the sexiest aircraft

I have trouble believing anything my government tells me...

On Sat, 14 Jan 2006 01:27:13 GMT, with neither quill nor qualm, Erik quickly quoth:

I had never seen one until the Air Show at NAS Miramar in 2000 or so. I saw a Warthog on the tarmac and she caught my eye. I went up and looked up the business end of her dragon and fell in love. Then I saw a metal frame on wheels containing a complete Vulcan cannon. The rest of my day was entirely spent with grins from ear to ear.

--- Chaos, panic, and disorder--my work here is done.

Comprehensive Website Development

On Sat, 14 Jan 2006 01:48:11 GMT, with neither quill nor qualm, Richard Lamb quickly quoth:

Yeah, and especially so next to an SR-71, Connie, or any bomber. They look like they'd fly damned nicely, too.

--- Chaos, panic, and disorder--my work here is done.

Comprehensive Website Development

P-38 though I can see why you like the P51-D.

Wes S

36 Cyl. I have had a couple of experiences with strong acceleration.

I was in an Aero Commander 500C, with GTSIO-540 engines. We were taking off from Arrowhead airport (MO), which had something like an 800 Ft. runway. The pilot locked the brakes and took the engines up to 46" Hg manifold pressure and then released the brakes. it was hard to breathe.

I was also on a redeye flight on a TWA 727 with something like 5 paying passengers and 3 sleepy stewardesses. So, I guess that was 11 total humans on board, and presumably not much luggage, either. That one was close to the Commander, I was surprised at how far back in the seats you went during the acceleration. I'm sure it was a 100% power takeoff, or above. WAY more than needed to satisfy the decision point.

I had a similar experience, I think also TWA, on a 747, too, that was proportionally as empty.

Jon

Too many choices but I can pick one in a few different categories:

Prop:

P-38 Lightning

Honorable mention goes to the Grumman Goose: Jet:

F-15 Eagle

And why hasn't anyone mentioned anything other than fixed wing aircraft?

How about the Apache Helicopter?

Best Regards, Keith Marshall snipped-for-privacy@progressivelogic.com

"I'm not grown up enough to be so old!"

Yeah, I'll give that a vote, too. there was a great article on the last couple of them flying in Air&Space/Smithsonian.

Jon

The warthog isn't a playboy model but you wouldn't be embarrased to be seen in public with her.

Wes S

Oh, I don't know. Ever been up close to one? To an engineer's mind, it is all about function. The GAU-8a 30mm cannon is the center of the A-10, both in function and the aircraft was literally built around the cannon. It does have a sort of homely appearance from a distance, but up close, it is just awe-inspiring. I got to crawl all over one and talk to the guys that fly and maintain them at Whiteman AFB (home of the B-2). If you ever are in the Kansas City area on the right day of the month, the tour there is absolutely great. They have several air and army national guard wings there as well as the AFB, and they also have a museum based on a launch control center for the Minuteman missile. I had to keep asking the guys there "Umm, it's OK to take a picture here?" and they kept saying, "Oh, yes, sure!" Well, 15 years ago, if you tried to take a picture in there, you'd get turned to swiss cheese before the shutter finished clicking.

Jon

The very top of my list was Jim Wright's replica of Howard Hughes H-1. The most beautiful airplane every built, in my opinion. Have a look:

Unfortunately, Jim threw a prop counterweight returning from Oshkosh and crashed. Very sad, for the loss of both Jim and the airplane.

I did a bit of looking and didn't find how you can blame it on us. Cites please.

Wes S

Are you familiar with the history of the BD-10? It is pretty bloody!

It killed a very close friend of Jim Bede's, and another test pilot. There were two crashses, both related to serious design defects and totally inadequate engineering.

I think it was the first accident, was due to the torque tube that coupled the two flap drives together to one motor failing such that the flaps were left assymetric.

I think it was the second accident that was due to the twin vertical stabilizers not being pointed right into the flow, which was slightly diverging at that location. (McDonnell-Douglas had very similar problems with the F-15.) But, the structure holding the fin onto the fuselage was found to fail at 80% of the rated design load, a negative safety factor. After one fin let go, the unbalanced yawing force made the plane unflyable. At that point, any sane person would wonder how many MORE design errors were lurking in there, waiting to kill the very unwise 3rd test pilot.

I was REALLY interested in this aircraft, when the project started, but things wend from bad, to worse, to tragic.

There were other problems they worked through before the fatal accidents, like the nose gear clevis breaking apart on the first taxi test. That should have been a wakeup call to everybody that this thing needed an outside engineering review.

Jon

OK, another submission - something that I could actually afford to get into, if I hocked EVERYTHING!

The Aero Vodochody L-39! A tad homely, but it actually works, and isn't an insane $1000 an hour warbird. It would still run up a bill that would make the most expensive airline travel look cheap in comparison, but you could get around all that TSA insanity!

Jon

Don't know but P & W made the Wasp Major R-4360 which had

4 rows of 7 cylinders..

Tom

Holy shit, that is a gorgeous airplane. Thanks.

Didn't the president of Beach say "I'll never build another airplane that looks like a Klingon Bird of Prey"?

4 *helical* rows! The Boston Museum of Science has had one of these on display for as long as I can remember. It's sectioned thru two banks of cylinders. Mind boggling.

Very much like this, except you can touch the one in the Museum of Science.

Ned Simmons

Try finding reference to "black friday" in refence to the arrow

We were leaned on by the US because it was a confirmable fact that Canada had "Left Leaning" employees in the plant

By Mc Carthy standards all us canadians would have qualified as a bunch of commies back then

snipped-for-privacy@lycos.com wrote: