Just out of curiosity - Airplane Guys

20yrs ago today, Concorde made it's last flight from London to Filton in Bristol.


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A beautiful aircraft. Flying on one will have to remain an unfulfilled ambition.

We've visited one at the East Fortune museum of flight not too far from here and the surprise is how, uhm, chummy it is inside - not a huge fuselage so there's only two rows of seats. Comfort and space not a priority for people flying London to New York in three hours.
 
20yrs ago today, Concorde made it's last flight from London to Filton in Bristol.


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I watched this beautiful bird fly many times. I worked near Filton, Bristol during its development; with a clear view of the runway from my workplace.
I also watched its last flight into Filton; It was emotional for many of the spectators at the time. What a craft.
 
This is a new one on me; never knew they did this.
https://avgeekery.com/u2-aircraft-carrier/
Those flights off the carrier a subsequent missions in the 60s are impressive. There was no GPS and I believe the nav system was a gyro. I think the pilot had to manually enter his location which would mean he relys on the ship telling him where he is be fore launch. As late as the 80s GPS was still reliable or available. Friends on the ASARS TR1 (U2)program relayed how they had in the past had Van Duty for a few months. Van Duty was driving an Econoline van with a radar reflector fixed to the roof. They had a 10 mile desert road to a corner and another 10 miles, turn arounf and retrace their steps. Once the bird was in the air they drove the track until the plane landed. They did this to calibrate the sensor systems.
ASARS is Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar Set is a sideways looking radar. Synthetic Aperture refers to the fact that a high energy coded pulse transmitted takes a fixed time to arrive at target, the reflected energy is detected but the radar is now in a different place. Significant information is available due to phase shift and frequency shift. It is/was a very elegent tool to get information from a loooong distance.
 
Well this is interesting. Todays date in 1957, B-52 #3 rolled off the assembly line and was flown straight to Edwards AFB to be modified to carry the X-15 rocket plane.
The reason I think it's interesting is because I spent about 7yrs in weapons and flight testing. We did some crazy stuff back then, but it was all done on ol' wore out "hand me down" jets from squadrons that no longer wanted them. At one time we had the oldest 3 F-4's in the world still flyable. They were a ragged bunch.

Guess it never dawned on me the Air Force would give up a brand new jet that promptly got hacked up like Frankenstein. :shrug:

https://www.thisdayinaviation.com/


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'nother good one.
Today in 1945, the very first rescue at sea by a helicopter...

29 November 1945: During a storm, Texaco Barge No. 397 broke loose and drifted onto Penfield Reef, approximately one mile (1.6 kilometers) off shore Fairfield, Connecticut. The storm was breaking the barge apart and the two crewmen, Captain Joseph Pawlik and Steven Penninger, were in danger.

On shore, witnesses has seen the flares fired during the night by the two seamen, but with the stormy conditions were unable to effect a rescue. Local police called the nearby Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation factory at Bloomfield, where new R-5 helicopters were being built for the U.S. Army, and asked if they could do anything.

Sikorsky’s chief test pilot Dimitry D. (“Jimmy”) Viner and the U.S. Army representative at the factory, Captain Jackson E. Beighle, U.S. Army Air Forces, took an available helicopter, flew to the scene and assessed the situation. Viner was not able to land the helicopter on the barge, so they returned to the factory where a new Army YR-5A had recently been equipped with an external rescue hoist. The R-5 was quickly prepared for flight (which involved reinstalling one of its three main rotor blades) and then Viner and Beighle flew it back to the barge.

While Viner hovered in the high winds, Captain Beighle operated the rescue hoist, lowering it to the barge where Seaman Penninger looped the leather harness under his arms. Beighle raised the harness with Penninger to the cabin but could not pull him inside. Penninger hung on to Beighle while Viner flew the helicopter to the beach.


With Jimmy Viner at the controls, the Sikorsky YR-5A lowers Captain Joseph Pawlik to the sand at Fairfield Beach, Connecticut, 29 November 1945. The helicopter’s serial number is difficult to read, but it may be 43-46608. (Sikorsky Historical Archive)

After lowering Penninger to the beach, Viner took the R-5 back to the barge to pick up Captain Pawlik. When Beighle attempted to raise the hoist it jammed, leaving Pawlik suspended 30 feet (9 meters) below the helicopter. Viner again returned to the shore and carefully lowered Pawlik to the sand.

The United States Coast Guard had demonstrated the use of the rescue hoist a few months earlier, but this was the first time it had been used during an actual emergency.


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As a kid, head full of this kind of stuff. Along with some old Eagle annuals - including the highly collectable issue #1 - I had a few editions of the Eagle Book Of Modern Wonders. Diverse stuff but quite a few aviation articles which featured such positively futuristic flying wonders as the Bell X1, the Northrop flying wings and the X15 with its mother ship.

Actually, still have the self same Eagle editions to this day. Don't read them much now but they are a delightful reference source for the state of The Future as seen from the 1950s.
 
As a kid, head full of this kind of stuff. Along with some old Eagle annuals - including the highly collectable issue #1 - I had a few editions of the Eagle Book Of Modern Wonders. Diverse stuff but quite a few aviation articles which featured such positively futuristic flying wonders as the Bell X1, the Northrop flying wings and the X15 with its mother ship.

Actually, still have the self same Eagle editions to this day. Don't read them much now but they are a delightful reference source for the state of The Future as seen from the 1950s.
The cutaway drawings were often superb.
 
