Whats your Favourite Aircraft?

[scooby dooby doo]

IU've seen a documentary on this - I think we swapped it for some nuclear secrets.

 

Can't remember the plain though...

 

HOOPY 500 kg R706KGU

[Eric McLoughlin]

Despite what people may think, by 1945 the ability for man made objects to exceed the speed of sound had been around for nearly one hundred years . High calibre bullets, artillery and warship shells and, of course, rockets, had already beeen regularly breaking the sound barrier for decades. In fact, the German V2 rocket was achieving hypersonic speeds (4,000 mph plus) by 1942/43. The problem was building an aeroplane that would remain aerodynamically stable and controllable throughout the speed range ie, from subsonic to transonic, through to supersonic and then back down to subsonic speeds. Both Bell in the USA and Miles of Reading in the UK started projects in and around 1943/44 to design a supersonic aircraft. Both were remarkably similar in size and shape and that has prompted British industry "experts" to speculate that Bell "stole" the Miles data. In fact, the shape of the fuselage for both aircraft were subtley different. Bell decided to base their fuselage on the shape of a .50 calibre bullett, as these bullets were known to be stable at supersonic speeds. Miles' fuselage was shaped to fit around the chosen engine. The wings were quite different although both teams knew that the secret to penetrating the sound barrier was a thin wing. In some ways the British project was superior in that it was powered by a Whittle turbojet with afterburner (very advanced for 1944). The Bell XS-1 (the original designation) was to be rocket powered, crude but effective. The Bell also needed to be carried aloft by a "mother ship" (a modified Boeing B-29 Superfortress bomber) whereas the Miles M.52 could was to be able to take off under its own power.

 

When the war ended, both projects continued. Contrary to popular belief, neither project made any use of captured German research data. In 1946, the UK government suddenly ordered Miles to cease all work on their project - the only explanation given being that the flights would be too hazardous for the test pilots. This was a load of old cobblers because for quite a few more years, the British aircraft industry turned out a large number of weird and wonderful (and frankly lethal) experimental aircraft and prototypes - and some pilots died. As is well known, the Bell project continued resulting in the first successful manned supersonic flight in October 1947. As a postscript, Miles continued to do some research work on their M.52 using rocket propelled radio controlled models dropped from Mosquitos. The last flight of one of these models easily achieved supersonic flight and was last seen disappearing rapidly out over the Irish Sea.

 

There has been speculation in recent years that the British government ordered Miles to stop work on the supersonic project in exchange for nuclear weapons data from the USA. Although there has never been any confirmation of this I think it is a very plausible scenario. It has also been mentioned that Miles were ordered to hand over their data to Bell (they did allow Bell engineers to visit Reading but the expected reciprocal return visit to the Bell factory never materialised). Whether Bell ever obtained any useful data from Miles is purely conjecture. My hunch is that the Bell project was too advanced by the time they got their hands on the Miles data to have resulted in any fundamental changes to the XS-1.

 

The X-1 project continued right through into the mid - 1950s and in 1953 Chuck Yeager took the improved Bell X-1A to Mach 2.53, The plane was not built for such speeds and it went completely out of control at twice the speed of sound. It was only Yeager's fantastic piloting skills that allowed him to survive.

 

Just as a final point, Yeager made his last supersonic flight at Edwards Air Force Base only a couple of weeks ago, He was taken up in an F-15 fighter and allowed to take control at Mach 2. There are very pilots around with 50 years experience of supersonic flight.

[FH]

Blimey Eric

Font of all aviation knowledge

I'm sure Mr FH would like to sit down with you and have a natter some time. He spends most evenings either watching Discovery Wings or playing with his Flight Sim 2002 😬 (I'll get a right rocket for that. It is not a game. It is not a game. It is not a game)

[Ade Ray]

favourite aircraft.......ooooh so many:

 

Looks:

DH Mosquito

Tempest V

 

Noise:

Starfighter

 

Modern fighters:

Sea Harrier FRS2

Strike Eagle

 

Vintage:

Avro 504K

 

Bomber:

Wellington

 

Spy plane:

U2B (for it's incredibly short take off run)

 

Make the world a better place, hug an estate agent

[Eric McLoughlin]

Apart from a brief flirtation with a very early version of Flight Simulator (ca 1988), I've never got "into" flight sims (or even racing sims) - I don't posess a joystick or steering wheel. I can see how they could become addictive so I've deliberately tried to avoid getting too involved with such "games".

