WELL DONE U YANKS

Prowlers still have a few years left...not long, though.

Yeah, I've been aboard at least one B-25 older than I am. They'll probably all get to that point eventually.

I have a rant about this: Consider the advances in the state of aviation between 1903 with the first powered, manned, controlled, heavier-than-air... I'll just say the Wright brothers' flight for short... and 1953. Now consider the state of astronautics between the first orbit (it's a convenient marker) in 1957 and what's projected for 2 years from now. A bit of that could be because of how hard it is (they do call it "rocket science"), but I believe a lot of it is due to the fact that for a long time there has only been two manufacturers involved, the USA and the USSR. The US has contracted out to various companies, but it has always narrowed the scope to a single design, for every one of which there are dozens others whose characteristics are only known on paper (and look at the surprises that have shown up this late in the Shuttle design). I think an interest in what-if spacecraft comes from an unarticulated recognition that we need greater experience with a greater variety of ideas.

snipped-for-privacy@bright.net (Jack Bohn) wrote in :

Consider the differences in the 'cost of entry'. The Wright brothers built their airplane in a bike shed. Designing and building a rocket is a multimillion-dollar business, with a much lower return on investment than aviation.

Yeh... but a B-52 flies around in a sedate manner. Your combat aircraft are replaced on a fairly regular basis. The USAF was busily replacing F-16As with F-16Cs while us poor chumps in the RAF were still drooling with envy over the A version. Our Jaguar fleet is approaching 30 years old and will be replaced with a jet that is already obsolete and was intended to be in service in 1995. Our Canberra reconnaisance fleet is comprised entirely of aircraft that are approaching 50 years old, but there is no replacement in sight for those. Your version, the RB-57, was replaced *decades* ago.

Our Tornado fleet is running out of airframe life. If you drive past RAF Marham in Norfolk, you can see at least four life expired Tornados sat forlornly on the airfield. The Future Offensive Air System is planned to replace these aircraft from 2017 - twelve years from now. No design has yet been settled for FOAS and bearing in mind that the Eurofighter Typhoon was originally intended to be in service by 1995, I think we can safely say that FOAS will not be available until at least 2030. I reckon that by 2012 the RAF will seriously have to consider leasing aircraft from the USAF or USN. What are you doing with all those F-18s that are being replaced?

We also have C-130Ks that are 40 years old (the new C-130Js were bought on the cheap and cannot be used to transport delicate or explosive cargo because of ultrasonic vibration in the cabin. If passengers sit in the wrong place they can receive liver damage from the vibration!). The Nimrod maritime patrol fleet is 35 years old. The tanker fleet is comprised of aircraft that are over 40 years old (VC-10) or are converted civil airliners (Tristar) - some of the VC-10s are both!

That's no way to run an air force! :-(

Ahhh, The wonders of socialist management! Wait till Hillary Clinton gets to be president and see how fast we can be run down to the same condition.

Bill Shuey

Oh dear... and there was me toying with the idea of emigrating in your direction! ;-)

If you guys can stomach a little political humor, this reminds me of a pic I came across the other day that gave me a chuckle. Well actually it was the caption that pulled the whole thing together. It'll be in the binaries group attached to a copy of this msg.

WmB

LOL It's actually a little bit bigger than Brit carriers... ;-)

Well, you're long overdue to replace all those flying machines with missiles, ya know. :)

Bill Banaszak, MFE

Please do! If you want to come you're already an American at heart and we welcome legal immigrants that share our values! :)

Want to buy some F-16s or F/A-18s? We've got plenty of good used ones at Davis-Monthan, or you could probably get a good deal on brand new ones. ;)

To bring a great big metal glider back home is a great Day......WTG Yanks

Most technology advances happen in wartime. The 60 years of relative world peace has driven technology to backburner and that is why airforces have to use 50 year old planes (eg USAF) and the poor astronauts have to use shuttles designed in the sixties.

Then again I am happy that technology is lagging.

Tim Brimelow

Guess you haven't been reading AvWeek lately...

Really Al:

I spent a year on the Space Shuttle design in 1974. At Downey, California, in the old Vultee hanger. My job, determining maneuvering wing loads during re-entry.

Seeing as how you think I am a moron, perhaps you should reconsider a free shuttle ride.

...../V

PS Rockwell was one of the cruddiest companies to work for as an engineer. They trusted nobody; had spy cameras trained on the work area (before the age of video CAM), probably because they so feared unionization activities.

They made me punch a figgen timeclock. Like, when you have a job like that, you are thinking about stuff all the time. But they never paid me for the mental effort while in the shower, which just shows you how idiotic treating engineers like GM assembly workers really is.

You will get no sympathy from me concerning Rockwell International (once North American; home of the P-51 Mustang). They screwed up the B-1 project also.

Well I got a new 1970 corvette convertible out of that effort, plus a USC MBA. Eight hours on the job, three in class, every day/night. I might have been too tired and messed up a decimal place or two, Al.

Guy I reported to was from Puerto Rico. Nice enough guy, but a lousy engineer. He had the formulas all bass ackward. Lucky for him (and the shuttle), I was on it like a hound dog.

Got to sit in the Apollo and Gemini capsules. Shuttle mock-up was kind of cool also.

PS Rachael Welsh's father worked two desks down from me. Alas, she never visited. Typical Rockwell grinches, never a Father-Daughter day when you need it.

See my individual comments below.