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not black enough posted:Actually the f-14 is awesome because it's wings loving MOVE. F111 has cool moving wings, and also a really neat party trick.  Click here for the full 800x536 image. Which at night looks like this .jpg) Click here for the full 1024x683 image. And when coupled with some fireworks and a long exposure makes a really neat photo.  Even from far away.  Click here for the full 1600x1067 image. Bit of a shame about their retirement. Also, three aviation books I can thoroughly recommend Yeager - Chuck Yeager (derr) More than my share of it all - Kelly Johnson The Skunkworks - Ben Rich
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Mar 8, 2010 10:37
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There's two planes on my short list that I want to buy: The Icon A-5 Amphibious sport aircraft. Price: $135,000  The second is the world's smallest jet, the BD-5.. which I want in a two seater. I can't find a solid price on the kit though.  Click here for the full 640x480 image. Is anyone else here interested in sport flying?
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Mar 8, 2010 10:48
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Petekill posted:* Did anyone else used to get those little info cards in the mail each month? They were like 2 page fold out things that profiled a jet or helicopter, and you got a stack of like 10 of them each month in the mail. I had huge honkin binders full of those things. I wish I could find them now, but they've probably been long-since garagesaled. I've got SEVEN god drat binders of those things, completely filled. And a little hardcover booklet that came with them which is just an index of all of them. And the hosed up thing is, if you go by the numbers, I'm pretty sure they never finished the entire collection. Some of the categories go up to 200 cards, but if you thumb through it skips numbers. Based on the fact that I got the index book, I'm pretty certain I've got all of them though. They're pretty handy for simple lookup poo poo like dimensions and weights (Aerospace Engineer over here) for aircraft that are no longer in production. My Jane's material only covers current production/current military service stuff. b0nes posted:Any of you guys remember a series of T-shirts in the 80's which featured all these different fighter jets on them in wireframe, with a black background? I REALLY want one of those. Nope, but my desktop background is actually a set of images like this which changes every hour. (I stole all the wireframes from the internet and just inverted the colors and moved the views around a bit for aesthetic reasons.) Also, not real planes, but stupid fun to watch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fej9EWWLSsw More Edit: What the gently caress is it with youtube and firefox lately? Half the time I click a youtube link it's bringing up the "save link as" dialogue. This happens when I right click>Open in new tab, CTRL+Click, just click, or even type in "youtube.com" in the loving address bar. ApathyGifted fucked around with this message at 11:10 on Mar 8, 2010 |
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Mar 8, 2010 10:52
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ApathyGifted posted:
You got any more of those?
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Mar 8, 2010 16:33
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Well now, this is timely since I spent some time this past weekend at Pima Air and Space Museum in Tucson. Which, for anyone who doesn't know, actually has a SR71 and a D21, among other crazy poo poo, in their inventory. For some reason the D21 is off in their storage yard, while they finished a nice new exhibit for the SR71. As a bonus, while wandering around outside, the pilots at Davis-Montham Air Force Base decided that Saturday was a great day for some hooliganism and acrobatics in a F15. I need to get the pics my wife snapped as it flew directly overhead, at low altitude, at full afterburner. 
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Mar 8, 2010 16:43
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FullMetalJacket posted:i'm doing this while it's still the first page: It probably wasn't a great airplane, but I still love it  Sure the early ones had engines which were poo poo and a bit explodey, but it was the largest and heaviest fighter ever (still is maybe?) and the wings moved about and the engines were spaced miles apart. It resembles what a fighter jet would look like if a kid drew one. It was a maintenance nightmare but they still flew the drat thing off a carrier deck for 30 years, which is awesome. The F/A-18 looks kinda boring in comparison (and is boringly more reliable). And Top Gun ruled.  Edit: Put it this way, the closest thing we have in our country is the Sea Harrier  which is cool in itself, but its like comparing a Mini to a Cadillac.
Manny fucked around with this message at 16:58 on Mar 8, 2010 |
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Mar 8, 2010 16:50
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Hot radials on this bird, two 2,250hp Pratt & Whitney R-2800-65W Double Wasp radials to be exact. Was the first US aircraft designed from inception to use radar, and our best night-fighter of WWII. Four .50 cal machine guns coaxially mounted under the main fuselage Four .50 cal machine guns in a dorsal turret (removed in later models)   Testing a ramjet for NACA:  P&W Double Wasp: 
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Mar 8, 2010 18:26
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Mr.Peabody posted:There's two planes on my short list that I want to buy: That is sweet! I definitely want one!