 

My passion for motor sport is only exceeded by my passion for aircraft. I can't remember a time when I wasn't interested in both. Once I get my teeth into a subject I want to know as much as I can about it, especially the history. I can't help myself.

[No Nuts]

Hello folks

 

A bit late to this one I'm afraid so I hope you don't mind me adding a bit of a list in no particular order. BTW, I like all aeroplanes, things of beauty, every one!

 

FR A10

Lockheed Hercules

Avro Vulcan (cried like a baby when XH558 did her last display in Jersey, opening the bomb bay doors to display the word "FAREWELL" - sh1t, makes me weep just to think of it)

Blackburn Buccaneer

Yep - I'l go for the Fokker F27 - if only because I've done so many load sheets for the damn things. Flew one once too.

McDonnell Douglas DC9 (90 seat fighters)

Lockheed SR71

Lockheed P-3 Orion

Antonov AN-124 - BIIIIIGGGGG!

Avro Lancaster

Northrop Grumman B2

Boeing 747 - of course! Especially the SP

BAC TSR2

BAC 1-11

Cessna C150 - yes, only for the 40 degrees of flap you can put down - great for short field landings! Cr4p for go arounds though!!

...

 

ooohhhh - so many, so many

 

 

 

 

 

NN 😳

Lotus @ Herts

[Ade Ray]

No Nuts

 

With the exception of a couple of entries, it seems you like your aircraft on the large size which is very interesting in a Freudian sort of way. Just a little test: Which singer do you prefer - Kylie or Alison Moyet? Just curious. I think your inclusion of The Buccaneer is a sound choice as it was an excellent low level bomber with great stability.

 

Eric, your aircraft knowledge is extensive but reading a slighly earlier post I have a query:

 

I always thought that the problem with the navalised versions of the spitfire (Seafire) were their rather wimpy and narrow track undercarriage rather than their lack of performance. Both the vampire and the Seahawk (and the Scimitar) were pretty pants in the performance stakes and it was lucky that their main active engagement was the Suez Crisis and they did not have to fight anything decent on an air to air basis.

 

As for spit performance, I think you are right that some Spitfires did near the mach boundary in power dives but even the clipped wing design would not have allowed it to exceed the sound barrier and stay in one piece. Even avant garde German designs of the time such as the ME262 with a relatively swept wing for the time had serious stability issues at the Mach threshold which resulted in the loss of many German pilots.

 

ADe

 

Make the world a better place, hug an estate agent

[No Nuts]

I like my aeroplanes (from a looking at pov) to be big and ponderous. They are, to me, the truly impressive feats (feet? )

 

My wimmin - well, if Kylie were 5'11 but slim with it - mmmmmm!

Not that past attempts should be anything to go by

Oooh! 😬

 

NN 😳

Lotus @ Herts

[Eric McLoughlin]

No Nuts - I didn't mean to sound disparaging about Spitfires/ Seafires great planes all.. You've got to remember that there were almost thirty major variants of the Spitfire/Seafire between 1936 and 1946 and their performances varied greatly. As I mentioned earlier the final Griffon powered aircraft bore almost no relationship to the protoype Spitfire of 1936. By the time the final versions were being made piston engine development had almost reached its peak whereas jets were just beginning. The performance of the very first jets were almost on a par with the latest piston engines so it was clear to aircraft designers where the future lay. The Hawker Seahwak may not have set the world on fire performance wise but it was already faster than its piston contemporaries such as the Hawker Sea Fury.. Not all the early jets were that great however. Ironically, the jet designed to replace the Spitfire on the Supermarine production line, the Attacker, was a flop. In fact, Supermarine's entire run of jet propelled fighter aircraft ( a whole plethora of devlopment aircraft plus the Swift and Scimtar) proved pretty poor and hastened the demise of the company. Hawkers proved much more "with it" when it came to high performance jets and two of their products which can trace their roots back to the mid 1950s are still being made today, the Harrier and the Hawk.

 

You are quite right that the Seafire's undercarriage was not up to the task of deck landings. The reason was because it had never been envisaged that Spitfires would ever operate of aircraft carriers. Due to woeful political decisions in the 1920s, the Royal Navy found itself entering World War 2 to with a totally inadequate and obsolete fleet of combat aircraft. For example, its prime front line attack aircraft was the Fairey Swordfish bi-plane and it was pinning its hopes on the new Fairey Fulmar as its main fighter. It was obvious by 1940 that suitable modern aircraft were desperately needed. The Seafire was really a stop gap attaempt to give the RN something adequate. In the end, the use of American designs such as the Grumman Wildcat, Hellcat, Avenger and Vought Corsair improved the situation no end.

