Afterburners

============================================== Put some color in your cheeks...garden naked! "The original frugal ponder" ~~~~ } ~~~~~~ } ~~~~~~~ }

Reply to
Roy
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I saw many of them when I was stationed in Germany. Of course this was in the mid 80's and from what I read on one site that was about the time they where being transitioned out. Since the base I was on had F-16's I saw many of them. But the 104's where the only German plane I ever saw use the runway (that I can recall anyway).

They did look rather natural in the air or from a distance in the German paint scheme. But I'd never been close to one till the museum and while I knew it had small wings the exact scale of the difference hadn't hit home till I got up close. I mean the wings aren't large enough for a decent hang glider much less this jet plane that looked to be 10' dia and 30' long.

The most spectacular take offs I saw was when the C-130's where doing touch and goes but with a twist. They used rocket assist. Watching a plane like the C-130 do a take off from the end of the runway at about the same angle the F-16's used was rather awe inspiring. Especially considering the F-16 pilots liked to take off at a rather steep angle.

Wayne Cook Shamrock, TX

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Reply to
Wayne Cook

I'm sure you are correct, Roy, and the seats were side-by-side. I'm about as far as you can get from being an expert on aircraft, and I'm just going by some fuzzy memories. I was only in the two-seater once (on the ground, not flying), and that was an air show setup day, where I looked at many other aircraft. That's my excuse, anyway ;-)

Reply to
Ron DeBlock

What is the aircraft similar to the Hawker Hunter that has two engines vertically located in the tail? I thought it was the Hunter but I took a look at a few websites and saw a overhaul page and it definitely doesn't have two engines.

I thought I remembered a show on the Wings channel talking about these aircraft and others in South Africa as it was the only place they could legally fly them anymore.

Can anyone help me with the aircraft I'm thinking of? Seems one of the Brit jets crashed near me at Williams Air Force Base (now Williams Gateway Airport) for similar fuel exhaustion problems.

You just can't get too far if you only have 1 hour usuable fuel no matter how fast you go! Now if you had a spare 707 to convert to your private refueler you might get better range. (SMILE!!)

Bart

Bart D. Hull snipped-for-privacy@inficad.com Tempe, Arizona

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Reply to
Bart D. Hull

Vertically mounted engines in the tail and an English aircraft would have to be the "BAe Lightning" Kind of weird aircraft but they were rather hi tech in their day......A lot of Arab countries flew them like Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, or most original British colonies at one time flew them..........When I was in the Kuwait after Desert Storm, they had them on pedestals all over the place like stops signs would be in america. Capable of MACH II Check out below link if this is aircraft your thinking of.

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===What is the aircraft similar to the Hawker Hunter that has

============================================== Put some color in your cheeks...garden naked! "The original frugal ponder" ~~~~ } ~~~~~~ } ~~~~~~~ }

Reply to
Roy

snipped-for-privacy@home.now (Roy) wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@news.east.earthlink.net:

The English Electric (later BAe)Lightning, known as the frightening by new pilots, was an interesting plane. Its two engines where actually 'over and under' and one behind the other so giving two engines in the x section of 1. In clean configuration could climb vertical and exceed mach without AB, with AB there was some dispute - mach 2 was the official speed but the russians listed it as 2.4. Was the the first 'supercruise' fighter, broke most speed records in the late fifties and still holds some time to height records. As a kid growing up in Scotland I used to see them taking off to intercept Russians, they roll off three abreast, stay low over the runway with gear up and when up to speed went vertical with Ab on. All the grass was dead for about two hundred yards around the end of the runway from the unburnt fuel. traing aircraft had a side by side cockpit like the training hunters.. Still some flying in South Africa.

The problem with the lightning was it had less than 800 miles fuel so the pilots where practicing fuel management even before it got off the ground and an interception flight needed refueling every 30 minuites.

Reply to
mike

Reply to
carl mciver

IMHO whats worse at least for me wa we had what was called ABDR (Aircraft Battle Damage Repair) of which at our unit I was NCOIC. It was our mission to be able to do what ever was necessary to any battle damaged aircraft just to milk one more sortie out of it just in case.......We had lots of practice on 55 gal drums, old car bodies, and old removed aircraft part, but never a real aircraft except at school where we used F-105 and T-33's for battle damaged aircraft, which they would literallay chop, nbow and punch holes through which we would have to evaluate and repair somehow or other, in other words do a McGiver if necessary just make it fly and drop bombs etc.....After much complaining we got an ABDR aircraft .......which turned out to be an F-4C which was destined for the boneyard anyhow, as all units were converting over to F-16 or other aircraft then anyhow so F-4's were a dime a dozen.....I for the life of me could not bring myself to go out there with a fire axe and pick and punch holes in that aircraft........The F-4 meant a great deal to me and it wa like taking a club to your buddy.......We managed to turn the aircraft in with just some minor damages to it, and got an A-7 in its place.........

Now all those RF-4C and F-4 (x)'s are being converted to drones and shot down on a pretty routine schedule at Edwards, and Tyndoll AFB.....At least it went down doing what it was meant to do and that was fly and train folks, and not wind up as a soda can or aluminum skillet......

I had an article on an Israel AF project. They were trying to see if they could remove the keel section and fit in one single large engine inplace of the two GE's........Dunno if they wver got anywhere with it, but that would have had to be a major undertaking.

============================================== Put some color in your cheeks...garden naked! "The original frugal ponder" ~~~~ } ~~~~~~ } ~~~~~~~ }

Reply to
Roy

carl mciver wrote:.

There are so many aspects of this "top speed" issue that for a fighter plane it is almost a meaningless question. Another gotcha on the F-4 was airframe heating.

One big factor is that ever since 20s, the max speed of a plane depends on altitude in complex ways, and some planes are faster at certain altitudes, others at other altitudes. This is true whether plane is jet or prop. Now, a fighter is best if its performance peaks at a useful altitude, where a lot of operations occur, but this is often not the case.

It is interesting that the top speed in an absolute sense- fastest it will go at any altitude- has seemed to have peaked, and most new fighters are not as fast in such a "top speed" as earlier aircraft. There used to be several planes with max speed in the M2.5-2.9 region, while most newer ones are in the 2.0-2.5 region.

Reply to
Don Stauffer

I can, because I have such a car. Everytime I take it to the track, I have to change the engine first.

Reply to
Rex B

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