Who Likes Aircraft ?

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[65Bel]

 

[Dipstick]

Hope that wasn't the "honey bucket".

 

[65Bel]

 

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[Photon440]

 

[Richard Cranium]

My dad in 1973 with his new toy....

Me with dad's old toy (not mine) 49 years later....

I was 14 when my dad bought this low production Thurston Teal amphibian & whenever he went flying, I went with him. This plane represents a special time in my life when the bond between my dad and myself was really special. I still cherish that special time in my memory.

 

[Richard Cranium]

A couple more.

 

[Richard Cranium]

 

[DeltaV]

Interesting article:

 

[Photon440]

Sitting in the Warplane Heritage Museum in Hamilton, Ontario.

 

[DeltaV]

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200615-the-record-breaking-jet-which-still-haunts-a-country

I did not know it had a fly-by-wire flight control system. Definitely cutting edge for the 1950s!

I read somewhere the engines had a 5:1 thrust/weight ratio. No too shabby.

 

[Photon440]

It did have several inovations, DeltaV. Here's a list from Randall Whitcomb's book "AVRO Aircraft and Cold War Aviation".


1. First fly-by-wire aircraft, i.e. electronic signals fed from the stick and pedals.
2. First aircraft designed with digital computers being used for both aerodynamic analysis and designing the structural matrix (and a whole lot more).(The only IBM 704 sold in Canada went to Avro).
3. First aircraft design to have major components machined by CNC (computer numeric control); i.e., from electronic data which controlled the machine.
4. First aircraft to be developed using an early form of "computational fluid dynamics" with an integrated "lifting body" type of theory rather than the typical (and obsolete) "blade element" theory.
5. First aircraft to have marginal stability designed into the pitch axis for better maneuverability, speed and altitude performance.
6. First aircraft to have negative stability designed into the yaw axis to save weight and cut drag, also boosting performance. {Bartek M. Rys}
7. First aircraft to fly with fly by wire AND artificial feedback (feel). Not even the first F-16's had this.
8. First aircraft designed to be data-link flyable from the ground.
9. First aircraft designed with integrated navigation, weapons release, automatic search and track radar, datalink inputs, home-on-jamming, infrared detection, electronic countermeasures and counter-countermeasures operating through a DIGITAL brain.
10. First high wing jet fighter that made the entire upper surface a lifting body. The F-15, F-22, Su-27 etc., MiG-29, MiG 25 and others certainly used that idea.
11. First sophisticated bleed-bypass system for both intake AND engine/exhaust. Everybody uses that now.
12. First by-pass engine design. (All current fighters have by-pass engines)
13. First combination of the last two points with an "ejector" nozzle that used the bypass air to create thrust at the exhaust nozzle while also improving intake flow. The F-106 didn't even have a nozzle, just a pipe.
14. First use of Titanium for significant portions of the aircraft structure and engine.
15. Use of composites (not the first, but they made thoughtful use of them and were researching and engineering new ones).
16. Use of a drooped leading edge and aerodynamic "twist" on the wing.
17. Use of engines at the rear to allow both a lighter structure and significant payload at the centre of gravity. Everybody copied that.
18. First use of a LONG internal weapons bay to allow carriage of specialized, long-range standoff and cruise missiles.
19. Integration of ground-mapping radar and the radar altimeter plus flight control system to allow a serious strike/reconnaissance role. The first to propose an aircraft be equally adept at those roles while being the air-superiority fighter at the same.
20. First missile armed aircraft to have a combat weight thrust to weight ratio approaching 1 to 1. Few have been able to copy that.
21. First flying 4,000 psi hydraulic system to allow lighter and smaller components.
22. First oxygen-injection re-light system.
23. First engine to have only two main bearing assemblies on a two-shaft design.
24. First to use a variable stator on a two-shaft engine.
25. First use of a trans-sonic first compressor stage on a turbojet engine.
26. First "hot-streak" type of afterburner ignition.
27 First engine to use only 10 compressor sections in a two-shaft design. (The competition were using 17!!)

By the way, that link you provided had an error; By the time the loudspeaker crackled into life on Black Friday, there were five flying prototypes. There was another fitted with an Iroquois engine nearly ready to fly and another four in various states of assembly.

There were actually 32 in various states of assembly when it was cancelled.

 

[Photon440]