When wars were colder, planes were cooler!

A recent post about Buccaneers got me thinking. Planes had style back in the cold war…!

Tupolev Bear

The tin triangle

TU22 Backfire

The H-P Victor

MiG25 Foxbat

And, one of my pet favourites

The one and only Lightning!

Death Monger!!!

One of the nicest planes IMHO.

The guys at work used these on the development flight line before flying the EAP, because of it’s fine handling.

also have to agree about the Lightning.

Take off at 15ft, lift the wheels, get to the end of the runway at Warton and ‘stick it on it’s arse on full reheat’

Loverly

Tu-22 was surely the Blinder though – with the external rear engine pods

The one and only Lightning!

How come they only made one – was it crap ?

Take off at 15ft, lift the wheels, get to the end of the runway at Warton and ‘stick it on it’s arse on full reheat’

Vulcan doing similar was something to behold! Sounded like the gates of hell opening!

druidh, there were several TU22s out there, both Backfire and Blinder. Blinder did indeed have raised engines.

Whilst not strictly “aircraft”, there’re no better examples of Cold War Ruskie lunacy than the Ekranoplans:

I loved some of the more random names presumably given by the americans to soviet planes. ‘fishbed’, ‘foxbat’ and ‘flanker’ for example. You wonder which ones didn’t make it out into the public domain. “Leiutenant, I have a trace on my screen. Looks like it might be a TU26 Buttmunch.”

Always loved this, just cant find a better picture, and yes Jimbo, Ekranoplans rock.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpGacOmSeHc&fmt=18

Jimbo, good shout!

“Leiutenant, I have a trace on my screen. Looks like it might be a TU26 Buttmunch.”

*Leffe Brune meet keyboard, keyboard meet Leffe Brune*
😆

there is always this fantastic machine, way ahead of it’s time

Swiftacular, another XB70 pic or two;

Votexracing – you’re supposed to leave the trump card ’til the end!

What about the Batmobile of the Cold War, and ultimate daddy of the skies.

Off to the Imperial War Museam at Duxford tomorrow, can’t wait! 😛

I was camping at Lossie – must have been late 70s/early 80s and heard this incredible noise in the middle of the night. It was an SR71 heading off under cover of darkness. Hardly stealthy!

is there still a tsr2 at cosford museum?

Edit, google is my friend: yes there is.

Now CFH, that really does show its good side. TSR2 was a beaut too.

Don’t know what wars it was used in but i like this

You dont need too much stealth at that speed….

ay i see swift beat me

Don’t know for sure how much it “did”, but the fact it existed is enough, look at it.

We’ve had no valiants yet either. No-one like those?

Yours was the Tandem tho tails..Niche ahoy! (or did only i spot that?)

My ‘ole man was a Lightning pilot back in the day. Flew with 92 sqn at Gutersloh. He also flew Hunters; loved them, but it wasn’t actually that good as a AC fighter, as it was very stable, made for a nice ground attack plane though, hated Phantoms, had to listen to some bloke behind him, and it was big and heavy. last flying posting was to the TTE flight training Tornado crews (wasn’t overly fond of it either)

That picture’s not an SR71.

It’s the trainer version

A defensive feature of the aircraft [SR71] was its high speed and operating altitude, whereby, if a surface-to-air missile launch were detected, standard evasive action was simply to accelerate.

😆

Sorry 🙂

I did some repair work on the TSR2 at Duxford, in either 1983 or 84.

SR71B, not SR71.

This evening’s thread is brought to you by Anorak’s Anonymous….

XR219 is a sad, sad tale. Lies somewhere as a wreck, IIRC.

Swiftacular, that, Sir, is stunning. Stunning, I say! All the Vs.

Mmmmm, Lightnings! I was at Binbrook for the ‘Farewell To The Lightning’ show: nine Lightnings took off in quick succession and flew over us fairly low.

The last one I ever saw fly flew over us at about 100ft with re-heat ON! Awesome.

If you have around £5k (plus the flight to SA) to spare you can still fly in one (or a Buccaneer or a Hunter)…
http://www.thundercity.com/

Mmmmm, 58,000ft per minute straight up!

Theres one still sat on the runway at Binbrook iirc, havent been there for a peek in a couple of years, and CFH, i do believe there’s something inspiring about that V’s photo.

A little newer than some perhaps but I always liked the B-1…

Just looked ‘right’

TSR-2 XR219 (the only one to fly) ended up at Shoeburyness to be used for target practice/damage assessment. A bit like the way the UK Govt. of the time treated the UK aero/defence industry, really!

The Jag was a nice aircraft, a bit of a good old fashioned workhorse as well.

I’ve seen some piccies of them in Oman about 10ft of the desert floor, bloody lunatics.

One came back with a piece of handrail from a set of steps in the outboard wing leading edge once!

It’s very easy to get all misty eyed over the TSR2 project, but looking back, it was a nuclear weapons delivery system that didn’t have a weapon, and it was going to be made further redundant by the move of the Nuclear role to the Navy. It was cancelled with undue haste though, and all those “what if” questions will never be answered.

Fantastic looking thing though, straight out of Gerry Anderson’s imagination.

Direct counter to the B1