[Closed] When wars were colder, planes were cooler!

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 🙂

Going back a(nother) generation, I love this clip

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The language is not really office safe though

I've always liked the super-hero of warplanes, the F117 Nighthawk....
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War does produce some of the best technology.

Memories of childhood holidays in Findhorn - next door to RAF Kinloss.

Shackleton
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Nimrod
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Shackletons. Jeez-o

10,000 rivets flying in close formation.

As a twelve year old boy I could pretend they were Lancasters off to the Rhur 🙂

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...

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It's still really cool though and Gulf War 1 must have been great fun for the plane.

War isn't fun.

Although I can see their aesthetic appeal and functional beauty military aircraft aren't toys for having fun with.

(Sorry for the downer folks)

BTW, apparently the Frogfoot was built based on the loser in the competition that eventually lead to the A10, the Northrop YA-9A,

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That's not a gun.
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[b] THIS is a gun [/b]
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AC-130 Spooky II with it's little old 105mm Howitzer poking out the left hand side.

Fat Albert gets all angry...!

I truly had no idea this thread would run like this!

Behind sootyandjim's YA-9A is a flying banana!

The ultimate Cold War bomber HAD to be the B36.

The first bomber with true inter-continental range without air-air refuelling - it used to be in the air for a day and a half!

First bomber capable of delivering a H bomb

6 Piston engines AND 4 jets

Carried its own fighters internally in one of its bomb bays or on its wingtips (OK, only in trials, but even so)

Retractable gun turrets

...and they flew one around the continental US fitted with a nuclear raactor for tests!

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Indeed it is.

Uber geek points if you can identify what this one is carrying.

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Great thread.
Proper early cold war bomber - the Convair B-36 Peacemaker
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6 turning and 4 burning!
Must have been quite a sight and sound.

...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.

johnners you beat me to it!

the Convair B-36 Peacemaker

Who says Americans can't do irony, eh? 😉

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. 😯

[url=

II at Dartmouth[/url]

Nothing from the cold war beats this:

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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.

Here's a plane that did go to war and kicked ar$e in the S. Atlantic.

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CaptainFlashheart - Member

the Convair B-36 Peacemaker

Who says Americans can't do irony, eh? [:wink:]

Named after the Colt 45...

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

Of the planes that officially exist, it could have only been a U-2 at 78,000 ft.

willard - Member

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.

That's a nice story, but it's sadly not true.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GAU-8_Avenger

Great thread!

SU-30 at an airshow, it actually briefly flies backwards at one point!

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,

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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.

I stand corrected!

I read this book
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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.

Sharkey Ward is widely considered an @rse, especially by those who had the misfortune of working directly with him.

A far better book on the exploits of Harriers in the Falklands is,

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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.

Pook? I though he was a younger lad than that....! 😀

I know, I was quite confused too. Perhaps he had a face lift or something.

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Raf phantoms with another favourite, the Jaguar,

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And where they should have been left, in the days when we had proper carrier aviation.

Feel a bit of RAF/FAA rivalry going on there sooty. This isn't the PPrune forum you know.

Sonor - Its mainly WAFU personnel who have such a low opinion of Sharkey, seeing as its them who had to work with him.

I agree with you though about proper carriers. Their flight decks are well-suited to the kind of cocktail parties the RN excels at throwing.

😉

[url= http://www.avweb.com/eletter/archives/avflash/1271-full.html#199354 ]The Squadrons Are Coming[/url] (RN flight deck ops, scroll down a bit).

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?

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How about the Bronco?

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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.

Was proper scary - wish I'd had a camera.

The Squadrons Are Coming (RN flight deck ops, scroll down a bit).

I was looking for that link for my post.

I agree with you though about proper carriers. Their flight decks are well-suited to the kind of cocktail parties the RN excels at throwing.

Actually, listening to the cockpit chatter on that clip reminds me of this:

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Another bit of rotary action, folks....

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Not you're talking CFH.

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Me hooking up a load at Dungannon.

Sweet baby jesus and the orphans. I see the complete lack of style and taste in the 70s and 80s wasn't restricted to just music, fashion and buildings...
Some of those look as though they were designed by H J Simpson esq. Or the bloke what designed the new Edinburgh Royal Infirmary.

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Rotary action?

One word gentlemen... Huey.

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Sooty, you flew Wessexes? Ever done any SAR at all up at Valley?

I see your Huey and raise you Sea King:
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Flew! Hardly, I just filled the things with go juice and connected cr@p to them for onwards move.

And Lynx - my old boss bought one of these second hand, ran it as a pop-stars taxi for a few years until his business partner crashed it:
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If you are going to go the rotary route then it starts and finishes with the mighty wokka.