[No Nuts]

Eric, I spake not a word about Spitfires?

Ah , I geddit, you mean AR!

 

Spits - lovely, Merlins, mmmmm, Griffons,aaahhhh, Olympi, roar!!!!

 

NN 😳

Lotus @ Herts

 

Edited by - No Nuts on 18 Dec 2002 18:35:43

[Eric McLoughlin]

Best sound in aviation - Avro Shackleton on take off, four RR Griffons at max power, contra props producing a harmonised throb plus the snarly roar from the exhausts. Pity you have to go all the way to South Africa or the USA to hear it these days.

[Boonie Hound]

One of my favourites was watching the Blackbird take off - while it was running up its engines it made so much noise and vibration that it set off most of the car alarms in the car park

[Nick Woods]

I saw the Blackbird the first time they flew it at Mildenhall. It came in very low, very fast with and with the afterburners on.

 

At first you couldnt hear it at all (our guess was because it was going at a very high subsonic speed), then the noise started to grow and grow. Then my ears started to ring and then I went temporarily deaf, then it went very loud again as it flew away. They repeated this trick several times. Absolutely fantastic 😬.

 

We had a major disappointment a few years later when they did the same routine without the afterburners. Apparently this was because of the famous 'backfire' incident a couple of years earlier (this is where the picture of a blackbird with a fireball behind it was taken, i cant find it now that i want to), allegedly so much damage was done to the engine and to the airframe it had to go back to the States for repairs

 

There is an excellent site about blackbirds here

 

Nick

P8MRA - The green one with red wings.

Which is now bent ☹️ 🙆🏻 ☹️ 🙆🏻 ☹️ 🙆🏻 ☹️ 🙆🏻 ☹️ but is being fixed

 

Edited by - Nick Woods on 19 Dec 2002 10:19:48

[Nick Woods]

found a picture here

 

Nick

P8MRA - The green one with red wings.

Which is now bent ☹️ 🙆🏻 ☹️ 🙆🏻 ☹️ 🙆🏻 ☹️ 🙆🏻 ☹️ but is being fixed

[Ade Ray]

No no no no no no

 

Best noise was definately the Lockheed Starfighter. I remember seeing it at Farnborough and Biggin Hill when I was a youngster when the noise restrictions were not as sever as nowadays and it was the best noise I had ever heard. I seem to remember that one of the Starfighters also did a fuel dump which was cool. I believe they have banned those aswell !

 

Ade 😬

 

Make the world a better place, hug an estate agent

[Eric McLoughlin]

King of the "fuel dumpers" is the General Dynamics F-111. The USAF banned their pilots from torching the dumped fuel when the tail fell off one their aircraft. The Aussies were still doing it at the 1993 International Air Tattoo at Fairford.

 

The proper designation for the SR-71 was really RS-71. However, the existence of the 'plane was let slip by President Johnson at a press briefing and he mistakenly referred to it as the "SR-71". Nobody wanted to correct the President so the designation became official. The SR-71 was actually based on a high altitude, high speed interceptor called the YF-12A. This project was cancelled after a couple of prototypes had been built but was re-born as a reconnaisance aircraft. NASA used the YF-12s as high speed research aircraft during the 1960s and 70s. Lockheed even devloped a hypersonic remote controlled drone for launching off the back of the F-12 (as it would have become if it had entered service). All the SR-71s are grounded now, unfortunately, but they are 40 years old.

[Geek]

Bit late coming to the thread here...

 

Favourite - hmmm, got a bit of a softspot for the Buccaneer, don't know why.

 

I remember a Vulcan passing over and then going vertical at a Church Fenton airshow one year, lots of chest rumbling goodness and that broken roaring sound you get when a noise is just *too* loud.

 

The Backfire is the Tu-22 (possibly originally know as the TU-26 at one point, though )

 

617 squadron Lancasters - weren't they Mark I specials, not Mark IV, or was that just the early ones?

 

Engines in wings - Nimrod?

 

And finally, what was the plane that had passenger compartments in the wings as well as in the fuselage?

[Nick Woods]

If you like looking at unusual photos of planes, try this site.

 

If you are feeling especially knowledgable (Eric ) try going through the 'mystery meat' section and seeing how many you can identify. A lot of them are fairly easy but there are some obscure ones as well - this one is one of my favourites and although I know what it is (a B17 Flying Fortress testbed with a single turboprop) I sem to have lost all the info I had about it

 

Nick

P8MRA - The green one with red wings.

