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spitfire or mustang?


huggy98

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So no more takers on the Mig intake circles ????....what about you FT..you usually know everything...............Maj....

Possibly antennae for the radar gun sight? Although, I was fairly sure the Mig 15's didn't have a radar for the gun sight (during the Korean war) as the Sabres did, could be later model.

 

 

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The Phantom is capability arrogance personified, I admit; but for sheer, bowel-knotting fear, being near even a dead and de-comissioned on of these cannot be matched. I've been up close and personal with two - one at the San Diego Museum of Aerospace and the other at the USAF Museum at Wright-Patterson, and you can't really look at them - your eyes seem to slide off the paintwork. Even just sitting still on the ground they look like the personification of evil. And they could outrun most bullets.

I used to watch these take off from RAF Mildenhall in the UK back in the 80s, when I was a crew chief on the EC-135's... so loud the noise split the sky, and I never, ever, EVER got tired of seeing them. Especially before sunrise, you could see that blue flame coming out the back. I'll have to go find the shoe box now and see if I have any piccys. Was a sad day when they retired the SR-71 :-(

 

 

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Guest Maj Millard
I would say he means these 2 brown dots (holes) inside the intake.

Thanks Alf, okay here's the answer.......the brown dots are simply doped fabric patches covering holes. The early Migs were designed to be operated on unimproved muddy strips in Communist China and Korea. If the aircraft got bogged in the mud, as often happened, they simply knocked the patches out, put a rope through and towed them out. Two new patches, and away they go. The only time I've ever seen fabric patches in a jet intake !....Russian functionality at its best !...

 

When Australia gave a squadron of Sabers to Indonesia, in the early 70s, some of the indo pilots who flew them back had over a thousand hours in Migs, as Indonesia had been Soviet backed in the 50 and 60s. As the F 86s were designed for American sized pilots, the parachute harnesses in the North American Ejection seats had to be completely torn apart, reduced in size , and resewn to fit the much smaller Indo pilots. How do I know ?........I did a lot of that stitching on those harnesses at Williamtown, on a huge harness stitching machine with a needle about 1/8" thick, and nylon thread like string....we knick named the machine 'the thumper'..........some of the pilots were flat out seeing over the dash in the Sabers, and I think two were written off before leaving Australia.........as the attached photos show, the aircraft were completely overhauled, and repainted in Indonesian ( and Malaysian) colors..........Maj..........

 

image.jpg.506f044de86def211f1638968f10be1a.jpg

 

image.jpg.4d97ae08461785f7071d5d815f804c77.jpg

 

image.jpg.0c3369e3de422f26f77d0c563e768426.jpg

 

 

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...Even just sitting still on the ground they look like the personification of evil. And they could outrun most bullets.[

Amazing aircraft- developed in the 50s and still hasn't been beaten for speed. Whole new technologies were developed to build it. If the US wanted put them back in the air today they'd have to rebuild the infrastructure to produce the toxic fuel (which leaked while it was on the ground) and the special fuel-resistant rubber for its tyres.

That's a whole new discussion. Often the only people qualified to build, maintain and fly these beasts are in nursing homes.

 

This story has appeared a number of times:

 

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=105x688145

 

 

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Amazing aircraft- developed in the 50s and still hasn't been beaten for speed.

Just to remind one of how old they really are - here are shots of the front and rear cockpits:

 

http://www.nmusafvirtualtour.com/media/068/SR-71A%20Front%20Cockpit.html

 

http://www.nmusafvirtualtour.com/media/068/SR-71A%20Rear%20Cockpit.html

 

There's a (probably urban legend) story that one of the early ones flying in to Middenhall landed; about 30 minutes later, the CO of the Lightning squadron based somewhere nerby called in to Middenhall and walked up to the SR71 driver and made the right appreciative noises about it, and was told 'Yep, nothing can get near us'. The CO then handed him a photo of himself, in the cockpit, taken at somewhere around 70,000 feet. Apparently, so the story goes, the Lightning had managed to do a ballistic climb and flamed out with just enough speed left to get alongside and take the snap before heading down and re-lighting. That panel suggests that there was enough going on for the pilot to, just possibly, be so preoccupied with the dials, knobs and switches to not notice anything else around him (nor expect anything to even BE there!)

 

 

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Amazing aircraft- developed in the 50s and still hasn't been beaten for speed. Whole new technologies were developed to build it. If the US wanted put them back in the air today they'd have to rebuild the infrastructure to produce the toxic fuel (which leaked while it was on the ground) and the special fuel-resistant rubber for its tyres.That's a whole new discussion. Often the only people qualified to build, maintain and fly these beasts are in nursing homes.

This story has appeared a number of times:

 

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=105x688145

I met a man a while back, who had been a design engineer on the SR71. Unfortunately he had gone all religious, as much as I was interested in the SR71, he only wanted to talk about Jesus.

 

 

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He probably looked at the Machmeter and exclaimed Jesus Christ! Maybe he flew a bit high and looked out the window.

 

Anyhow getting back to WW2 the liquid cooled motors were much easier to cripple than the radials and the Yank Planes had a lot of armourplate to protect the pilot(s)

 

The FW 190 was nice and the Jet ME 262 very clean design. There was an all metal version of the Mosquito, I think called a Hornet used from carriers.. Nev

 

 

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He probably looked at the Machmeter and exclaimed Jesus Christ! Maybe he flew a bit high and looked out the window.

I can't recall whose quote it was, but I've always liked: "you've never been lost until you've been lost at mach 3"

 

 

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I met a man a while back, who had been a design engineer on the SR71. Unfortunately he had gone all religious, as much as I was interested in the SR71, he only wanted to talk about Jesus.