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Are you sure about that?

I took a fancy to the MH-53 Pave Low after reading "Clear and Present Danger". This should partially explain why...

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Willard - Whilst they do have a seriously purposeful look about them the bloody pilots (or perhaps flight planners) of the 21st SOS never seemed to understand the difference between Zulu time and local time. Hence those bloody noisy beasts passing over my block at RAF Stafford at silly o'clock in the morning being the notice I get that they've arrived early for that refuel I am supposed to be doing in an hour!

I've just realised after a bit of Wikipedia trawling that all the really cool helicopters and planes are either being retired, or have been retired from active service already. The Pave Low IV for example, flew its last mission in September last year. The F117 is out of service now and the writing must be on the wall for a lot of other good stuff.

Looking at the new crop of jets, they all seem a bit samey. As though they have lost all the flair and individuality that used to make airshows so much fun.

I guess all armed forces want these days is a nice clean robot to do it all.

Aircraft technology has matured, there is now an accepted (by the majority at least) way of 'doing things', hence many aircraft starting to look alike. This of course is helped no end by there being far less individual companies making aircraft these days.

I'm currently workiing on Staffs University campus sootyandjim. I remember seeing the MH-53 very often, having lived most of my life in Stone. Still get a lot of Merlins, Lynx, Chinooks, etc at low level over the campus as they drop in to refuel..

I was quite disappointed to see that Tomcats were retired a year or so ago as well ... Top Gun is now officially out of date

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AWACS

I remember My dad talking about gun sight pictures of U-2s taken by Lightnings back in the 70's. It was a pretty useful fighter for it's time. It would even give a F15 a run for it's money. He tells a tale of a pretty "sporty" one out in Germany that was well known to be a quick even for a Lightning, it could out accelerate 104's even low down. Scared the whatsits out of the Germans and Italians.

It was basically two effing great big engines with a bloke strapped to the front and the smallest compliment of missiles it could get away with hanging off it.

Scary fast but scarily short legs.

[url=

Holden knows all about how fast a Ligthning can be[/url], yikes!

And what is was all about, [url=

again!).

queen of the skies

[url= http://www.flickr.com/photos/7779205@N07/2549338832/ ]
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from a tornado on the wing, mont blanc poking its head out through the clouds behind

Aye, that it was. Airframes took a right pounding as well, hence the relatively short service life.

Short legs is right enough (40 seconds full re-heat = no fuel left) crap radar, crap avionics. Is was the epitome of Take off - Shoot - Try to get back.

the epitome of Take off - Shoot - Try to get back.

Nope, that would be the [url= http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messerschmitt_Me_163 ]Me-163[/url]

Reminds me of the early 80's when I was assembling and wiring up the weapon control system for the Jaguar. A difficult, but satisfying task.

In the days when we still made things!

sockpuppet - Ah, the Vickers Funbus. The only aircraft I know of with a urinal for three on board.

Bloody noisy all those Conways.

The one that dosnt exist.....
[url= http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurora_(aircraft)url ]

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Aurora? Of course it exists...! Only they don't keep it in Area 51. That would just be daft, as everyone would look for it there.

It's next door, in Area 53. 😉

CFH - Apparently Area 51 is a ruse, all the real secret stuff happens in the UK.

[url= http://robocat.users.btopenworld.com/bases.htm ]Tin foil hats to maximum[/url]

Let's go rotary...one for RudeBoy here...

(Sees HIND-D, wets himself...)

Funny, 'cos as opposed to War, Death and Destruction as I am, I find a strange beauty in Warplanes. I spose it's maybe some primeval instinct thing; the ultimate weapon.

SR-71s are so mental, that when they're on the ground, they leak, apparently, as the Titanium plates are made just a tiny fraction too small, and don't meet up propply. Because when it's at speed, the friction with the air heats the plates up so much, they expand, and lock together. Having them meet perfectly, whilst stationary, would mean that the plates would buckle at Mach-stupid, and the plane would fail.

I was well into warplanes as a kid. My mum thought it was unhealthy.

Personal faves are the Rockwell B-1, and the Harrier Jump-Jet.

Also like these:

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Grumman F-14 Tomcat Terror

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McDonnel Douglas F-15 Eagle

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SAAB Viggen (Grippen in front; not as nice imo)

Nasty 'orrible things, the lot of 'em....

[b]I want, need and must have an Ekranoplan.[/b]

I think that is a perfectly reasonable demand.

Mattoutandabout. That's not a Sea King, it's a Sea commando

sootyandjim, that site is a hoot! one to look over properly later! Tin-foil-tastic!

