53 replies to this topic

[cheapracer]

As theres a rather keen interest here on the U2 Spyplane and planes in general I thought I would offer this link ....

http://news.national...803_600x450.jpg

[Ross Stonefeld]

That's not really near Roswell. It's not even in New Mexico.

[desmo]

Can't recall seeing this airframe in bare metal before, very nice.



Almost looks like they took some considerable trouble to polish the Ti skin.

[Charles E Taylor]

Early U2 at Groom Lake

Another time, another place. Very evocative. Very primitive.




88 more, click the photo!






Charlie

[Charles E Taylor]

Early U2 at Groom Lake


Another time, another place. Very evocative. Very primitive


Well........

About 40 Minutes I posted the photos in the previous post the National Geo Channel screened Area 51 for the first time in the UK.

Many of these photos are shown in the programme. Synchronicity!!!


Quite a good programme for those interested.




Charlie

[cheapracer]

That's not really near Roswell. It's not even in New Mexico.

tongue
cheek
in

[johnny yuma]

Can't recall seeing this airframe in bare metal before, very nice.



Almost looks like they took some considerable trouble to polish the Ti skin.

Well I'll go out on a limb,it looks like a silver inflatable.Blow the photo to 400% and check the surface.And are those guy-wires ? Is that boxy device
underneath inflating it with helium ?... And check the humanoid at rear right with Buck Rogers stun-gun !!! Looks like something they left outside to
make the Red Menace think the septics had a new invention.

Edited by johnny yuma, 07 June 2011 - 04:53.

[gruntguru]

Silly buggers don't even know which side is up.

[cheapracer]

Well I'll go out on a limb,it looks like a silver inflatable.Blow the photo to 400% and check the surface.And are those guy-wires ? Is that boxy device
underneath inflating it with helium ?... And check the humanoid at rear right with Buck Rogers stun-gun !!! Looks like something they left outside to
make the Red Menace think the septics had a new invention.

Hmm not a hell of a lot supporting it now that you mention it ...... 20 - 25 tonnes? (guess based on twin engine F18 at 20T+).

Edited by cheapracer, 07 June 2011 - 12:13.

[Ross Stonefeld]

Wouldn't that just be the body shell being tested for radar?

[MatsNorway]

Wouldn't that just be the body shell being tested for radar?

Gets my vote. Easier to flip the plane than to mount the plane above the radar some place in the air.

Edited by MatsNorway, 07 June 2011 - 16:03.

[Ross Stonefeld]

No, I mean the plane in that picture is hollow. It's a mockup of the radar skin only.

[24gerrard]

IMHO, its a baloon covered in highly reflective surface material.
It is upside down for some of the radar tests undertaken.
Every angle would have been tested and I believe the engine intakes and the hot exhaust (not from the baloon),
gave the highest readings and therefore needed most work.

Of course many local straw suckers would see it at a distance when at altitude and report it as ETs hot rod.
The radar reflective material would also reflect light at high levels.

Edited by 24gerrard, 07 June 2011 - 16:21.

[MatsNorway]

No, I mean the plane in that picture is hollow. It's a mockup of the radar skin only.

I understood that..

[pugfan]

Every angle would have been tested and I believe the engine intakes and the hot exhaust (not from the baloon), gave the highest readings and therefore needed most work.

I didn't think they cared too much about radar signature for that one, didn't the pilots just give it a bit of juice if they detected a radar lock?

Edited by pugfan, 08 June 2011 - 01:20.

[johnny yuma]

[quote name='24gerrard' date='Jun 7 2011, 16:21' post='5082217']
IMHO, its a baloon covered in highly reflective surface material.

Yes like the kids helium baloons from the Mall.the shiny silver ones.They weren't around in the early 60s like today,must have been a special material then
which is now commonplace.

[cheapracer]

I didn't think they cared too much about radar signature for that one, didn't the pilots just give it a bit of juice if they detected a radar lock?

You mean like Gary Powers did?

[Greg Locock]

For those who are puzzled the cover story is that it is an aluminium radar test article. The real truth is that the aircraft was photographed during a low inverted pass, and the supporting structure and people were photoshopped in afterwards.