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Mar 8, 2010 19:57
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Nerobro posted:I need a much better explanation of this. I spent some time in the Canadian army near Zeljava. There wasn't a whole lot to see at that point since the whole thing had been destroyed, but it must have been neat to have fighters taking off from tunnels on the mountain.
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Mar 8, 2010 20:26
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Manny posted:Edit: Put it this way, the closest thing we have in our country is the Sea Harrier While we're being all , I really need to bring up the Avro Vulcan: Click here for the full 788x455 image. And the BAC TSR-2. Cancelled in favour of the F-111, which they never bloody built anyway  (Edit: That reads wrong. Of course they built the F-111, but the supposed commissioning of a batch for the UK never materialised)  Then you've got Spitfires, Hurricanes, Lancasters, Lightnings and, for those who used to read the Biggles stories, Sopwith Pups and Camels. There's just something about old British aircraft that gives me the warm and fuzzies 
InitialDave fucked around with this message at 18:38 on Mar 9, 2010 |
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Mar 8, 2010 20:40
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 This kinda fits here I guess. http://igor113.livejournal.com/51213.html
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Mar 8, 2010 21:31
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I HATE CARS posted:
Sweet mother of God! What is that thing?! 
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Mar 8, 2010 21:47
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Maker Of Shoes posted:Sweet mother of God! What is that thing?! A Wing in Ground effect vehicle. Kind of a hovercraft on creatine... The Soviets had a real hard on for the concept.
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Mar 8, 2010 21:59
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Maker Of Shoes posted:Sweet mother of God! What is that thing?! It's an Eraknoplan. Eraknoplans use a phenomena known as ground effect (where a wing near the ground forms a cushion of air underneath it) to skim just over the ground or water surface at high speeds. In theory, this would allow a large military force to be deployed beneath enemy radar coverage, but the Soviets never really solved some stability and navigation issues, so only a few were ever built. Here's a video of the vehicle in the pictures (dubbed the "Caspian Sea Monster") in use. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSYmSnpQ360
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Mar 8, 2010 22:02
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The A-Team Van posted:Voting 5 for this post alone I drive by one of those every day on my way to work. http://tinyurl.com/ykzgcp7 Also, for true aeronautical insanity, there's this little bastard: ME163 Komet  The t-stoff/c-stoff mixture essentially made them flying bombs since the injection units were known to leak fuel. keykey fucked around with this message at 22:17 on Mar 8, 2010 |
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Mar 8, 2010 22:06
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azflyboy posted:It's an Eraknoplan. I thought they worked well enough, except the only problem was that they couldn't really handle rough seas that you might encounter on the open ocean, so other than the Caspian Sea and a few other inland bodies of water it wasn't really usable anywhere else.
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Mar 8, 2010 22:07
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Throatwarbler posted:I thought they worked well enough, except the only problem was that they couldn't really handle rough seas that you might encounter on the open ocean, so other than the Caspian Sea and a few other inland bodies of water it wasn't really usable anywhere else. They do open ocean ok too, unless things are REALLY out of hand. You just can't run them over land (without dramatically crashing into every single terrain feature).
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Mar 8, 2010 22:12
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What are those tubes on the top for? Missiles of some kind I presume. God bless the Soviets' infinite amount of imagination.
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Mar 8, 2010 22:14
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That particular one is the last big one the Russians built, the missile-launching "Anti-Aircraft Carrier". The really famous one, the Caspian Sea Monster, was sunk in a crash. Edit: It's the sheer mind-bending numbers of these things that really impresses. 550 tons at about 450mph? Yeah, we can do that... InitialDave fucked around with this message at 22:19 on Mar 8, 2010 |
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Mar 8, 2010 22:15
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Throatwarbler posted:I thought they worked well enough, except the only problem was that they couldn't really handle rough seas that you might encounter on the open ocean, so other than the Caspian Sea and a few other inland bodies of water it wasn't really usable anywhere else. They did work, but keeping something that size in ground effect at high speed would require a very good pilot (and smooth water), so something like large hovercraft were a better solution to the problem.