Happens quite a bit. The pride and euphoria of the design process is often replaced by regret about it's destructiveness. Several who worked on the A-Bomb ended up with similar issues.

 

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-01-13/ak-47-rifle-inventor-mikhail-kalashnikov-regrets-creating-weapon/5198396

 

 

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Of the German aircraft, the FW-190 is surely the most elegant. I lust after the scale replicas which are flying in several countries. Interesting that the Germans eventually replaced the air-cooled radial with a liquid-cooled V12. The result was not elegant but very successful. Meanwhile, the Japanese went the other way, replacing the V-12 in their Kawasaki Ki-61 with an air-cooled radial. It also became a better aircraft.

 

focke.1.jpg.9b8512f7e15163e6918f4162cd3f6e94.jpg

 

 

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As some have stated this technology was aimed at being better at killing your enemies than they were at doing it to you. Companies made profit out of this stuff, and still do. Armament manufacturers who sell cluster bombs napalm etc should have a special place reserved for them in hell. Going to war is the ultimate madness of the human condition, especially when atomic weapons are in the equation. Mutually Assured destruction, is out there. The hatred aspect of war lingers on for centuries, ready to spring up and set another conflict in action anytime Nev

 

 

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Well, I guess if you'd been a part of the SR71 design team, it's not impossible that Jesus was part of the management support staff..

 

If you look at the front cockpit panel, I reckon that a souvenir trophy that would go 'straight to the trophy room' would be an ASI that reads to Mach 4....

 

I had the incredible opportunity to spend several weeks in the USA visiting many aircraft museums, with more than a week spent at the NASM restoration facility at Sliver Hill, just near Washington DC. I got to crawl down the aft fuselage of Enola Gay; wander through the NASM storage facility and see things like the pressurised FW190 for high altitude work, an Arado bomber under restoration, the Hughes Racer under restoration, the spare 'Fat Man' Nagasaki bomb (wild story behind THAT!), the US Navy Air Museum at Pensacola. I had a carte blanche entry to the Planes of Fame airfield, to crawl all over the Imperial War museum facility at Duxford, the Cardington R101 hangar with all that was going on there, the Mosquito Museum, to kick the tyres on an F117 Stealth fighter at the USAF museum - but of everything I saw in the US and the UK, the SR71 left the most indelible memory.

 

The SR71 is, quite simply, in another dimension. It's the aeronautical equivalent of the Bugatti Veyron vs. anything else you can actually buy and run on the street, even a Ferrari F40. No photo can do any sort of justice to seeing one in the flesh.

 

 

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Agree totally Nev, but we boys still love our toys! If you want rapid progress, there is no substitute for war. Biplanes were still being used with effect in WWII at the same time jets were being developed. It's amazing how much creativity and efficiency humans can invest in weapons. If only we could harness the same energy into the real challenges facing us.

 

 

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As some have stated this technology was aimed at being better at killing your enemies than they were at doing it to you. Companies made profit out of this stuff, and still do. Armament manufacturers who sell cluster bombs napalm etc should have a special place reserved for them in hell. Going to war is the ultimate madness of the human condition, especially when atomic weapons are in the equation. Mutually Assured destruction, is out there. The hatred aspect of war lingers on for centuries, ready to spring up and set another conflict in action anytime Nev

Nev, I studied the whole nuclear warfare thing at University, and the MAD syndrome is almost beyond comprehension. The USA had (from memory) the estimated capability to destroy 50% of the USSR population and 75% of its industrial capability 4.1 times over just with Minuteman missiles alone, with an additional 1.5 times with SAC (B52) delivered bombs PLUS around 1.5 times with Trident submarine-launched missiles. How many times do you NEED to kill 50% of the population, FFS? The USA was devoting its strategy to MIRVs; the USSR in response, to multiple megatonne warhead delivery that would basically turn vast areas to fused glass...

 

Madness, on a scale that is unimaginable to the rest of us. To try to get a handle on all of this, watch 'Dr. Strangelove'....who was modelled on Kissenger, according to Kubrick.

 

 

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the more I look at the fw190 the more I like it.

Saw the just completed restored one for the NASM; bloody impressive, superb workmanship everywhere. Then if you see an ME 262 close-up, it's rough as guts everywhere, but...it's the next step. The Me 163 is the roughest aircraft I've ever seen in terms of build, I think, but they worked (sort of).

 

 

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There was an all metal version of the Mosquito, I think called a Hornet used from carriers.. Nev

`Winkle Brown', the British test pilot who did over 2,400 carrier landings and reputedly flew 478 different aircraft types said the single seat Hornet was his favourite piston aircraft, because it was `over-powered perfection'. His favourite jet was the F-86E Sabre (and Bob Hoover's).

 

rgmwa

 

 

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Guest Maj Millard
the more I look at the fw190 the more I like it.

As good as the FW 190 was even at the height of it's development, it was still no match for the Hawker Typhoons and Tempests, or even a talented P 51 pilot............Maj....

 

 

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Guest Maj Millard
err, mass produced war plane.

So...?....massed produced warplanes kept nazism from taking over the world, and kept the japs from taking over the Pacific.

 

Thanks to massed produced war planes we don't goose step to work or eat only rice for lunch, and they continue to keep the communism pretty well boxed up............Maj....

 

 

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Our massed produced warplanes were built to oppose their mass produced warplanes. Wars have to end sometime Usually when they have belted $hit out of each other. The soldiers don't start the wars. It's obscene. most people who have been in them think so and they would know best. Nev

 

 

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