Who Likes Aircraft ?

[64BEL]

RC, do you like movies about gladiators?

You beat me to it!!

 

[Photon440]

If you like business jets, it doesn't get much nicer than Bombardier's Global 7500.

There isn't much out there to compete with its range, it has already managed city-to-city flights of over 9,400 land miles (8,225 nautical miles) and holds over 75 speed records as the twin GE Passport engines give it a high speed cruise of 0.9 Mach.

The Swiss Air Force just took delivery of one for government and military personnel transport.

With a cabin eight feed wide and over fifty-four feet long, there is plenty of room for nineteen passengers.

 

[Photon440]

The first operational jet for the U.S. Army Air Force was the P-80 Shooting Star, but that wasn't the first jet that they had. Before that, there was the Bell P-59 Airacomet.

First flying in October 1942, orders for 100 aircraft were received. Due to very little knowledge in the USA at the time regarding jet propulsion, General Electric built copies of Frank Whittle's turbojet for this airplane, plans and working engines coming from England.

However, even with two jets, the resulting tests showed disappointing speeds of only 413 mph. Worse yet, the aircraft wasn't a stable gun platform at speed, and had poor engine response and reliability.

Therefore, the orders were cut back to 50 aircraft, and it entered service with the Air Force not as a fighter, but as a trainer to familiarize pilots with the next jet fighters that were on the planning stages.

Today, there are still six examples surviving in museums.

 

[Basket case]

The Planes of Fame has a P-59 they are slowly restoring to flight.

 

[Photon440]

Boom Technology has successfully gone supersonic on Tuesday, the first private company to do so. The XB-1 1/3 scale demonstrator is a prelude to building a larger supersonic passenger aircraft.

Cruising over the Mojave Desert, the three engined plane went Mach 1.122 on a 34 minute flight.

 

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[Photon440]

Dottie Mae spent over sixty years at the bottom of a lake in Austria, and was the last aircraft lost in Europe for WWII, ditching on the last day of that war
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After recovery, it was restored and flew again on June 22, 2017.

 

[AR67GTX]

View attachment 1803079

I wonder what it was like when the pilot fired the 6 - 50 caliber MGs, all grouped inches away from him and the cockpit?

 

[Basket case]

I wonder what it was like when the pilot fired the 6 - 50 caliber MGs, all grouped inches away from him and the cockpit?

Like a P-38 with four 50s and a 20mm cannon in front of the pilot.

 

[DeltaV]

 

[Photon440]

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I had a model of that as a kid, I know it wasn't a practical aircraft but as the first Mach II bomber I thought it looked pretty cool.

As an aside, ejecting at Mach II at 70,000 feet wasn't going to work with a regular ejection seat and parachute; this clamshell ejection pod protected the operator, had it's own air supply and would float when it landed on water.

 

[Dave6T4]

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B-58 "Hustler". Featured in Dr. Strangelove. movie. When I was a kid, building aircraft models, I thought this was a pretty neat bomber.