Matrix Games Forums

ORIGINAL: Doggie

ORIGINAL: Terminus




What the h*** happened to that?[X(][X(]

Offhand, it looks like he's dumping fuel while in afterburner, which would result in the jettisoned fuel igniting in the slipstream.

Correct and they do this at every airshow that they go to.............and the NOISE is something that if felt as well as heard !

ORIGINAL: Arctic Blast

I've always liked the look of Saab fighter aircraft.

Not all of them.

But back to the cool aerospace things:

ORIGINAL: Raverdave

ORIGINAL: Neilster


On a similar note, we may be better off buying at least some F/A-22s, rather than only F/A-35s. Cheers, Neilster

Yeah but the problem is that the yanks will not sell the F-22 to us even if we did want it. [&:]

It's not that simple. This issue is covered at the site I posted the link for. Basically, we were kind of offered them several years ago but Defense and the government decided to put all their eggs in the JSF basket. Not having a plan B doesn't look that bright now.

There are rumblings that trusted US allies are going to be able to buy F-22s now. Even if they're a de-tuned, export variant, IMHO they'll eventually be upgraded due to the realities of keeping ahead of the steadily improving Russian gear that's pouring into Asia/Pacific air forces.

Cheers, Neilster

ORIGINAL: Terminus

ORIGINAL: Arctic Blast

I've always liked the look of Saab fighter aircraft.

Not all of them.

Hey hey hey! [;)] I think the J29 Tunnan looks cool. Slightly rotund but very "form follows fuction". From memory it was the first European swept wing fighter (IMHO the Me 262's 17 degrees doesn't really count as a swept wing, especially as it was done to adjust the centre-of-gravity, not to reduce transonic drag) and they were extremely capable.

Cheers, Neilster

these bad boys are leaving my area, gonna miss em...

Hard to believe that something that ugly can get off the ground, but there you go...[:D]

Another good ol' Mud Mover:

Just realized, there's only jet aircraft in this thread:

Terminus I heard you got canned.  Thats too bad.

Here are three of my favourites.

Avro Vulcan, broke the record for the longest range bombing mission in history. Ascension to the Falklands in 1982.
Vickers VC-10, Queen of the Skies and currently the fastest airliner in service (plus it's keeping me employed [;)])
de Havilland Mosquito, fast, agile and generally pretty damn awesome

I like the V-Bombers. They remind me of grainy colour documentaries from the 60s about the RAF, with Lightnings and the like sitting around on rain-slicked flightlines, featuring narrators who speak in clipped, upper-class tones [:D].

I've always thought the 4 engines at the back of the VC-10 look cool. I had books as a kid with pictures of BOAC ones in them, blasting off to some corner of the Empire. [:D]

As for the Mossie, it's just a dead-set classic. One of my favourite aircraft.

Speaking of old footage, when I was doing my aerospace trade training in the RAAF, we watched a lot of RAF safety videos. Some of them were pretty old and had excellent cold-war jets and some killer sideburns. [:D] Our instructors showed us a foreign object damage (FOD) one that they said they weren't supposed to show any more because it was completely politically incorrect, but as we were all blokes... [;)]

I reckon it was from about 1972 and it featured a middle-aged chap (Dr Fod) and a young, foxy, busty brunette in an outrageously short miniskirt and tight top (Miss Wayward-Body). Basically Dr Fod spent the entire film perving on her as she bent over and clambered suggestively into intakes etc, looking for foreign objects and tools (no sniggering in the back row [:'(]) Anyway, it worked because it was the only FOD safety film any of us could remember later on [:'(]. I just thought you might have been shown it Dixie. It's an absolute classic.

Cheers, Neilster

ORIGINAL: Neilster


Speaking of old footage, when I was doing my aerospace trade training in the RAAF, we watched a lot of RAF safety videos. Some of them were pretty old and had excellent cold-war jets and some killer sideburns. [:D] Our instructors showed us a foreign object damage (FOD) one that they said they weren't supposed to show any more because it was completely politically incorrect, but as we were all blokes... [;)]

I reckon it was from about 1972 and it featured a middle-aged chap (Dr Fod) and a young, foxy, busty brunette in an outrageously short miniskirt and tight top (Miss Wayward-Body). Basically Dr Fod spent the entire film perving on her as she bent over and clambered suggestively into intakes etc, looking for foreign objects and tools (no sniggering in the back row [:'(]) Anyway, it worked because it was the only FOD safety film any of us could remember later on [:'(]. I just thought you might have been shown it Dixie. It's an absolute classic.

