When wars were colder, planes were cooler!

Isn’t there a TSR2 at Duxford as well? Not many left… Project cancelled and TSR2 broken up with indecent haste… in favour of the General Dynamics F111 I seem to recall?

yep tsr2 at cosford still!!!

Coolest US name?

VTOL…..

If I recall correctly JulianA, we never got the F111’s did we? The Aussies did though.

Let’s go rotary…one for RudeBoy here…

I thought we did, Vortex, but I may well be wrong…

I also heard that they were known as ‘Blue Circle Airlines’ as they had a bag of cement in the nose to make up the weight of the (not yet installed) avionics!

How about one of these?

you would’nt want to argue with that Hind would you?

If I recall correctly JulianA, we never got the F111’s did we?

Indeed not – they were cancelled too – I think we got Phantoms instead.

Julian – you’re thinking of the Blue Circle Radar which was fitted to early Tornados (some suggested it did a better job than the replacement 🙄 )

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

I stopped off on my way home from one of our factories a couple of years back. I did the whole tour, then as I came out of the American museum thing, I caught a glimpse of sunlight reflecting off something over the airspace museum. It continued to bank and did a nice low pass along the runway, then a few more climbs, bunts etc. Basically a whole display routine.

It was a Spitfire twin seater. Oh the sound of that Merlin engine… awesome

The UK never got the F-111. The Australians did, late and over budget. Around about the same time, the RAF/Navy purchased some F-4 Phantoms (re-engined with RR Speys), and then not too long after than, the Tornado programme was started.

re. “Blue Circle”. IIRC that term was applied around about the time the Blue Vixen radar (Harrier/Sea Harrier? EDIT: Tornado) was being developed.

Not really a Cold War plane, but born out of the Cold War

Interesting now to think that they built all those bombers, would bombs really have been used, or had they not perfected missiles then?

You can’t have too many nuclear delivery platforms! Theoretically, aircraft would’ve still been used, although more as a “second round” or tactical weapon, to finish off what was left of, well…civilisation…after the missiles had done their job. Also a handy back-up, as should your ICBMs/subs be taken out/be exhausted/miss/not be enough, then you can send in the bombers…

I stand corrected, aracer and others. Thank you.

Good thread

This whole “Would we?” question is one of the things that fascinates me about this. Many of us grew up with a genuine threat of total global destruction just around the corner. Many of these, like the Vs, the big Russian bombers and the like, were built to do just that.

Crazy, now you think about it.

Keep ’em coming though!

Fast and low.

Doing what it was designed to do, with a bit of Vangelis chucked in for good measure

With Jags and Tonkas in the Gulf

speaking of ‘would we’, I’ve always had a soft spot for the looks of the original delivery platform- not really cold war, but used in Korea, so it still counts…

vinnyeh – The B50 Washington was a development of the original B29 and was very much a Cold War aircraft, both in the original bomber role and later as a tanker aircraft.

Oh and low level doesn’t have to mean fast jets.

Crikey

it’s been over 30 years since I’ve bought anything like this, but when I saw that this was coming out in a large scale I couldn’t resist buying one – are model planes only built by society’s outcasts these days? When i was a kid every boy had a shelf full of models, a copy of the Observers book of aircraft (not much damned use in NZ) and a hankering to shoplift the latest copy of Janes from the local bookshop…

excuse me for bringing this thread up to date

I love the way that the bulk of the “modern” fighters/planes on this thread are born of the cold war for cold war roles…

Eurofighter design role: Shoot down equally cool Mig-29s

Eurofighter current role: Drop bombs on taliban after spending a small fortune being upgraded to fulfill this role.

Vulcans… Oh yes. Used to live at the bottom of the flightpath of Scampton when I was very young and they used to come right over our house. Shaken to the foundations.

Then I got to be exposed to perhaps the coolest of cold war planes whilst living but a stone’s throw from the home of the 81st Tactical Fighter Wing (RAFs Bentwaters and Woodbridge). Gentlement. I give you the A-10 Thunderbolt!

Anything that can fly with that gun in has to be cool.