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In the 1930s, Charles H. Zimmerman was a noted aeronautical engineer who advocated the concept of "discoidal" aircraft, the so-called "Zimmer Skimmer" and worked on a variety of projects on his own and with the Vought company. After testing using scale models, including a remotely controlled, electrically powered large-scale model, designated the Vought V-162, the US Navy approached Zimmerman and offered to fund further development. Data and concept documentation was given to the Navy in 1939, with wind tunnel tests on full-scale models being completed in 1940-1941.
The original prototype, designated the V-173 (Flying Pancake), was built of wood and canvas and featured a conventional, fully symmetrical aerofoil section (NACA 0015). Designed as a "proof-of-concept" prototype, the initial configuration V-173 was built as a lightweight test model powered by two 80 hp (60 kW) Continental A-80 engines turning F4U Corsair propellers. These were replaced by a pair of specially modified 16 ft 6 in three-bladed units. A tall, fixed main undercarriage combined with a small tailwheel gave the aircraft a 22° "nose-high" angle.
The first flight of the V-173 was on 23 November 1942 with Vought Chief Test Pilot Boone Guyton at the controls. The aircraft's most significant problem concerned its complicated gearbox that routed power from the engines to its two long propeller shafts. The gearbox produced unacceptable amounts of vibration in ground testing, delaying the aircraft's first test flight for months. This contributed to the aircraft feeling much too heavy when maneuvering for its light weight. In addition to this on the first few flights, the pilot was never able to achieve enough speed to achieve the correct amount of airflow over the control surfaces to pull the aircraft into level flight. The test pilot Guyton discussed these issues with Zimmerman and they worked to eliminate these issues. In addition to this Guyton commented that the cockpit design was poor. He explained that in addition to the poor comfort the pilot had limited to no use for the clear bottom panels of the cockpit. He explained that the pilot sat too high in the cockpit to effectively use these lower panels for takeoff or landing. Flight testing of the V-173 went on through 1942 and 1943 with 190 flights, resulting in reports of UFOs from surprised Connecticut locals. Charles Lindbergh piloted the V-173 during this time and found it surprisingly easy to handle and exhibiting impressive low-speed capabilities. Both Lindbergh and Guyton found that they were almost unable to stall the aircraft. Guyton was able to keep the aircraft in flight no matter how hard he pulled the stick in low-speed flight ranges at any altitude under 20,000 ft. On one occasion, the V-173 was forced to make an emergency landing on a beach. As the pilot made his final approach, he noticed two bathers directly in his path. The pilot locked the aircraft's brakes on landing, causing the aircraft to flip over onto its back. Remarkably, the airframe proved so strong that neither the plane nor the pilot sustained any significant damage. Despite their inability to stall the aircraft they did find low speed handling to be a persistent issue largely due to the shape of the lifting body. They found that the aircraft acted as an airbrake when it was pulled into a high angle of attack. This meant that the control surfaces, the horizontal stabilizers, in particular, would become very hard to operate at low speeds such as stalls, takeoff, and landing.
The developmental V-173 made its last flight 31 March 1947. In 131.8 hours of flying over 190 flights, Zimmerman's theory of a near-vertical takeoff- and landing-capable fighter had been proven. This project would be improved upon including the addition of potential armament with the Chance Vought XF5U. This project would improve on many of the weaknesses discovered during the testing of the V-173 prototype.
Both the V-173 and the XF5U featured an unorthodox "all-wing" design consisting of a flat, somewhat disk-shaped body (like a pancake flying, hence the nickname) serving as the lifting surface. Two piston engines buried in the body drove propellers located on the leading edge, at the wingtips.
Photo-Description:
Aircraft: Vought V173
Reg: 02978 photos
Serial #:
Airline: United States - US Navy (USN)
Photo Date: Mar 28, 2013
Uploaded: May 05, 2013
Dallas Love Field - KDAL, USA - Texas
Notes:
A/C on loan from the Smithsonian. After an 8 year restoration, it is currently displayed at the Frontiers of Flight Museum, Love Field, Dallas, Texas.
PHOTOGRAPHER
by Thomas P. McManus: Photos | Profile | Contact
 
Well this is interesting. Todays date in 1957, B-52 #3 rolled off the assembly line and was flown straight to Edwards AFB to be modified to carry the X-15 rocket plane.
The reason I think it's interesting is because I spent about 7yrs in weapons and flight testing. We did some crazy stuff back then, but it was all done on ol' wore out "hand me down" jets from squadrons that no longer wanted them. At one time we had the oldest 3 F-4's in the world still flyable. They were a ragged bunch.

Guess it never dawned on me the Air Force would give up a brand new jet that promptly got hacked up like Frankenstein. :shrug:

https://www.thisdayinaviation.com/


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Tall tail..... they discovered the problem after most of it broke off.... plane was able to land.. and they shortened the tail .... hard to believe but it's been reported that pilots are flying their Grandfather's Buff..... :)
 
Is the Osprey a fatally flawed design? It seems to have a tumultuous history. Do I recall rotor failures as being a problem?
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“Last week's crash of the U.S. Air Force CV-22 was the first-ever fatal Osprey accident in Japan. The aircraft, assigned to Yokota Air Base in Tokyo, had been on a training flight. It departed from Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni in Yamaguchi Prefecture but then requested an emergency landing on the tiny island of Yakushima just before crashing off of its shore. Eyewitnesses said the aircraft flipped over and burst into flame before plunging into the ocean.”
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