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Aircraft Super Thread Mk.VII


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Anybody here ever go up in a vintage warbird? The Comemorative Air Force's B-29 FiFi is visting my local airport, and in about five hours I'm going up in PT-13 Stearman Kaydet so I'm a little anxious/hyped. I had a choice of a P-51, a T-6 Texan, or the Kaydet, and I chose the Kaydet.

 

There's just something about an open cockpit biplane that I find appealing. Sure riding in a P-51 would have been fun, but getting stuffed in behind the pilot in a plane designed for one just didn't seem right. I wish I could have gotten a ride on FiFi, but they were booked months before I even knew they were coming.

20210623_105411.jpg

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16 hours ago, Thom said:

What do you mean? Those fields will take a week to recover, at most!

with the amount of lead they just injected into that field, they may as well have salted it! :lol:

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My flight on the Stearman got cancelled. It doesn't look like any of the planes had any luck today. FiFi made her first flight of the morning, but the brakes locked on landing and flat spotted the tire on the starboard landing gear. The P-51 had mechanical breakdown on start up, and with bad weather moving in the two trainers are leaving early to make their next stop. I actually feel bad for the Stearman pilot flying into a head wind to make it out to Albany from here. That can't be easy in an open cockpit biplane that only has 200hp.

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25 minutes ago, renegadeleader1 said:

That plane has quite the history behind it. Not too often you see one with a kill marker on it let alone one from the first gulf war.

Indeed, very cool you got to see it still operational and in person. 
Careful with that 18 picture. The mouse may go after the military!

Chris

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1 hour ago, Dobber said:

Indeed, very cool you got to see it still operational and in person. 
Careful with that 18 picture. The mouse may go after the military!

Chris

I think the VAQ-209 "Star Warriors" can handle Disney's legal team... They certainly have the power to render their electronics completely useless:lol:

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https://www.sandboxx.us/blog/ges-new-fighter-engine-just-blew-away-existing-jet-technology/

"GE’s new XA100 can produce a whopping 45,000 pounds of thrust, edging out the Pratt and Whitney’s F-135-PW-100 that currently powers America’s single-engine F-35 Joint Strike Fighter and making it a viable option for the conventional-runway iteration of the jet, the F-35A. This news comes amid ongoing concerns about F-35 engine availability and maintenance issues that could threaten as many as 20% of F-35s if a resolution isn’t found soon. While GE’s XA100 would not enter service in time to address these shortfalls, the new engine shines a light on the concept’s promising future, as well as other potential applications for this engine that span three fighter generations.
According to Tweedie, the XA100’s “three-stream architecture” enables a doubling of thermal management capacity, or in other words, a real reduction in the heat created by the engine’s operation. That heat reduction is essential as modern aircraft shift away from traditional metal airframes and fuselages and toward more advanced composite materials. Heat is currently a limiting factor in power production, but that will no longer be the case with this new generation of powerplant."

GE-XA100-SideProfile-1440x576.jpg

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Huh. Looks like their shrouding the engine (note the lack of visible vane actuating rings or borescope probes running into the chamber wall and how little visible plumbing there is) that's going to add a bit of a weight hit but if the thrust figure is accurate I think it should still dramatically increase the TWR.

I worder if the shroud is part of the "three stream" design. Two of the three streams are obviously the primary engine stream and the typical bypass stream you have with basically every engine; I'm guessing the third stream is a semi contained diversion of the bypass air directed along the outer wall of the housing for cooling. The diagram in the article would seem to support this guess and if so that's a pretty clever inovation that should enable a huge leap in future engine designs with how heat constrained current engines are. Especially since this intermediate stream would also add a small but likely measurable amount of thrust on its own from thermal expansion within the shroud being forced into the exhaust stream.

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On 6/28/2021 at 10:25 AM, David Hingtgen said:

First air show since before COVID:

(F-22 and Blue Angel pics are on my other camera) It's been a LONG time since I saw an F-15C at all, and I think the first time EVER up close.  (have only been close to A's and E's)

 

 

 

 

Funnily enough there was a period where it felt like the 104th FW was stalking me because I couldn't go to an air show without one of their F-15s turning up. Ironically I've been living in MA for 12 years now and I still haven't been able to go to an air show at Barnes ANGB because of scheduling conflicts or cancellations (including this year).

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  • 2 weeks later...
3 hours ago, electric indigo said:

Awesome shot!

 

That is a nice shot! This bird is rarely photographed in profile, and it's 'futuristic' lines can really be appreciated here. I've seen the real thing at the AF Museum near Dayton, OH, part of Wright-Patterson AFB. I've worked on the B-1, probably its closest neighbor in design, which itself is a large plane, but the XB-70 dwarfs it. Had it gone into service, our enemies would have had reason to fear it considering the size of payload she undoubtedly would have carried, not to mention her incredible speed. 

It's amazing to see what they were able to accomplish in the 60's, really pushing aircraft design to its limits and beyond. That spirit has all but evaporated, at least in the public eye. If we do have a successor to this bird, or the rather temperamental B-1 for that matter, it's a very well guarded secret, vaporous Aurora notwithstanding.^_^

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1 hour ago, kajnrig said:

Damn thing has an AT Field???

:lol:  It's not AI, some poor pilot got absorbed into it.  I wonder if it goes berserk if it takes a missile hit?;)

On 7/17/2021 at 6:19 AM, Thom said:

The top one looks like the X-32 and the F-35 had a love child.

Pfft, as if the Russians, or China for that matter, would ever stoop so low as to steal ideas from the US. :ph34r:

At this point, it looks like every other aircraft with strong stealth characteristics. 🥱 Other than the unparalleled YF-23, I still think fighters from the 60s, 70s & 80s are the prettiest, or at least the most visually interesting.

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