We used to live near Coningsby when I was 4. We used to go and see the planes (Vulcans and Lightenings iirc) but I used to really hate the noise. My parents used to put headphones on me – old skool hifi style ones, leads and all – and there are amusing pictures of me looking seriously worried with these massive phones slipping down my head 🙂
I’ve been in a Shacklton. I wouldn’t like to have to get out of it in a hurry because the wing spars run right through the middle of the fuselage like pair of 3ft high walls between you and the back door. Comfy seats though.
I remember being at Mildenhall airshow a good few years back and heard the tail end of a friendly discussion between an A-10 pilot and a Harrier pilot about which of the two planes was best.
They were mentioning the usual facts (A-10 can fly with one engine missing, one tail thingy missing, half of one wing missing etc, Harrier can do the whole V/STOL thing, hide under road bridges etc). Anyway, the argument got round to the Harrier’s VIFF trick, to which the A-10 pilot said: “Yes, I can fly backwards. I just have to keep firing the Gatling”.
Apparently the recoil stalls it at 3 seconds and the plane can go backwards at about 5 seconds.
I heard that and immediately wanted one. Then I got told that you have to be really short to fit in one and that annoyed me. It’s still really cool though and Gulf War 1 must have been great fun for the plane.
Oh yes… I thought I would post up a piccy of the Russian answer to both the Harrier and the Warthog. Gentlemen, I give you the Frogfoot…
…shame I got the image wrong, the cheats don’t appear on the work system! Amazing plane, the book “Magnesium Overcast” is well worth a look if you can find a copy.
amazing loving this thread,
when i was in school 8-9 years old my whole class started a “war club”
everyone drew pictures and added it to the file/folder
we used to take all the military books out of the library
after a while it got shut down by the teachers,
as it was deemed unhealthy 😥
this reminds me of the good old days,
the hind helicopter is one of my favs,
Took this while having a few cold ones after racing at Dartmouth Royal Regatta a couple of years ago. Our trimmer was ex-USAF – he loved it. The organisers ban all movement on the water during these displays – I’m not sure why exactly, but the bigger boats had ~80ft masts. 😯
OK so it’s purely fictional and you had to ‘think in Russian’ in order to fly it, but if it was good enough for Client Eastwood.
On a serious note, my wife, who is a pilot, said that about 5 years ago she overheard a radio transmission from another plane while flying her 737 over Scotland. The transmission was a request from that plane to ‘descend to 58-zero from 78-zero’, which means, 78,000ft down to 58,000ft. To put that in context, a 737 typically flies at around 27,000ft and Concorde might have gone up to 55,000ft. What the **** was up at 78,000ft to begin with could only have been military.
Me very first pistol was a cap and ball Colt
Shoots as fast as lightnin’ but it loads a mite slow
It loads a mite slow, and soon I found out
It’ll get you into trouble but it can’t get you out
So about a year later I bought a Colt 45
Called a Peacemaker but I never knew why
I remember being at Mildenhall airshow a good few years back and heard the tail end of a friendly discussion between an A-10 pilot and a Harrier pilot about which of the two planes was best.
They were mentioning the usual facts (A-10 can fly with one engine missing, one tail thingy missing, half of one wing missing etc, Harrier can do the whole V/STOL thing, hide under road bridges etc). Anyway, the argument got round to the Harrier’s VIFF trick, to which the A-10 pilot said: “Yes, I can fly backwards. I just have to keep firing the Gatling”.
Apparently the recoil stalls it at 3 seconds and the plane can go backwards at about 5 seconds.
Jimmers – That version didn’t officially go to the Falklands, though the basic airframe contained within may well have.
You’ll be wanting one of these,
On the high altitude thing apparently in the good old days an RAF Lightning taking part an exercise with the US ‘bounced’ a U2 at extremely high altitude from above! A purely ballistic flight path was used and only one pass was possible but it proved the U2’s weren’t completely safe from manned interceptors.
Sharkey (the author) said that they used to beat F-15s in mock dog fights during exercises like Red Flag because they could turn inside any of the large and more powerful fighters, a great aircraft IMO.
Sitting near the end of the runway at Charleston AFB as 3 C-5s took off during Spring Break in ’92 was quite impressive, noisy too.
As were the A-10s in ’85 doing stuff up and down the Wye at about zero altitude.
The Phantom. Proof of the theory that if you gave a brick enough power, it would fly. A classic from VietNam though. Many an hour spent playing Flight of the Intruder on the old 386 at Uni…
Speakign of which, spare a thought for the role of the prop plane in that war. Anyone else remember the Skyraider?
How about the Bronco?
They have two of these at Duxford and, for some reason, I really quite like the design.
A few years ago during gulf war 2 I was riding in the Cotswolds when a B52 flew overhead at approx 6,000 feet with a full load of ordnance (JDAMs?) on its pylons. I guess it was off to Iraq to spread the good news.