[johnny yuma]

For those who are puzzled the cover story is that it is an aluminium radar test article. The real truth is that the aircraft was photographed during a low inverted pass, and the supporting structure and people were photoshopped in afterwards.

The Real Truth is Out There. At last !

Edited by johnny yuma, 08 June 2011 - 04:56.

[Ross Stonefeld]

You mean like Gary Powers did?

The U-2 only did about 500mph.

[24gerrard]

Complete waste of money of course.
All they had to do was buy a few Avro Vulcans upgraded to sonic high altitude PR.
They had a radar signature at least as good as this 'paper' aeroplane
and a cockpit area suitable for high altitude development.
There was a sonic wing for the Vulcan on the drawing board I understand.
With that and the four Avons with after burners it woulkd have made this yank hot rod look like a model T Ford.
The exhaust signature could have been dealt with in the same way.

Yet another of the superior British aviation projects killed by our 'special relationship' which IMHO has simply put more and more money in American pockets at the expense of ours.

[Ross Stonefeld]

Wait, you want the US Govt funding spy planes from a foreign government, that don't perform as well as ours? Look up the A12/SR71 sometime.

It's like the 'uproar' when the White House decided not to upgrade the Marine One helicopters with British ones. It's the ****ing President of the United States. Air Force One, Marine One, and the Presidential motorcade were never going to be powered by anything other than American brands.

[kikiturbo2]

Complete waste of money of course.
All they had to do was buy a few Avro Vulcans upgraded to sonic high altitude PR.
They had a radar signature at least as good as this 'paper' aeroplane
and a cockpit area suitable for high altitude development.
There was a sonic wing for the Vulcan on the drawing board I understand.
With that and the four Avons with after burners it woulkd have made this yank hot rod look like a model T Ford.
The exhaust signature could have been dealt with in the same way.

Yet another of the superior British aviation projects killed by our 'special relationship' which IMHO has simply put more and more money in American pockets at the expense of ours.

I'd really like to see the Vulcan cruise at mach 3.2...

[24gerrard]

Wait, you want the US Govt funding spy planes from a foreign government, that don't perform as well as ours? Look up the A12/SR71 sometime.

It's like the 'uproar' when the White House decided not to upgrade the Marine One helicopters with British ones. It's the ****ing President of the United States. Air Force One, Marine One, and the Presidential motorcade were never going to be powered by anything other than American brands.

I have looked very closely at the A12/SR71 Blackbird and the X15 and the Shuttle etc etc.
All I see is British German and other foreign design concepts used by America at the expense of these other Nations.
We had far superior aviation projects here in the UK for all areas of operation, ranging from the Fairey Rotodyne convertiplane,
which would still be far superior today to replace both the C130 Herculese, the dangerous Chinook, the death trap Osprey
(how many marines has it killed up to now?). The Rotodyne also give a short/medium haul VTOL airliner, eliminating MOST runways.
The TSR2, which would have placed the Phantom in the last century. The Vulcan which carried a bigger bomb load than the B52 with a far better performance.
(just like the Wellington x in 1944 that carried a bigger bomb load than the B17 on TWO engines).
Our engines have always been far superior to American aero engines. It is why you put the RR Merlin in the Mustang in WW2.
Our sleeve valved radials gave more than twice the power per litre of your radials at that time and our jets (which we developed at the same time as the Germans)
were given to you as part of the 'rip off' lend lease, where you gave us tin can old cargo ships for high technology.
For the jet engine alone you owe us billions. Let alone the loss of the Comet airliner and other projected designs killed by Boeing and it laminar winged
podded engine designs taken from Germany after WW2.
We have just sent 6 Apache 'joke' gunships to Libya. We had to wait until their airforce and anti aircraft systems were neutralised of course, because
Apache can be shot down with a flint lock rifle if the operations are not done carefuly. We have a light autogyro fully proven in all operations inclusing anti tank,
It costs no more than a police patrol car, can fly rings around Apache, has hardly any heat signature and does not even produce any rotor downwash.
For the price of one Apache, you can have 5000 of these and they can be deployed from the back of a transport aircraft in two minutes. It takes Apache two weeks to deploy,
IF you can afford all the support infra structure and the American controlled electronics.

