Just out of curiosity - Airplane Guys

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Back in that era, Curtis LeMay ran SAC. He was a hardass SOB and ran it with an Iron fist. That shows on their command patch...


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The boys in SAC came up with their own version of LeMay's Strategic Air Command patch. :smoke:



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Boom Supersonics XB-1 made it's maiden flight yesterday. For those what don't know, it's a technology demonstrator for the next gen SST's.
The flight lasted 12min and met all it's test objectives.


 
Super sonic with the gear down? Impressive. ;)
Seriously, cool stuff.
A Wiki history; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boom_XB-1
This stuff gets complicated fast eh?
I know you was funnin'... but for those that don't know, gear is almost always left down on a maiden flight. Two reasons. They'll have strain gauges hooked up to measure airloads and such just to verify design data. You can swing the gear successfully all you want in the hanger, it's a whole different animal doin' it with 150kts of air blasting on it..... that and it's damned embarrassing to do a gear up landing on the maiden flight. ;)
 
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