When wars were colder, planes were cooler!

jimbo, that’s pretty funny. Can just imagine how smug those boys would have felt that day. haha

Anyway, for all the SR71 fans out there, I just found this…

http://72.14.253.104/custom?q=cache:gmaps.tommangan.us/blackbirds.html

Comprehensive list of the locations of all the Blackbirds ever made, including all those that crashed.

There was another similar SR-71 story about a Blackbird that had been test flying out over the Pacific, this must have been just about the time people were becoming aware of it.

Flying back over LA on it’s way to the desert and sharing frequency with some normal air traffic, planes were asking control for clearance to climb to various altitudes – then the blackbird asked for permission to fly at 60000 feet. The tower came back with a rahter sarcastic “permission granted flight xx22 – climb to 60000 ft, if you think you can get there” the blackbird replied with a cool “thank you control, descending to 60000ft”

🙂

Snoopy was quite a plane, i remember seeing it fly over Fairford years ago, no longer i operation i believe, last i heard it was being converted back to a standard Hercules, somebody must have had a job on their hands!

Snoopy is now being used as a testbed for the TP-400 D6 engine for the A400M.

Oh and did someone say low level?

Rattling window panes at RAF St Athan.

The story of the Phantom at St Athan is here

I see your low Phantom, and drop some more…

Has anybody seen This lot? … flights in all sorts of interesting aircraft

Aye, Thunder City.

CFH fancies a trip in a Lightning (very quick, lots of noise, doesn’t stay up long) whereas I’m gonna plump for a trip in a Buccaneer (big, stays up for ages and gets the job done).

My brother in law was an RAF flyboy, it was a pain (although he wasn’t), ask him about his day at work & he would have been out in a Tornado all morning playing around, bombing poor innocent targets etc etc, my normal “sat in the office” sounded distinctly lame.

Still better now he is in 747’s I dont feel nearly as envious

GJ – My brother flies Nimrods whereas I was very definitely ground-based whilst in the RAF.

Still, I have more medals than him. 😆

sootyandjim – Member
Aye, Thunder City.

CFH fancies a trip in a Lightning (very quick, lots of noise, doesn’t stay up long) whereas I’m gonna plump for a trip in a Buccaneer (big, stays up for ages and gets the job done).

😆

Yeah, but more people remember the Lightning….! 😆

Yes, likes to let everyone know its there but doesn’t bring much to the party.

😛

Ok then, pull up a sandbag and swing the lamp here’s a couple of stories that I hope are true but have become legends.
A propulsion chief doing a ground run on a lightning, sat on a crate as the seat was out, jumped the chocks when at max chat. It took off as it was basically a rocket. He was able to bring it round a circuit and land.
The Americans, whilst showing off their new U2 spy plane sent a photo of the houses of parliament to the British government from their “undetected” mission. The British sent back a picture of the U2 above the houses of parliament taken from above by a Canberra.
I have seen Buccaneer beat ups that make those F4 pics lok like kids play. Buccs could sit on a ground effect bubble at 5ft or so that made it impossible to hit the ground even if they had pushed the stick forward (not sure anyone tried). When they played cat and mouse with F4s and F3s they just went to ground and nothing else could live with them. Not that the F3 could catch a cold! Air Display Variant we called it.

A propulsion chief doing a ground run on a lightning, sat on a crate as the seat was out, jumped the chocks when at max chat. It took off as it was basically a rocket. He was able to bring it round a circuit and land.

I guess you mean W/Cdr Taffy Holden, a qualified pilot BTW, though not on the Lightning.

Ejection seat was actually fitted (not a crate) but the safeties were fitted.

Oh and a Banana jet beat up.

The Americans, whilst showing off their new U2 spy plane sent a photo of the houses of parliament to the British government from their “undetected” mission. The British sent back a picture of the U2 above the houses of parliament taken from above by a Canberra.

I so desperately want that to be true!

Sorry, back to my fave plane…

10 SR71’s all lined up together!!!

They’re not SR-71s, they’re A-12s, the CIA’s far more secret single-seat precursor to the Blackbird. (Well OK one’s a two-seat training model.) They seem to have been replaced by the Blackbird for a couple of reasons. First, flying such a plane and perfoming the reconnaisance duties proved quite tricky for one person and secondly the USAF didn’t like the civvies in the CIA getting to play with such cool toys! 🙂

Better than the tin triangle?