I will stop here as the story goes back to 1917 and would take a multi volume book to even touch on the corrupt way of busines refered to.

[Ross Stonefeld]

So you want the US military to buy foreign equipment for the majority of it's operations, ignoring issues like domestic jobs creation, while the British Army uses American helicopters? Or sails it's submarines around with our nuclear missiles running off our satelites using our launch codes?

Go back to the gearbox thread. At least you could claim expert knowledge.

[24gerrard]

I'd really like to see the Vulcan cruise at mach 3.2...

It would have been far better in the high altitude PR role than the U2 and much faster.
There were laminar flow wings in a supersonic Vulcan development projected at Avro before the CUTS.
Instead most of the superior aviation knowledge ended in the CONCORDE.
Strange that America could not get even close to that one isnt it.

The reason is it was the last gasp of a destroyed industry, replaced by inferior aircraft based on stolen technology.
Skunk works says it all.

[24gerrard]

So you want the US military to buy foreign equipment for the majority of it's operations, ignoring issues like domestic jobs creation, while the British Army uses American helicopters? Or sails it's submarines around with our nuclear missiles running off our satelites using our launch codes?

Go back to the gearbox thread. At least you could claim expert knowledge.

The British Army and the Royal Air Force, use inferior American helicopters because the Americans forced our government
to close most of our aviation industry and consolidate helicopter production on Westland, which spends most of its time
bulding kit American helicopters designed in most cases for American electronics we can no longer afford.
This is why the majority of the British Apache fleet sits silently on the ground growing weeds and we have continual problems with Chinook.

We no longer need your nuclear weapons thank you, contaminate your own country.
Lets face it, there are no longer any targets ol son.
NATO lost its credibility when the Cold War died.
I know I served at that time. Funny thing.
If there had been a third world war, all the NATO aircraft would have been US inside 48 hours simply on airframe checks, sad realy.

Using corrupt International banking is not cutting it for you as a replacement is it.

[Ross Stonefeld]

I totally agree on the nuclear front, which is why it's so amusing that the British are chaining themselves to Trident. While the US Navy converts the Ohio class to cruise missiles...

If there's one country that is not in a position to criticise the US financial service industry, it's Britain.

[24gerrard]

I totally agree on the nuclear front, which is why it's so amusing that the British are chaining themselves to Trident. While the US Navy converts the Ohio class to cruise missiles...

If there's one country that is not in a position to criticise the US financial service industry, it's Britain.

I am glad we agree Ross.
Britain has politicians at least as 'not fit for task' as you have in America.

First practical cruise missile was the 'Vulcan' launched Blue Steel by the way.

[Zoe]

It would have been far better in the high altitude PR role than the U2 and much faster.
There were laminar flow wings in a supersonic Vulcan development projected at Avro before the CUTS.
Instead most of the superior aviation knowledge ended in the CONCORDE.
Strange that America could not get even close to that one isnt it.

Valkyrie anyone?

Zoe

[24gerrard]

Valkyrie anyone?

Zoe

Concorde was a practical in service supersonic airliner.
Valkyrie was a supersonic bomber, that was to vulnerable to continue in limited service.
That is why the B1 was crafted.

The projected design for a laminar flow Delta at Avro's would have used much more powerful engines than the 'experimental' Valkyrie.
Handley Page had a design in the 1950s that looks strangely similar to Valkyrie, no surprise there then.

[Zoe]

Comparing an aircraft that actually flew with an aircraft that did not get beyond a "projected design" is a bit, well, maybe you get it yourself.

Zoe

[24gerrard]

Comparing an aircraft that actually flew with an aircraft that did not get beyond a "projected design" is a bit, well, maybe you get it yourself.