Cheers, Neilster

We got to see that one too [:D] It was not an official part of the training program though [;)] The most memorable scene (for me at least) was the one where they had the young lady in front of a Lightining's intakes before the throttled up, with dire consequences for her clothing [:D]

We got to see that one too It was not an official part of the training program though The most memorable scene (for me at least) was the one where they had the young lady in front of a Lightining's intakes before the throttled up, with dire consequences for her clothing

That's right! I'd forgotten about that bit. You'd be strung up by the unmentionables with rusty barbed wire if you made that today. In those days it was officially sanctioned government material, payed for with taxpayers' money. [:D]

Cheers, Neilster

I dig the Mosquito too...I thought it was a very versatile plane and sexy to boot.

Here's a couple of pictures of the Highball Mosquito and one of the Tsetse fly variant. Both were naval strike aircraft, with the former using bouncing bombs and the latter a 6 pounder cannon. Highball was developed to be used against German capital ships but proved temperamental and ultimately wasn't needed in that role (bit of a pity really. That would have been extremely cool...an RAF cameraman in one of the Mosquitoes capturing footage of bouncing bombs skipping over torpedo nets and exploding under the Tirpitz, with furious flak and a backdrop of sheer Norwegian cliffs). Later it was to be used against Japanese shipping in the Pacific but the war ended before it could be employed. The 6 pounder was quite successful against U-boats but AFAIK rockets proved easier to use in practice.

Cheers, Neilster

Allow me to 'third' the love-in for the Mosquito. Was there a role that plane didn't perform effectively in?

Also from WW2, I always thought the F4U Corsair was a cool looking plane...I think part of the allure was how different those gull wings made it look...I don't know how else to explain it beyond...it looked like a fighter plane.

ORIGINAL: Dixie

Here are three of my favourites.

Avro Vulcan, broke the record for the longest range bombing mission in history. Ascension to the Falklands in 1982.
Vickers VC-10, Queen of the Skies and currently the fastest airliner in service (plus it's keeping me employed [;)])
de Havilland Mosquito, fast, agile and generally pretty damn awesome





...

just finished the book "Vulcan 607: The Most Ambitious British Boming Raid Since the Dambusters" by Rowland White, its about the Black Buck raids on the Falklands Islands from Ascension Isle, its a great read about brave men and a great aircraft.

back in the 90's, when i worked at BAe Filton. we watched the VC-10s being ferry flown in with fixed landing gears and a chase plane, they were being refurbed at Filton into tankers for the RAF. it was rumored that pilots were paid danger money to fly an aircraft that had been made (just enough) flight ready after years in storage.

The P-47N was a major redesign of the basically excellent P-47 to incorporate aerodynamic improvements and to provide it with much longer range. The wings were modified with extended span and squared off tips. This both increased roll rate and provided room for wing fuel tanks. Although not a highly manoeuvrable aircraft at lower levels, the turbo-supercharged P-47 was unmatched at high altitude where air combat was increasingly being fought. It's air-cooled power-plant, general toughness, heavy firepower, ability to lift large bomb-loads and stability as a gun platform made it a superlative ground attack machine as well.

This resilience is hard to overstate. Sleek looking water-cooled aircraft were extremely vulnerable to battle damage. Any hit to their coolant systems meant the engine packing up in literally seconds. The air-cooled Thunderbolt had a legendary reputation for getting home after absorbing massive damage. On top of this, the under-fuselage ducting for the turbo represented a crumple zone during a wheels-up emergency landing which added to safety, as opposed to a ventral intake that tended to dig in and flip the aircraft. Well over 1500 were produced and they were deployed to the Pacific in numbers. One of the best piston engined fighters.

Cheers, Neilster

Sorry, don't have a nice photo I can attach, but this link is a good shot:

http://www.airliners.net/open.file/1148976/L

Hawker Skyhawk. Now that is a beautiful jet (though I agree with the Hunter). Saw the one at Duxford a couple of months ago.