the sexiest aircraft

On 14 Jan 2006 14:21:09 -0800, with neither quill nor qualm, "mike" quickly quoth:

At today's price of $2.25/gallon (regular, not AV gas), that beastie would cost $1,305.00 per HOUR to run. It drinks 580 GPH! What does AV gas cost now? $3-4/gal?

---------------------------------------------- Never attempt to traverse a chasm in two leaps

It's the same kind of purposeful homeliness that the Germans were so good at. Better dogfighter than you'd expect. Fellow in the next cubicle at HSD was a pilot for the CTANG. Came back from Red Flag all excited, or at least as excited as I've ever seen him get. Seems that some moron in an F-15 was dumb enough to get low and slow with him.

Maybe the largest spark ignition reciprocating engine ever build or the largest reciprocating aero engine, but far from the largest overall if you count diesels.

Look at his website. He has soul.

But then..I can present a number of people who think his work is just baubles and of no note, and not particularly pretty.

What Abnoxious has..is very limited taste. Which goes back to my claims he is an idiot savant. Rainman.

Able to do one thing marvelously well..and be as worthless as a turd in the punchbowl at everything else.

Gunner

The aim of untold millions is to be free to do exactly as they choose and for someone else to pay when things go wrong.

In the past few decades, a peculiar and distinctive psychology has emerged in England. Gone are the civility, sturdy independence, and admirable stoicism that carried the English through the war years . It has been replaced by a constant whine of excuses, complaints, and special pleading. The collapse of the British character has been as swift and complete as the collapse of British power.

Theodore Dalrymple,

As a total novice on the subject..whats the issue with the Starship?

Gunner

The aim of untold millions is to be free to do exactly as they choose and for someone else to pay when things go wrong.

In the past few decades, a peculiar and distinctive psychology has emerged in England. Gone are the civility, sturdy independence, and admirable stoicism that carried the English through the war years . It has been replaced by a constant whine of excuses, complaints, and special pleading. The collapse of the British character has been as swift and complete as the collapse of British power.

Theodore Dalrymple,

The Blackbird is an awsome aircraft. I've got a picture somewhere of the Blackbird flying in formation with its' tanker, a KC-135 and an F-16 chase plane. Any where the 'Bird goes it needs take along its own personal gas station. For sexy tho' I'll nominate any plane with Patty Wagstaff in it. Tom

Martin,

Do you know, if there exists any significant WWII historical records on Kwajalein? My father served there during the war. Here's a picture of him in the B24, Bugs Bomby Jr.

He wasn't flight crew, believe he worked on the plane. He never talked much about the war to Mom, and died when I was two, so I know next to nothing. I've searched often specifically for historical info on the island, but found nothing useful. Would like to know if you know of anything?

Thanks,

Jon

IIRC there was also some political pressure with regard to adoption of the Bomarc missile for air defense instead of an indigenously developed aircraft. Which would have worked fine if the Bomarc had been accurate enough to put the concrete block that was all that they had for a warhead into the target (seems that there was also some kind of political problem with providing the Canadians the nuclear warhead that the Bomarc required for effectiveness that took many years to resolve).

IIRC the Arrow was scrapped because there was no significant possibility that it would be bought in any great numbers by other countries and the Canada only demand was far too low to justify the cost of going to production. I don't recall anything about specific US involvement in the decision.

There was a v big political problem in Canada re stationing of nucular weapons on Canadian soil (as Canada wasn't (and never has been) a nuclear power). The political problem rose particularly from the perspective of nuclear nonproliferation.

Laurie Forbes

Nobody would ever want to buy a Mach2+ (Likely capable of mach 3) interceptor that was ready in 1959 let alone form a western country that is not one to meddle in its sales by claiming national secrets and all that (WHich the US does to this day to countries it doesnt like)

its chief competitors as mach 2 and change interceptors were the

F104( 1958 and mach 2.2 top speed) and the Mig25 foxbat (Mach 2.8 and 1961)

The F104, being essentially a missile with a pilot in it, is known to be hard to fly and easy to kill pilots hence why the USAF had it phased out by 68

the F15 in developped 1972 has a max speed od mach 2.5 but thats over a decade later

Laurie Forbes wrote:

Kinda forgot about the F8 Crusader, didn't you?

