MegaSack DRAW - This year's winner is user - rgwb
We will be in touch
Watching Mr Martin in the Tin Triangle, I find myself musing on the fact that there are many bringers of death that are also rather beautiful.
Examples;
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and....bear with me on this one....
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If you didn't know what it was, and what it was bringing, you'd think it was beautiful.
A touch morbid, for which I can only apologise. Any other examples, though?
Functional is often beautiful IMO
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Can't match your scale cfh but this looks like death and beauty to me https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=the+eiger&client=ms-android-sonymobile&prmd=imvn&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwilmMKTwrbJAhUKtBoKHfc6BRYQ_AUIBygB#imgrc=Txkcl2I0Y1NT6M%3A
Switch over and watch The Hunt on BBC1
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Brigitte Lahaie. In the 1970s. With a scythe.
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Ohhh Mr OAAB, Niiiiice choice. Looks like Velux in the Southern Ocean??? Classic...
Always had me wondering... just why the fek would you...?
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If you didn't know what it was, and what it was bringing, you'd think it was beautiful
I feel the same about Cauliflower.
Deadly in many ways
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Driven to it by the Dane.
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Never was Jim Carrey's impersonation of Jimmy Stewart more [i]a propos[/i].
Watching Mr Martin in the Tin Triangle, I find myself musing on the fact that there are many bringers of death that are also rather beautiful.
Absolutely
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Deadly in many ways
How do you obtain a Starfighter? Buy a patch of ground and wait...
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How do you obtain a Starfighter? Buy a patch of ground and wait...
Wasn't called 'The Widowmaker' for nothing. Killed a lot of pilots. (open to conjecture)
Largactil.....5 miligrammes......
If the WHO are to be believed...
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How do you obtain a Starfighter?
From the same page as the first image.
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@ Drac. AH64 Apache Longbow.
'Don't bother running, you'll only die tired'
[url= https://farm1.staticflickr.com/677/21066651735_0468e0aa41_k.jp g" target="_blank">https://farm1.staticflickr.com/677/21066651735_0468e0aa41_k.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/y6A6Bn ]Goshawk 003[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/jimmygrainger/ ]jimmyg352[/url], on Flickr
It has 2 brain cells. One says 'fly fast' the other says 'kill everything in sight'.
& on the other hand...
[url= https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3853/15063289428_c513503a55_h.jp g" target="_blank">https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3853/15063289428_c513503a55_h.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/oX6i9G ]AWM L115A3[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/jimmygrainger/ ]jimmyg352[/url], on Flickr
The Starfighter was a good safe aircraft, until it was altered from its original spec for roles it was never intended. That's when things went wrong, sadly for the pilots.
esselgruntfuttock - Member
How do you obtain a Starfighter? Buy a patch of ground and wait...
Wasn't called 'The Widowmaker' for nothing. Killed a lot of pilots. (open to conjecture)
IIRC, the biggest problem was with the ones flown by the Luftwaffe, due to poor maintenance; I read of things like tools left in jet intakes and suchlike. 'Course, with a plane like the 104, it's not got much in the way of glide characteristics if things go tits up!
I mean, just look at the bloody thing, it's little more than a guided missile with the guidance system one poor bugger sat at the pointy end, with a sodding great jet engine behind him and the smallest wings they could get away with to get it airborne.
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I nearly said about the German ones but don't have facts to hand, didn't they lose more than anyone?
I remember seeing (& hearing) The Vikings display team at RAF Leuchars waay back, 2 x 104's, Dutch IIR. Fast, loud & bloody impressive!
If we're talking beautiful V-bombers, this carried more, further, and looked better doing it.
[img][url= https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7116/7585337670_8bb8020382.jp g" target="_blank">https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7116/7585337670_8bb8020382.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/cyhQBY ]Handley-Page, H.P. 80, Victor[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/sdasmarchives/ ]SDASM Archives[/url], on Flickr[/img]
I always knew the star fighter as the Flying Coffin.
There's definitely something about mushroom clouds - there's a book, 100 Suns, with lots of stunning pictures. And of course there's the film of the Tsar Bomba:
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The F104 is the reason that I have to do a yearly course on corruption in business. From legend, the manufacturers bribed the shit out of NATO to buy it.
I, personally, don't think that the AI AWM is a nice looking rifle. It's very, very functional. Depending on your skills, this can be quite deadly (to smaller animals)
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I had to really
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Edit. Ah beaten to the snake.
weirdly, also the U2 is only a couple of steps removed from the F104. the original Lockheed design for the U2 (the CL282) was a 104 with a shorter fuselage and longer (natch) wings...
from one of the fastest planes at the time, to one of the slowest!
I nearly said about the German ones but don't have facts to hand, didn't they lose more than anyone?
I remember seeing (& hearing) The Vikings display team at RAF Leuchars waay back, 2 x 104's, Dutch IIR. Fast, loud & bloody impressive!
I have some sort of recollection from back then that the Luftwaffe ones had a terrible safety record.
Re the display team, I remember going up to the RIAT on a truly vile day, July 21, my birthday, very low cloud, windy, bloody cold, (I bought, and wore, a sheepskin flying jacket as a birthday pressy to myself I was so cold), and I remember watching a 104 display team, which I think were Turkish, they were just about the last airforce flying them.
Considering the dreadful conditions they put on a pretty good show, cloud ceiling was less than 1000', and they were doing high speed low-level passes with one upside down below the other, 'mirroring' it, with a grey shock cloud of compressed moisture practically enveloping both planes, then doing the same with them top to top, bloody impressive, all things considered.
Terrifying, too; I kept expecting things to go very horribly sideways.
The 'Century series' American jets all had issues of one sort or another, if memory serves.
For Northwind:
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😆