The Airplane Thread

[vreihen16]

I caught about half of Frecce Tricolori's performance at the air show today, from my secret observation point overlooking the airport. Got choked out by a cloud of red/white/green smoke on one pass. I didn't stay for the USAF Thunderbirds performance, since I've seen that several times.

Local press picture from yesterday:




.

[Lady Jane]

An old Catalina still serving.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consolidated_PBY_Catalina

[E92_William]

Following closely

[ezaircon4jc]

Originally Posted by E92_William

Following closely

At least it's on a taxiway!

[vreihen16]

Originally Posted by E92_William

Following closely

Adds new meaning to the term tailgating.....

[Llarry]

The Canadian Car & Foundry-built Gregor FDB-1 was a prototype biplane fighter that first flew in 1938. Only one was built -- the time for biplanes had passed.

[GarySL]

Lockheed T-33 Shooting Star, performing at our local air show (at ACV) with the Humboldt County Lost Coast Warbirds and the Chino, CA Planes of Fame Air Museum (their P-38 was sweet)

[Llarry]

Airbus is working on what they call an A330 MRTT+, which features revised wings and engines for improved fuel efficiency and is based on the A330 Neo. The existing A330 MRTT (also known as the KC-30) has several users (photo is of an Australian aircraft).

Airbus also hopes to compete for U.S. Air Force tankers to augment the Boeing KC-46A. The Air Force hopes to buy about 100 more conventional tankers and then buy a number of stealthy tankers in the long term.

[ezaircon4jc]

Originally Posted by Llarry

Airbus is working on what they call an A330 MRTT+, which features revised wings and engines for improved fuel efficiency and is based on the A330 Neo. The existing A330 MRTT (also known as the KC-30) has several users (photo is of an Australian aircraft).

Airbus also hopes to compete for U.S. Air Force tankers to augment the Boeing KC-46A. The Air Force hopes to buy about 100 more conventional tankers and then buy a number of stealthy tankers in the long term.

Saw a video last night about Boeing's new 797 and its Airbus competitor. Besides the other comparisons, Airbus is opting for slightly more fuel-efficient engines with a lower cruise speed; .78 vs .84. The difference in range isn't all that great.

[Lady Jane]

Originally Posted by ezaircon4jc

Saw a video last night about Boeing's new 797 and its Airbus competitor. Besides the other comparisons, Airbus is opting for slightly more fuel-efficient engines with a lower cruise speed; .78 vs .84. The difference in range isn't all that great.

[vreihen16]

At least they are making sure that it can haul cargo.....

[Llarry]

Tomcat Thursday!

In addition to operational deploying F-14 squadrons, there were a number of other units that flew F-14s:
-- Atlantic Fleet Replacement Air Group (RAG) squadron VF-101 that trained F-14 flight crews and maintainers in Virginia.
-- Pacific Fleet RAG squadron VF-124 that did the same in California.
-- The Naval Air Test Center in Maryland.
-- Test squadron VX-4 at Point Mugu, California which later became a detachment of VX-9.
-- The Fighter Weapons School in California, later relocated to Nevada.

[Llarry]

Originally Posted by Llarry

-- Test squadron VX-4 at Point Mugu, California which later became a detachment of VX-9.

Addendum photo of VX-9's "Black Bunny" F-14B. VX-4 started the tradition with the F-4 Phantom and when the F-14 came along, painted one aircraft in the same livery.

[Llarry]

The current U.S. Air Force program anticipates a buy of 104 F-15EX Eagle IIs, although the number to be purchased has changed several times.

But now Israel has requested 50 F-15IA Eagle IIs -- an Israeli version of the F-15EX -- as well as the modification of Israel's existing 25 F-15Is to a similar standard. See attached illustration.

Other nations have also expressed an interest, although no firm contracts are yet involved.

[Llarry]

Here's an oldie but a goodie: An F-86F Sabre on a cross-country flight in 1988. This fighter belonged to the Japanese Air Self Defense Force and after retirement ended up being flown in modified form by the U.S. Navy Pacific Missile Test Center at Point Mugu, California. I wonder if this is really a QF-86F used as a target drone for missile testing.

[Lady Jane]

Originally Posted by Llarry

Here's an oldie but a goodie: An F-86F Sabre on a cross-country flight in 1988. This fighter belonged to the Japanese Air Self Defense Force and after retirement ended up being flown in modified form by the U.S. Navy Pacific Missile Test Center at Point Mugu, California. I wonder if this is really a QF-86F used as a target drone for missile testing.

This is a MK.6 model with the slatted leading edge. It was unique to this airplane. Earlier MK.6 had hard wings just like the MK.5 and were later retrofitted.