It's been listed with a top speed of Mach 3.1 in several publications.

Not bad for a bird that entered service in 1955!

There are some good books - some the Naval record type - The island when I was there was still under the Navy - large aircraft carrier class job for the CO - then almost overnight transformed to the Army. Sadly, the entire china set - from CO grade to lowest grunt - dumped into the drink.

I would hope your library would have it - it is a legend set of books -

History of United States Naval Operations in World War II Vol Vii - Aleutians, Gilberts and Marshalls When I was living on Kwajalein - mid pacific - we had a U2 land in a

There are some good books - some the Naval record type - The island when I was there was still under the Navy - large aircraft carrier class job for the CO - then almost overnight transformed to the Army. Sadly, the entire china set - from CO grade to lowest grunt - dumped into the drink.

I would hope your library would have it - it is a legend set of books -

History of United States Naval Operations in World War II Vol Vii - Aleutians, Gilberts and Marshalls When I was living on Kwajalein - mid pacific - we had a U2 land in a

As I Understand It, Condensed from watching a Starship documentary on The History Channel or a sibling : (All Praise DirecTV)

They built a couple prototypes, got them all debugged, started on the acceptance process and built the first production batch - but the FAA had no idea how to type certify a commercial aircraft that was

Meanwhile Beech put the first batch out on lease, but the market passed it by - Nobody wanted a little business-class turboprop. Companies looking for a fast corporate jet would spend a little more on a slightly larger, faster and proven LearJet that was shipping, or if they wanted it on the cheap they would buy an old commercial airliner. So even though Beech finally got approved to build more Starships, they never did.

Beech has gathered up most of the units off lease and has them parked, and wants to shred them all - and being all carbon-fiber, they'd better pack a lunch... ;-) A few are still in private hands (IE the guy who flew his as the chase-plane for the Spaceship One flights) and these few owners have enough spare parts in private stashes to keep their planes in the air for quite a while.

Beech might do better to get Burt Rutan to freshen-up the design with the latest wrinkles like winglets and better propellers, and try selling it to the market again as "Luxury with a very light appetite"

- on their last try fuel was cheap and a non-issue, and now crude oil prices DO matter and JP isn't going to get much cheaper any time soon.

(Just today they announced on the news that one of the commercial airlines can get out of bankruptcy this summer IF the fuel prices stay down. You'll notice that I'm not holding my breath...)

IIRC the Starship was supposed to be so slippery it'd make a gallon of jet fuel scream for mercy in comparison to flying a LearJet or an old MD-x or DC-x converted to a private jet. And then they can make some money on the design.

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You're neglecting the F-106, the English Electric Lightning, the Mirage III, and the Phantom II among others.

Incidentally, the Mig25 had a very limited service life at high speed--it was targetted at the B-70--the Russians decided that a disposable fighter was a better option than nukes on Moscow.

It had a specific problem--it was possible to get it into a deep stall with the horizontal stabilizer blanketed by the wing wake, a situation which if it occurred at low altitude was non-recoverable. This, in conjunction with the downward-firing ejection seat which was intended to keep the pilot out of the path of the horizontal stabilizer, meant that if the pilot got careless on takeoff he couldn't climb and couldn't get out.

Eventually the downward firing seat was replaced with one that fired upward with enough thrust to be sure of clearing the horizontal stabilizer and that problem was pretty much solved.

I'd like to know which ones. I've never seen any credible information that it was good for even Mach 2. Perhaps you're confusing the aircraft that went into service with the XF8U-3, which was a new design with similarities to the F8, and that lost out to the F4.

On Sun, 15 Jan 2006 20:36:26 -0800, J. Clarke wrote (in message ):

Am I the only one here whos juices start flowing (My definition of "Sexy") at the sound or sight of the British Mosquito? Two Rolls-Royce Merlin engines (Sounds like two P-51s), cruise at 255 mph, max out at 370 mph (Mk II fighter version). A Pox on filmmakers who deliberately destroyed Mosquitos for their movies. There are so very few left now it's enough to make a strong man weep.

Roger in Vegas

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