Zoe

Not sure what you are getting at Zoe.
The Valkyrie was a concept looked at by many aviation companies as early as the 1950s.
I can think of at least six British companies that could easily have brought such an aircraft to flight.
It had a very limited service life and was soon found to be unsuitable for the modern developing combat envelope it was designed for.
I cannot name one British company that would have even bothered with it.

The Concorde also flew Zoe but that is not the point.
The Concorde was a fully proven civil supersonic airliner, there has only ever been one that worked.
No other country could get close to achieving this.
Building a military concept aircraft or a high altitude PR aircraft with limited flight envelope is not even a sensible comparison.
That is easy if you have taken all the resources away from any competitor.
Like I said British aviation would not even have bothered with such as Valkyrie, far to limited in concept.

Edwards airforce base is named after a very brave test pilot who died testing the American flying wing.
That limited concept aircraft idea was also dropped much like the Valkyrie.
Seems strange then that at the same time Britain had a fully operational flying wing both as a bomber, the Vulcan and as a fighter the Gloster Javelin.
The Vulcan is arguably the greatest jet bomber ever built by the way.

If Britain had remained in control of its aviation industry instead os selling out to America, we would have VTOL airliner, a supersonic bomber based on the Concorde.
Even the American F111 and the F14 etc had their swing wing concept designed by Sir Barnes Wallis, hardly American then are they.

[Ross Stonefeld]

Tupolev 144 anyone?

[24gerrard]

Tupolev 144 anyone?

Concordski, or crashski.
55 commercial airliner flights before two major aircrashes relegated it to mainly subsonic transport and Russian and NASA space research work.
Hardly a comparison to Concorde.
USSR used inferior technology and risk flying to promote their aviation industry.
Its avionics were from a previous era.

[Charles E Taylor]

Extraterrestrial?

There is one of these on the moon!






Not Americian or even British. Remarkable!




Charlie

[desmo]

Avro had similar designs on the drawring board before WWI. If the British had been allowed by the seppos to go to the moon, there'd be pubs in every crater and a football pitch in every mare.

[Charles E Taylor]

Avro had similar designs on the drawring board before WWI. If the British had been allowed by the seppos to go to the moon, there'd be pubs in every crater and a football pitch in every mare.

Sir, before WW1, It would have been A V Roe. (Alliot Verdon-Roe)

You should know this, only in 2008 did AV-Rs grandson Eric Verdon-Roe stand down as MD of the Haymarket Media Group to become deputy Chairman.



Small world!!!




Charlie

[24gerrard]

Avro had similar designs on the drawring board before WWI. If the British had been allowed by the seppos to go to the moon, there'd be pubs in every crater and a football pitch in every mare.

Correction: Cricket pitch.

[DaveW]

I have enjoyed reading KG defending British technology, but I feel bound to clarify a few things, if I may.

The Vulcan was certainly an innovative aircraft, but perhaps its most enduring claim to a place in history was that it was the first successful production fly-by-wire aircraft.

The Javelin was not a flying wing (it had a T-tail).

British technology wasn't always successful. De Havilland produced the DH108 - a flying wing that killed the principal's son, Geoffrey de Havilland, sadly.

Concorde was also innovative, but it probably wouldn't have made it into service without the cussedness of France, who was a partner in the design/development process. On that subject, the systems on Concorde were archaic, courtesy of the length of time required to put it into service. That being said, it was (& still would be) the only sane way to fly the Atlantic. 9/11 was used as the excuse for ditching the service, but it was significant (in my view) that Brit Air refused to sell its fleet to Richard Branson.

I think the effective demise of the UK's aircraft industry was largely self-inflicted. It was the British government that forced UK aircraft companies to merge into two, & then one company. BAe decided that it didn't want to know about civil aircraft & sold everything to Cessna (I believe), including (almost) super-critical wing technology. And then the Berlin Wall came down....

It is sobering to compare, for example, the history of the Typhoon with the Gripen....

I know KG has a personal involvement with W/C Wallis but (with apologies) I can't think that his current autogyros can be compared with the ugly but effective Apache (despite Bond movies).

I'm not sure about a British supersonic bomber. The USA, for example, found it couldn't afford the cost of the B1A, and had to put up with the more prosaic B1B.