Oh man…..Handley Page Victor was the first model plane I built. Also did a harrier a few yrs later and that turned out much better (I’d had a bit of practice).

I had a massive poster on my Wall of the B2-Stealth. I think it came with Airplane magazine that I used to collect. They had great fold out exploded diagrams in the middle that I used to spend ages looking at!

I know it’s not a warplane…..but I still think this is the Bees Knees….

No one else managed it. It’s crazy, but when the Concorde crashed I was close to tears…….ridiculous!

Ooooh willard….just seen your A-10 pic. Man, that’s one ugly but deeply effective plane! They designed it around that gun….!

Agree with the A10 – I remember as a child seeing them fly overhead and just being in awe of the sound they made. Awesome things – great fun to explore the old airfield now as well *whistles*.
Same with memories of lying in grandads garden in Waddington watching Vulcans coming in to land soooo low.

I remember being at a Lossie airshow, when they didn’t have quite the same regard for H&S. When these things lined up for take off, you’d be standing so close behind them that your eyebrows would singe!

I never knew i liked planes. Until now. Ace.

Many of us grew up with a genuine threat of total global destruction just around the corner

Indeed, but on the upside I really fancied Rebecca de Mornay in By Dawn’s Early Light. What I’d have given for four whole warning minutes with her. Impending apocalypses* are just so… intense.

Ever fly with her, CFH? 😀

(*Threads is pretty much the scariest thing I have ever seen.)

Eurofighter current role: Drop bombs on taliban after spending a small fortune being upgraded to fulfill this role.

You’ve been believing what the papers say haven’t you?

The UK order of Typhoons were always designed to operate in the A-G role (as they were ordered as a replacement for the Jag as well as the Tornado F3).

Tranche 1 were always going to have an ‘austere’ capability but later tranches were always destined to have a more comprehensive A-G capability.

Anyway, ‘cool’ aircraft borne out of the Cold War needn’t necessarily be fighter aircraft or bombers.

The legend that is Bravo November.

I have that picture on the wall above my computer, a leaving gift from when I left the RAF.

Mmm, B52s.

One fine summer when I was a kid, outside the house preparing to go off to school my Dad would often be standing outside in the still morning listening intently. “Do you hear that?” he would ask. “Er no, what are you talking about?” Well after a while I started to hear it too. A low rumble on the most distant verge of perception, coming from anywhere and everywhere. So my dad started scanning the skies with binoculars. Day after day, he was sure that he’d find something. And then he did find it, and I got to see it too. Two B52s so high up that you couldn’t see them at all with the naked eye (at least, I couldn’t) – on some kind of exercise no doubt. My Dad clocked their flight path and looked out for them regularly – we even saw them refuelling mid-air one time 🙂

Those A10’s lose about 150 – 200 knots when they let that gattling gun loose!!!

It must be like hitting a wall

Titanium tub for the pilot, two podded engines, two fins, all designed to be ‘battle damage tolerant’.

A close support aircraft if ever there was one

The A-10 was designed as close support for Vietnam, unfortunately it didn’t enter service until after the war had finished!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8z9CyVoTZ7E

A10 doing it’s thang…..!

Another personal favourite – and so good the Americans built their own version.

That lot make me feel all funny 🙂

I remember sitting in the garden on the Sunday after Farnborough Airshow one year watching an SR 71 heading home, it was at an angle of about 60% & just kept climbing until it disappeared. Awesome 🙂

I grew up a few miles from USAF Upper Heyford, so gre quite u8sed to seeing (and hearing) these blighters belting over our house:

The General Dynamics F-111

flashy, vortex, vinny and the rest of you have really brightened up what was turning into a really shitty day. i never knew we had so many plane geeks on here! my old man was based at waddington and i remember him taking me to my 1st show there in the early 80’s when i was a young un. 6 vulcans scrambled off the runway together with such a roar that everything shook including the fence i was holding on to. as a 5 yr old kid i was so excited i started crying!

The best looking of the lot IMHO.

X-15

Other contenders

Convair B58

Tu22M

I’m lucky enough to be working on and with them everyday.

at least i think i’m lucky. 🙂