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Mar 8, 2010 22:19
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I think cold war soviet union existed just to invent things for the upcoming Command and Conquer game series.
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Mar 8, 2010 22:19
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Nerobro posted:I need a much better explanation of this. It's a picture from inside the caverns at a Swiss air force base. The caverns are fairly small inside, with enough room to park the aircraft and not much more. If an aircraft goes unserviceable for any reason, the crane will pick it up and move it to the back of the line, or to a position where it can be towed into a larger cavern behind the photographer where more intensive maintenance can be performed.
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Mar 8, 2010 22:29
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Those Ekranoplan pictures were loving awesome, so I took it on myself to composite the 3 sequential images he took into a full panorama. Here it is in both full (with blank space) size, and with the dead space cropped out. I used xs.to to host them, so get them while they're hot if you want a copy, I know xs.to's hosting doesn't hold out forever. Click for 3,708 x 1,221  Click for 3,690 x 760
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Mar 8, 2010 22:46
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ab0z posted:I think cold war soviet union existed just to invent things for the upcoming Command and Conquer game series. It's like they picked up building Weird poo poo right where the Nazis left off.
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Mar 8, 2010 23:05
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Phy posted:It's like they picked up building Weird poo poo right where the Nazis left off. Someone had to do it. It makes me wonder what cybernetic/zombie Kim Jong-il has cooked up.
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Mar 8, 2010 23:07
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You guys have a plane thread and havnt mentioned crazy Russian awesomeness yet? Anatov 225   Click here for the full 1797x1061 image. And more recently, the Sukhoi - PAK-FA t 50  It can do some crazy poo poo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22fN4fVoFdY&feature=fvw Also: Jet trains  180mph in a tin can.
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Mar 8, 2010 23:21
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I HATE CARS posted:
Beaten with the igor link and everything. And I even posted it like a twat in the (other) AIest pics thread. About that BD-5 kitplane jet, I don't think there are many flying examples and Mr Bede certainly aren't making them anymore. His contraptions killed quite a few early adopters. This counts as a youtube thread as well right? Some dramatic ones from the world of small aircraft. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvbS-oHi9ro Pilot of small stuntplane pushes his center of gravity limit a little, ends up in flat spin and very close to death. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXQKaxp6Rlk BRS parachute deployed in actual emergency as tow rope goes in prop. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXO16bTySHQ Chasing the demons downriver in an RV-4.
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Mar 8, 2010 23:51
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b0nes posted:Any of you guys remember a series of T-shirts in the 80's which featured all these different fighter jets on them in wireframe, with a black background? I REALLY want one of those. I had an F-15 one and an A-10 one. I guess I need to represent. The E-3 is not sexy at all, is a maintainer's nightmare, smoky as gently caress, and the engines sound like banshees, but drat if it doesn't get the job done. This is an old picture, 70s thru mid-90s.  This was taken at the Langley airshow 2008 from the cockpit of the Memphis Belle. The crew of the Belle were awesome, they let us crawl all over inside, and put our squadron zap (sticker) on the starboard cargo(?) door.  Preoptopus posted:And more recently, the Sukhoi - PAK-FA t 50 Not yet it can't. They haven't finished developing the radar. They can't build it's engines yet. It's not a very stealthy design (the inlets are straight, for gently caress's sake!). It doesn't have any RAM coating yet. This is not the full-up jet. This is the prototype. The closest analogy would be the YF-22 in 1991...except it had engines, RAM, etc. Whatever they have for sale in 2015-17 will NOT be a fifth-gen fighter. They have too far to go to finish this one off for it to be there that fast. Don't take this as bashing, this plane is likely to be bad rear end. It looks pretty sweet, and I think once they finish refining it it's going to be awesome. Sukhoi builds outstanding airplanes, and they're usually dead sexy. Godholio fucked around with this message at 01:31 on Mar 9, 2010 |
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Mar 9, 2010 01:21