I believe the Aurora actually lives in Scotland most of the time, with over the north sea being its chosen route to Afghan.........

Liking planes as a child is unhealthy?

*stealthily shuffles large pile of "Defence Recognition Journal" from late 80's/early 90's into a far less obvious place than on desk at work.*

Mind you, when in the RAF cadets, I was shit hot at NATO and Russion/Warsaw Pact recognition. And airshows were cool. I defy anyone to say they weren't.

These are real aircraft!! I seem to grow up with many of these, remember the Tornado coming out and now have a look in one, like an old BL Marina, Some of the new stuff is slick (not cool) but they don't really fly (wouldn't without major computer input) so not sure they full count either. One of the coolest threads yet but have a feeling only the oldies will appreciate. And if you are into to this lot what about real racing cars!? Lotus 41 etc... and 60s 70s LeMans racers. I think I missed my age? But no mountain bikes either, I reckon most of us would have been out there rallying, trialing etc.. all a bit expensive and silly now. thanks to all who put up those great phots

[troll]

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Bzzzzzzzttt!

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Liking planes as a child is unhealthy?

Not so much planes themselves, but warplanes. My mum was a little girl during WW2, and warplanes were not something to be 'admired', considering the terrible devastation they can cause. I can see her point.

Therefore, I find my own fascination with them all the more stange. I do try and 'unimagine' the war bit, though, and see them more as pieces of engineering technology.

When I was a kid we used to get just about every plane in the NATO inventory buzz our house** (never an SR-71 though... :-(). We were no where near an air base - just on a route to and from their playgrounds I guess. I never got bored of it and I sort of miss it these days...

** Meltham near Holmfirth, Huddersfield.

Same here with the cadets... Every summer I'd get packed off to some RAF station for a week in a thinly disguised attempt at recruiting.

All the same, it was ace. Went to Germany for a week one year (saw lots of Tornados), Somerset (saw lots of radars and comms equipment), Linconshire (saw lots of Tornados, but different versions) and Norfolk (saw bugger all, broke my arm). As a kid, all that tech was fantastic and really did make me want to fly jets. Alas, it was not to be.

I still like them though and envy Larry Ellison's ability to buy them as toys. Swine

Have we had the Starfighter? Or the Sabre. Both pretty cool. Was at Riat about 10 years ago and a Hind spat bloomin great fireballs of anti HSM flares out ofits side pods. We were in feild under the flight line and the Hind was about 500 ft up . I almost started to run for cover, blazing balls of magnesium raining down at me .
B52?

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One taken by me, not very good, but we did touch on choppers.

Oh my God, what a thread! Thank you guys, for keeping it going, and putting up so many cool pics. Living on RAF Lyneham's flightpath, I've seen many aircraft going in and out on 'circuits and bumps' and been to quite a few airshows over the years; Farborough, Fairford, Kemble. The Vulcan has to be one of the most spine-tingling planes to see in the air, coming in low and slow in full dirty configuration, wheels and flaps, down, airbrakes open, then everything coming up, nose coming up almost 45 degrees, and full re-heat on. Nothing compares. I saw a Buccaneer come in low and fast on a wet day, at around .9 Mach, with only it's wingtips nose and tail pod poking out of a compression cloud. I used to regularly see a Vulcan flying around with a big black box under it's belly containing the test engine for Concorde. On holiday at Llanstephan in Wales I used to watch A10's on gunnery ranges across the estuary. Amazing noise, like someone ripping corrugated metal. Anyone interested in the high-altitude aircraft should read Skunk Works about Lockeed's advanced development area and Groom Lake, Area 51, which has been moved into a really remote mountain area. When they developed the SR71 the technology was so new they had to first design tools to work Titanium because no-one had ever touched it before. Fascinating stuff. That radio conversation about decending from 78 to 50-odd thousand feet, makes you wonder if it might not have been Aurora, there have been numerous reports of black 'triangles' making smoke-ring exhaust trails, which sounds like some sort of pulse rocket motor. The Yanks almost certainly have a replacement for the Blackbird, as satellites cannot be moved quickly or cheaply enough, after all it was seventeen years before they owned up to the Wobbly Goblin, the F117A.

Who's posted the mega pic? Why is this thread taking so long to load?

(Switches to Manual Mode)

If you are going to go the rotary route then it starts and finishes with the mighty wokka.

That is quite possibly very true...

This is the ultimate copter

Mi24 hind, beast of a thing

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That was until the afgans got hold of some stingers when the ruskies invaded Afaghanistan and blew all of them out of the skies!!!