics looks like in motion.
You’ll notice vapor forming around the jet that’s caused by rapid pressure drops as the aircraft maneuvers sharply, leading to visible condensation and shock waves. These high-speed turns also generate intense vortices, helping boost lift and agility, especially when paired with the Raptor’s thrust vectoring system.
The orange glow? That’s the afterburner kicking in a raw display of power from its twin Pratt & Whitney F119 engines.
With a top speed over Mach 2.2, stealth shaping, and advanced flight control, the F-22 wasn’t just built for speed it was built for dominance.
Photo by Mark Von Raesfeld
Someone has lost control!
This harrowing incident on May 21, 1946, remains one of the most infamous accidents in the history of nuclear research—a fatal moment of human error and hubris known as the "demon core" incident.
Louis Slotin, a brilliant Canadian physicist and Manhattan Project veteran, had taken part in some of the most sensitive atomic research of World War II. But by 1946, with the war over, Slotin was preparing to leave Los Alamos and return to academia. First, though, he performed one last experiment—a criticality test on a 14-pound plutonium core, the same core previously involved in another fatal accident just months earlier.
Dubbed “tickling the dragon’s tail” by those who understood the danger, the experiment involved delicately bringing two beryllium hemispheres close around the core to observe neutron reflection—edging the core toward critical mass without tipping it over. Slotin, known for being confident—some say reckless—had a habit of bypassing safer procedures. Instead of using remote devices, he separated the hemispheres with a flathead screwdriver, holding them in place by hand, with other scientists watching mere feet away.
When his hand slipped for just a moment, the hemispheres fully encased the core—and it went critical. A sudden blue flash of Cherenkov radiation lit up the lab. Slotin immediately pried the hemispheres apart with his bare hands, ending the reaction and saving the others, but at the cost of his own life.
He had absorbed an estimated 1,000 rads of neutron and gamma radiation, a dose far beyond survivability. Slotin experienced nausea, severe burns, mental confusion, and within nine days, he was dead. His skin sloughed off, his internal organs failed, and doctors described his injuries as a "three-dimensional sunburn."
The core, which had now killed two scientists (the first being Harry Daghlian in 1945), was retired and never used in another weapon. It became known as the “demon core,” a haunting symbol of nuclear danger and human fallibility.