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Those aircraft all suck! That third dimension hardly counts when you have to watch the world whizzing by at 100 knots to get it. (F-35B will get a partial pass.) Click here for the full 1024x768 image. Sikorsky AH-60L "Battlehawk", for when you can't afford an Apache  Click here for the full 800x504 image. Sikorsky S-67 Blackhawk, the lesserknown Sikorsky Blackhawk  Click here for the full 1400x612 image. AH-56 Cheyenne, world's fastest compound helicopter to this day. Very early "rigid rotor"  Click here for the full 1600x1212 image. Kaman K-1200 K-MAX, a flying eggbeater  Click here for the full 1024x768 image. Boeing A-160T Hummingbird, a flying fuel tank  Click here for the full 1200x750 image. Mi-24, the modern Shturmovik  Click here for the full 1024x768 image. Ka-50, great gunship airframe, bizarre single seat arrangement  Click here for the full 1024x768 image. Mil V-12 (the world's largest helicopter)  Click here for the full 1200x782 image. Mi-26, the world's largest practical helicopter These guys have big engines, big gearboxes, and all sorts of mechanical crap. They're loud and utterly utilitarian. AI should love this poo poo. Tetraptous fucked around with this message at 02:07 on Mar 9, 2010 |
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Mar 9, 2010 02:03
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Tetraptous posted:
I love the Sikorskiy Blackhawk. It seems like an amazing helicopter. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iniXBYFLybs ^a promotional film for the helicopter complete with 70's porn music. They should STILL build this helicopter. They cancelled the program after the prototype crashed killing the test pilot. One of my other favorite aircraft is the B-47 Stratojet.  wiki: quote:The B-47 looked unlike any contemporary bomber, described by some observers as a "sleek, beautiful outcome that was highly advanced".[2] The 35° swept wings were shoulder-mounted, with the twin inboard turbojet engines mounted in very neat pods, and the outboard engines tacked under the wings short of the wingtips. With the exception of a change from the shoulder-mounted wing configuration to being under the fuselage, most future airliners would use a similar configuration, with the engines mounted in under-wing pylons. Basically all future jets followed the B-47's design of swept wings and engines mounted in pods under the wings. It is also a beautiful aircraft in my opinion. It is a bomber that looks like a fighter jet with a canopy rather than a side by side configuration.     The B-47 in the foreground, B-52 center, and the B-36 "Peacemaker" which was a ridiculously large piston driven aircraft before the B-47 came along. edit: Ah hell, here is some info on the B-36. size comparison next to a B-29, the same type of plane which dropped the A-bombs on Japan:  quote:The B-36 took shape as an aircraft of immense proportions,[17] two-thirds longer than the previous "superbomber", the B-29. The wingspan and tail height of the B-36 exceeded those of the Antonov An-22, the largest ever mass-produced propeller-driven aircraft. Only with the advent of the Boeing 747 and the Lockheed C-5 Galaxy, both designed two decades later, did aircraft capable of lifting a heavier payload become commonplace. Some Guy From NY fucked around with this message at 03:01 on Mar 9, 2010 |
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Mar 9, 2010 02:35
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a horses hoof fucked around with this message at 12:15 on Aug 19, 2010 |
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Mar 9, 2010 02:57
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Some Guy From NY posted:I love the Sikorskiy Blackhawk. It seems like an amazing helicopter. Bad timing, more than anything. The prototype crashed well after the Army had already rejected the proposal - Sikorsky was trying to drum up export sales for their self-funded design. That video was similarly produced for export sales. No doubt it was a good ship, but after the AH-56 Cheyenne program delays the Army was looking for a low risk option and even the S-67, less advanced than the original S-66 (it had a swiveling tail rotor), was consider too risky. The drag brakes were a fantastic feature for a gunship though - they'd have enabled the vehicle to adjust the fuselage trim independently of rotor trim which would be helpful in strafing runs, but also in reducing noise in certain circumstances (though I don't know if Sikorsky was aware of the latter at the time). The S-67 was also pretty drat big, compounded by the fact that wings add a substantial download penalty during hover. Anyway, with Vietnam winding down the Army was content to make due with a less radical step forward. Even today, we don't have a helicopter airframe half as capable as the AH-56. Obviously, our avionics and weapon systems are much improved, but in terms of pure performance the rotorcraft industry is basically where it was 30 years ago.