How low can you go?

Thanks for the SR71 story Jimbo, made my day, office is empty as its lunch, so i don’t have to explain all the chuckling…………
where did you get it and are there any more?
cheers jono.

Swiss Mirage 3

Jaguars

Saab Draken

Venom and Hunters, Swiss airforce

I think that Jag landing badly is from 16 Sqdn… That must have been taken before they swapped to Tornados.

Regarding the M55 takeoff, I heard a rumour that there are a lot of straight bits of motorway in the UK that were built “just in case” we needed spare/excess runway for whatever reason. Similarly, they are a lot of bridges that are a lot stonger and bigger than they really need to be so that planes have a nice shelter out of the rain.

I’m feeling a little retrospective right now, so I thought I’d post up a couple o’ piccies of the oldschool Russian Migs.

Mig-21 Fishbed

SU-22 Fitter M

Has someone photoshopped this guy undercarriage out…….

Regarding the M55 takeoff, I heard a rumour that there are a lot of straight bits of motorway in the UK that were built “just in case” we needed spare/excess runway for whatever reason. Similarly, they are a lot of bridges that are a lot stonger and bigger than they really need to be so that planes have a nice shelter out of the rain.

I grew up being told that one as well – all up and down the M-way network, straight runs, heavy/big bridges and narrow divisions between carriageways….so if needed, M-ways could be very quickly turned into runways…

I’m pretty sure it’s true in Singapore. Motorways as spare runways, that is. Am pretty sure one of the big roads on Cyprus is also a standby runway.

“they are a lot of bridges that are a lot stonger and bigger than they really need to be so that planes have a nice shelter out of the rain”

Why would they need to be stronger and bigger to take ‘rain loading’. Surely they’re designed to withstand the rain .. ?

The implication was obviously too subtle, james. The question you should be asking is why planes should need to shelter out of the rain.

‘cos they are all delicate-like. Poor things will catch their death if left out in the rain.

Unlike the Itialian jets, which will rot away before your eyes… Just like my Fiat Panda did

Forget the Harrier, I bring you the mechanical nightmare that was the Yak-38 Forger.

Ah yes… The easiest plane to shoot down in F-19 Stealth Fighter when I were a lad.

I swear the Harrier is half that size and twice as good…

Just resurrecting the low level theme for a bit. 😀

all the low flying vids and pics are fantastic – the phantom between the hangars is superb…

My favourite low flying video

The Phantom between the hangars pic is amazing. We heard the story of that one when we were there, no one believed it.
They used to have “competitions” in the Falklands between the Phantoms and the Chinooks as to who could buzz the accomodation blocks the lowest. the helicopters would usually win – as they flew over they’d stand it on a wingtip which would cause massive blade slap and the resulting wingtip vortices would shatter all the windows!

Those Lightning pilots scrubbed up well.

Oh and low and fast, Mt Kent, Falkland Islands.

How low can you go?

Unusually pylon-less Tornado.

😯 😯 😯

‘kin ‘ell, that’s LOOOOOOW!

That pilot must have balls the size and weight of canonballs! That is just too low. Another inch and he’d start grinding metal off the wingtip.

this is low

Perhaps a little too low (84 killed, 100 injured)

If you want too low, how about this?
http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&VideoID=94479

Yep there were some stunts pulled in the falklands at MPA in the hercs the low flying was unberfugginlevable when doing fighter affiliation with the Phantoms. Did a flight once when we refuelled 2 phantoms once full they flew so low there was 2 rooster tails in the sea
must dig out my old pics

Pah! Thats not low! To cunningly combine low flying with my previous picture post, I give you Yak-38 Forger negative height ejection, sadly only one ‘chute though….

Ejection

The “new” (as in not yet in service) MiG-35

Looks almost no different to the MiG-29, and remarkably similar to the F-15 Eagle, 2 planes that have been in service since the early/mid 70’s. Nice to see the russians are developing as quickly as the rest of the world these days since the demise of Communism 😉