Having said all that, I know that many good British aircraft engineers have found new challenges within the US aircraft industry. At the end of the day, the world is a small place. I'm sure Greg L would agree.

Edited by DaveW, 08 June 2011 - 18:02.

[24gerrard]

I agree with most of your post Dave and thanks for the correction on the Javelin, it was not the best of fighters, certainly at high angles of attack with the airflow blocked to the tailplane.
There is a Javelin at Flixworth museum, I think one from the Duxford squadron when they were based there with the Hunters.

The DH 108 was a prototype and Geoffreys death was a sad day, one of my late Uncles was a designer at Hatfield.
Testing aircraft is always dangerous, the DH110 prototype crashes at Farnborough the day after I was at the same spot.
It broke up and went into the crowd.
However, problems with such 'test' aircraft does not mean the complete design concept is bad.
The DH110 went on to become the Sea Vixen, one of the most succesful naval jet fighters of all time.

It is easy to criticise the use of the Wallis W116 light auto gyro in the modern military theatre.
It has after all been in constant development in actual operational roles since the early 1960s.
That is until you study the aircrafts potential and compare its performance with such aircraft as Apache.
Of course it cannot carry even a fraction of the weaponry carried in 'one' Apache, the serious point, is that you can have 5000 W116 aircraft for the same price as ONE Apache, with two missiles or two light cannons on each aircraft.
It would make far better sense in the middle east where there are thousands of square miles to cover.

Edited by 24gerrard, 08 June 2011 - 19:32.

[gruntguru]

Not Americian or even British. Remarkable!

Let me guess - French - Italian?

EDIT. I will go with French although it looks like a H.G. wells design (but you said it wasn't British).

Edited by gruntguru, 08 June 2011 - 23:16.

[Charles E Taylor]

Let me guess - French - Italian?

Russian, Луноход,


More Here


Still remarkable even now!!




Charlie

[Tony Matthews]

Not Americian or even British. Remarkable!

It is the Russian Lunokhod! It had a crew of twelve, and was coal fired... One of these statements is misleading.

[gruntguru]

. . . and was coal fired...

Ah yes the sooty exhaust - I thought it was diesel. Huge dipstick! Some stoking tools and boiler tube cleaning implenments strapped to the side! Bloody commies, I bet they stole the design from H.G. Wells.

[johnny yuma]

Is 24Gerrard actually Lord British,the "owner" of the Lunokhod ?

[DaveW]

...the serious point, is that you can have 5000 W116 aircraft for the same price as ONE Apache, with two missiles or two light cannons on each aircraft.

I did say the demise of the UK aircraft industry was largely self-inflicted. If the W116 became the must have accessory, Wallis Autogyros would not be given a production contract. If WA could not be persuaded to give the design to the Preferred Contractor, then it would be given a development contract, which would be used to crash the company & the receiver would make the design available to the Preferred Contractor. Either way, the unit price for the definitive "ruggedised" design would escalate so your 5000:1 ratio would become 5:1, The production order would be reduced from 500 to 10, which would sit in storage somewhere because updates would be considered unaffordable when amortised over 10 units.

Insane? Of course. Unrealistic? Not exactly. Much of the above scenario, in a slightly different context, has been enacted in the UK. The sad part is that I suspect the UK is not alone in its insanity (what is the current unit price of an F22?).

[Tony Matthews]

Huge dipstick!

You talkin' to me?

[Ross Stonefeld]

(what is the current unit price of an F22?).

To buy at the dealership today? Over the life of the project? I think the latter is 300m+ per plane.

The B-2 came out at nearly 3billion. A plane.

In each case the initial procurement budget multipled from 3 to 5 times until delivery.

[DaveW]

To buy at the dealership today? Over the life of the project? I think the latter is 300m+ per plane.
The B-2 came out at nearly 3billion. A plane.
In each case the initial procurement budget multipled from 3 to 5 times until delivery.

One problem is that government agencies insist on hugely expensive structures & systems being in place & then complain when they find that fleet costs are relatively independent of fleet size. That applies both to procurement & support.