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Mar 9, 2010 03:09
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keykey posted:I drive by one of those every day on my way to work. http://tinyurl.com/ykzgcp7 Fun fact: That particular SR71, #960, flew more combat missions (342) than any other. Imagine where that titanium has been 
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Mar 9, 2010 03:12
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Some Guy From NY posted:Basically all future jets followed the B-47's design of swept wings and engines mounted in pods under the wings. It is also a beautiful aircraft in my opinion. It is a bomber that looks like a fighter jet with a canopy rather than a side by side configuration. With performance almost unmatched by the fighters of its day (remember, this aircraft first flew in 1947) and the looks to go with it, aircrews often gave into the temptation to beat the everlasting poo poo out of their B-47s. Combined with the high-speed, low-level flying that often comprised the missions assigned to the B-47, many of these aircraft succumbed to airframe fatigue. The B-47 is also the only Boeing-built jet bomber to have served outside the United States. In 1956, the USAF loaned a B-47B to Orenda Engines (part of Avro Canada) to test their new Iroquois turbojet engine, destined for service in the CF-105 Arrow interceptor. Modified by Canadair this variant, now known as the CL-52, placed the Iroquois engine in a pod on the tail of the aircraft, retaining the B-47's original J47 engines under the wings. At full afterburner, the single Iroquois engine produced more than half the total power of the six original engines installed in the B-47; even with the original engines throttled to flight idle and the aircraft in a steep climb, the CL-52 was in constant danger of overspeeding the airframe. After thirty or so flight hours, the program ended successfully, and the CL-52 was retired immediately, as the fatigue from the test program was deemed too expensive to repair.   And of course, no discussion of the Arrow can go without this: 
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Mar 9, 2010 04:12
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InitialDave posted:I'd argue the Tornado, but I've always had a soft spot for them. Not that I dislike Harriers, mind. I was thinking of a comparison of carrier-based aircraft, but yeah I love the Tornado too. The best B-47 pic:  Click here for the full 1800x1416 image. Some crazy landing vids: "Don't be afraid" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-SQBgea0oA You don't need all that runway after all. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJoXMcehrYo This guy needed a bit more though. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8yx5T2Oejc Manny fucked around with this message at 04:41 on Mar 9, 2010 |
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Mar 9, 2010 04:33
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Work on the ramp can be pretty lame, but I get to see 757s every day. Love seeing them takeoff when they are light.
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Mar 9, 2010 04:34
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Mobius1B7R posted:Work on the ramp can be pretty lame, but I get to see 757s every day. IMHO, the 757 is the Constellation of our age. Beautiful aircraft.
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Mar 9, 2010 04:46
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my favorite exhibit at the royal canadian whatever in ontario a few years ago. lancaster bomber. still flying. one of 2 in the world.         yes those pans on the floor were catching leaking oil from the engines. it was made in england, you know.
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Mar 9, 2010 05:06
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CornHolio posted:Fun fact: That particular SR71, #960, flew more combat missions (342) than any other. Imagine where that titanium has been That's it, next time I take my son there, I'm dry humping it. I would have then dry humped near space by proxy.
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Mar 9, 2010 06:41
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MrChips posted:With performance almost unmatched by the fighters of its day (remember, this aircraft first flew in 1947) and the looks to go with it, aircrews often gave into the temptation to beat the everlasting poo poo out of their B-47s. Combined with the high-speed, low-level flying that often comprised the missions assigned to the B-47, many of these aircraft succumbed to airframe fatigue. Part of that low level flying also involved one of the more impressive methods of delivering a nuclear bomb ever devised for an aircraft. When the B-47's mission was changed from high altitude bombing to low altitude penetration and bombing, it was realized that the aircraft wouldn't have the time to escape the blast if it dropped a nuclear weapon at low altitude. To solve this problem, the LABS (low level bombing system) technique was devised, which was a combination of specialized bombsight and some pretty impressive maneuvering to make low altitude nuclear weapon delivery survivable. Flying at low level and high speed, the B-47 would pull up as though performing a loop, with the bomb being released just before the aircraft reached the vertical. This served to "toss" the bomb at the target, and the B-47 would continue the pullup until it was flying inverted, at which point the pilot would roll the aircraft back to level flight and dive back towards the ground heading away from the mushroom cloud they'd just caused. Performing the LABS maneuver imposed massive stresses on the airframe (even more so than low level flying), and after it became clear that metal fatigue was becoming a serious issue, the maneuver was stopped. Here's a video giving a pretty good idea what the maneuver looked like. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqIJL8lx00o
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Mar 9, 2010 07:03
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