[Lady Jane]

Fuji T-1, Japan 1st jet aircraft post WW2 and only user of the type. With only 66 units produced it however served since the late 50s until 2000 as a basic trainer and the last unit retired in 2006, despite serving alongside others like the T-33, T-4 or T-2.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuji_T-1

[Llarry]

Over the past several years and as recently as yesterday, I've posted information and images about advanced versions -- the F-15EX etc. -- of the F-15. I'm reminded that the first F-15, the YF-15A prototype (photo), was rolled out in June of 1972 and first flew in July of that year. Over 54 years ago!

It's as if the gold standard of World War I fighter planes, the Fokker D.VII (2nd photo), an early prototype of which first flew in January 1918, had remained in production and front-line service until 1972 and beyond!

Of course, this is an era in which we have the pilots of B-52s, C-130s and KC-135s flying updated versions of the aircraft that their grandfathers flew.

[Lady Jane]

Snowbirds.

[vreihen16]

Originally Posted by Lady Jane

Attachment 3529175 Snowbirds.

They haven't been down this way at our annual airshow yet that I remember. Can you make arrangements for 2025?

Ironically, I was binge-watching reruns of "Corner Gas" today and one of the episodes had the Snowbirds doing a flyover of Dog River. At the end of the show, the pilots left town in a five car diamond pattern.....

[vreihen16]

Speaking of the Snowbirds and rare formations, I just stumbled on this picture from Quebec in 2008.....





.

[Llarry]

In 1946, the expectation was that future warfare would involve nuclear weapons. The previous year, two such weapons had been dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki by Army Air Forces B-29s. The United States had several more bombs on hand and was rapidly developing improved bombs. The AAF appeared to be the only service with the capability for this new mode of warfare, and there was some discussion that armies and navies were now obsolete.

The Navy wanted in on nuclear warfare. The problem was that the early bombs were very heavy and/or bulky. The Mark I (Little Boy) gun-type bomb dropped on Hiroshima weighed 8,900 pounds, was 10 feet long and had a diameter of 2.3 feet. The Mark III (Fat Man) implosion-type bomb dropped on Nagasaki weighed even more at 10,800 pounds and was 10.7 feet long and a had a diameter of 5 feet. The Mark III was soon replaced by an improved Mark IV version with similar dimensions, which became the first U.S. nuclear bomb to be produced in numbers.

The Navy cast around for a suitable delivery platform to allow delivery of a nuclear bomb from an aircraft carrier. Existing carrier aircraft such as the SB2C Helldiver and TBM Avenger could not accommodate the large bombs, so another aircraft had to be found.

The Navy had a new patrol plane -- the Lockheed P2V Neptune -- that was considered the only viable alternative. They also had three new large carriers -- the Midway (CVB 41) class -- that had slightly larger flight decks than the wartime Essex class carriers. Operation of the P2V from the flight deck would require all other aircraft to be stowed below in the hangar deck, but tests began to test the viability of P2V operations from aircraft carriers.

Lockheed installed a tailhook on the P2V with the intention of conducting landing trials, but shore-based tests soon ruled carrier landings out. The concept then became a JATO-assisted takeoff from the deck using 8 JATO bottles, a flight to the target to deliver the bomb and then recovery at a friendly airfield or a ditching at sea alongside the carrier.

Eleven P2V-3C Neptunes were built. The first carrier takeoff came in March of 1949 when a P2V-3C took off from the deck of the USS Coral Sea (CVB 43).

This minimal nuclear capability was maintained for several years as the Navy developed a suitable true carrier-capable aircraft of a size to carry the bulky nuclear bombs of the day. That first heavy attack aircraft was the North American AJ Savage, which I have previously covered. The three-engine AJ -- with two radial engines and a jet in the rear fuselage -- was introduced to squadron service in 1949 and was itself somewhat problematic in carrier operations due to its larger size.

For several years, P2V-3Cs and AJ-1s served side-by-side in heavy attack squadrons. The P2Vs stayed ashore and the AJs mostly did the same, going aboard ship only for periodic carrier landing and takeoff practice. Detachments of aircraft were maintained in Morocco and Japan, while the weapons themselves were kept on the carriers.

By the 1950s, two developments improved Navy carrier-based nuclear weapons capability. One was the development of the Douglas A3D (new A-3) heavy attack bomber which entered service in the mid-1950s and the other was the development of new and smaller nuclear bombs, which allowed smaller aircraft to have nuclear capability.

Fortunately, predications that future warfare would include nuclear weapons proved wrong and that continues to be the case, though nuclear danger remains in various corners of the world. U.S. Navy aircraft carriers no longer carry nuclear weapons.