Happy 70th birthday........

[Steve Pyro]

Now you're talking John.  B52 Stratofortress, what a wicked aircraft.  There was another good documentary on Disco Wings recently saying that the expected life of the remaining aircraft is likely to be towards 2030, giving the design a total in-service life of nearly 80 years 

Seeing these giants flying at low level with a smokey haze from all 8 engines is a site to behold.

A good first flight video here - http://www.boeing.com/defense-space/military/b52-strat/b52_50th/videos.htm

[Ferrari Spider]

Yes the BUFF, Big Ugly Fat F******, is loud and smokie, looks like a barn door coming over the horizon on RADAR. BUT is it BEAUTIFUL?

[Fax]

It'll never be described as pretty, but impressive? 
Hell Yes!
My buddy Carl and I spoke to a B-52 pilot at the Dayton Air Show where one was on display and he said his father flew them as well.  As Steve pointed out, with the anticipated life expectancy of Stratofort fleet there could be three or four generations worth of B-52 pilots in a family.  We've gotten our tax dollars worth out the old nail..and then some!  Tough bird too.  At the USAF Museum at Wright-Patt AFB in Dayton there's one on display that took a SAM hit over Hanoi and made it home.
You ought to see the way the fuselage is buckled.
Back to the Spitfire thread for a second, at the USAF Museum there's a lovely Battle of Britain display, Spit, Hurricane and ME-109E all sitting side by side.  Was there once with a friend who's a Irish ex-pat and his father who was over from Ireland, we went up and when Shane's father saw the display he looked at the Spit and said Pah! Only the pretty boys flew Spits (apparently he worked on Hurricanes)
Fax

[Chris24]

You want LOUD ? Then nothing is lowder than a Tupolov TU-22 taking off on full reheat. Saw one at Farnborough once and it set off every car alarm , the ground shook and I had a head ache for the next three hours !

[mgmark]

Loads of good stuff.   

Piston- engined - Spitfire - has to be the all-time great - the history and it just looks graceful from any angle.   The jest equivalent has to be the Fairey Delta 2......

[Ferrari Spider]

Loads of good stuff.   
Piston- engined - Spitfire - has to be the all-time great - the history and it just looks graceful from any angle.   The jest equivalent has to be the Fairey Delta 2......

Good choice Mark, do you prefer this over BAC 221?  If only Duncan Sands hadn't proclaimed that manned interceptors were not needed we may have seen the FD2 in Squadron service, what a tale that would be.  It is a well know fact that when the FD 2 went to west France for tests, Marcel Dassault through a tape measure around it and produced the Mirage series.  Another loss for us.

[Lorry]

........ Marcel Dassault through a tape measure around it and produced the Mirage series.  Another loss for us.

As if.

Aah the Fairey Delta, the days when we had X planes and wasn't it a testbed for the Concorde wing shape,  And whatever happened to the another X plane, thel Hawker P1127.

[Ferrari Spider]

........ Marcel Dassault through a tape measure around it and produced the Mirage series.  Another loss for us.

As if.

All true and documented!!!

[mgmark]

........ Marcel Dassault through a tape measure around it and produced the Mirage series.  Another loss for us.

As if.

Aah the Fairey Delta, the days when we had X planes and wasn't it a testbed for the Concorde wing shape,  And whatever happened to the another X plane, thel Hawker P1127.

The P1127 went on to be the Harrier

The Mirage did indeed bear more than a passing resemblance!

Of course in terms of birthdays, the shuttleworth's Birstol monoplane - original airframe and engine, is now 96 years young...


P1127 ended up as the Harrier

The mirage did indeed bear a remarkable similarity.

Straying back to the birthday subject, the Shuttleworth's Bristol monoplane is now 96 years young, with the original airframe and engine....some progress in 24 years to the Spitfire........

[Ferrari Spider]

Read a book in hospital about the FD 2, it is true, that the design was copied, in point of fact if you overlay the two aircraft they are "identical" in dimensions.

The book says " in the autumn of 1956 it (FD 2) spent a month based at Casuax, near the west coast of France, and flew supersonically at heights down to 3,500ft, which would have been forbidden in Britain.  It was here that that Marcel Dassault decided that this was the shape to go for, and designed the Mirage III as a radar-equipped FD 2.

[mgmark]

Of course there was the ultimate Mirage............

[Ferrari Spider]

Yes a large ogee delta, but I the French partner was Aerospatiale, not Dassault.

[Lorry]

The P1127 went on to be the Harrier

Another sucker. I think the old gits all know that one, it was just refreshing to have an era when aircraft manufacturers could experiment without going bust in the process.

As for noise - Silverstone 1983 (I think)  Vulcan, low pass, sits on tail, opens everything, doesn't seem to move for 30 seconds, slowly rises into air, everything vibrating.  Like a Lightning in very slow motion

[Chris24]

Ok, lets not forget this lovely beastie that we can thank the labour government for scrapping before it could go into service. Just so they could jump into bed with the USA. The bastards !

The BAC TSR2

[Ferrari Spider]

Ok, lets not forget this lovely beastie that we can thank the labour government for scrapping before it could go into service. Just so they could jump into bed with the USA. The bastards !

The BAC TSR2

Chris do you remember this ?  TSR2 cancelled, F111K ordered and cancelled, F4K/M ordered for RAF and FAA plus additional Buccaneers.  Jaguar developed. Mountbatten spoke against the TSR2 to the Aussies hoping they would buy Buccaneers, they ordered F111C & G's instead. 

As it turned out, the Tornado became more or less what the TSR.2 was to have been. That it was still slightly less capable than the TSR.2 had been projected to be a full fifteen years earlier says a great deal about how far advanced the TSR.2 project really was. That the TSR.2 was all-British (bar some electronics) and the Tornado required the cooperation of three countries also says a great deal about just how good the British aircraft industry was.

Don Knight TSR2 test pilot said: "It was simply amazing. It flew just like a big Lightning - only faster!

Now we have Typhoon 2 to fight against our chums the Soviets.  Where's the sense.

The RAF wrote a piece some years ago about TSR2 in service, must find it and put on the forum, made interesting reading.