Which is now bent ☹️ 🙆🏻 ☹️ 🙆🏻 ☹️ 🙆🏻 ☹️ 🙆🏻 ☹️ but is being fixed

 

 

 

Edited by - Nick Woods on 19 Dec 2002 17:39:48

[Nick Woods]

aha ! found some info on the turboprop testbed here

 

Nick

P8MRA - The green one with red wings.

Which is now bent ☹️ 🙆🏻 ☹️ 🙆🏻 ☹️ 🙆🏻 ☹️ 🙆🏻 ☹️ but is being fixed

[Eric McLoughlin]

Surely that single engined B-17 is as photo fake. I know some B-17s were used as test bed aircraft and had props stuck on the nose but they also retained their priginal piston engines.

You're right about the "Special" Lancaster - the "Tallboy" and "Grand Slam" aircraft were Mk I Specials. The bouncing bomb aircraft were Mk III Specials. The Mk IV was actually the original designation for what became the Lincoln. I was writing off the top of my head. It always pays to look things up.

The proper designation of the "Backfire" was the Tu-26. However, Russian design bureaux knew that they were more likely to get funding from their government if the project looked like a development of an existing design rather than a brand new one. Therefore, the Tu-26 was often reffered to as the Tu-22M. The original Tu-22 was the Tuplev "Blinder", a totally different and much older aircraft. A Tu-26/22M appeared at the Farnborough Airshow in 1992 and also had the habit of setting off car alarms.

I didn't include the Nimrod in my list of aircraft with engines buried in trhe wings as it really is a development of the old Comet. The Nimrod will probably be the last aircraft with this arrangement to remain flying. When the re-engining with Rolls Royce Tays is completed, they should keep flying for another 20 years at least.

[Ade Ray]

I'm not sure that the B17 photo is a fake. Is it my imagination or has the airframe been heavily modified with a shorter fuselage? If they can get the weight down then it could fly on one big turbo prop.

 

The F111 never did it for me at air displays although I never saw it do a fuel dump. I am suprised that not much mention has been given to the Phantom or the F14 which were both ground breaking aircraft in their day

 

Ade

 

Make the world a better place, hug an estate agent

[Peter Griffiths]

Buccs and Jags = F4 fodder

 

 

Peter 7 Rosina

C7 PRG

[No Nuts]

On the B17, I found this here.

Doing a google on N5111N it does not seem that it was ever in single engine format.

Indeed one of the photos on the page above looks as if it could have been taken on the same flight as Nick's. Hmmmm.

 

NN 😳

Lotus @ Herts

 

Edited by - No Nuts on 20 Dec 2002 07:03:07

[Eric McLoughlin]

I did have a look at the the "Mystery Meat" section of that site and he does say that some of the photos may be fake. What surprised me about the Mystery Meat pics was that some of them were not THAT mysterious, only non-American. In particular, The English Electric Lightning T4, De Havilland Hornet, Bristol Bombay and Blackburn Firebrand. However, some of them really were weird and even I'm struggling.

 

The Phantom realy was/is a "heavy old hammer" (Raymond Baxter's comment on a televised airshow from St Athan back in 1983(when was the last time you saw an airshow on terrestrial TV?) However, it is a bit unfair to label a Buccaneer or Jaguar as F4 fodder. In fact, when US Navy Phantoms were sent to Vietnam in 1964/65, they did not fare very well against the North Vietnamese opposition which consisted of simpler aircraft like the MiG 17, 19 and 21. In reality, the best performing aircraft of that war were the Chance Vought F-8 Crusader, the Douglas A-4 Skyhawk and the Republic F-105 Thunderchief, all very under-rated machines. The F-105s were used so intensively throughout the war that half of all the aircraft built were eventually lost in Vietnam. The F-105s were also the first combat aircraft to be equipped for Wild Weasel Operations.

 

The F-14 has always been impressive although they are relatively rare participators at UK airshows.

 

I see the A-10 has popped up on quite a few "favourites" lists. I've always had my doubts about the thinking behind this aircraft, As far as I know, it's the only plane actually designed to be hit - not very comforting for the pilot.

[Ade Ray]

Whats your favourite 'nearly' aircraft, ie something that got to prototype stage and then got axed due to change in government or budget requirements. Whatever happened to the Osprey tilt rotor the americans were going to produce for the marines? Also, the TSR2 that got cancelled at the flying prototype stage was a very fine aircraft (apart from the undercarriage hydraulics).

 

Ade

 

Make the world a better place, hug an estate agent