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Awesome photos.
I think I've mentioned previously about, back in the day, driving from San Diego to Riverside Raceway for whatever races were running, and driving along March air force base, and seeing countless B52's backed up to the fence, parked wingtip to wingtip.
Such a cool memory.
I've never seen separate LH/RH spoiler control. Both wings are up or they're down.
Back in the cold war days...SAC reigned supreme. My favorite command. We had money and manpower. Probably the best maintained fleet in history. I ain't kidding.
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Have you ever tried to turn a flying wing? 🤣
I know more about Flying W's.🙃
Me too! 🤔
We should start a support group. 🤪
In 1979, The Concorde 001 chased a Solar Eclipse by flying at 56,000 ft. over the Sahara Desert at a speed of Mach 2. The jet stayed in the umbra of the moon for a record of 74 minutes.
Boom - Supersonic Passenger Airplanes is bringing it back, finally! I saw a funny interview with him on SRS, where he said it gets to the point where people are annoyed that they are interrupted on their flight to be told they just broke the sound barrier. Apparently they would make an announcement on the Concorde and serve champagne when that took place.
The only civilian jetliner with afterburners!
Wow, this thread is still going?
One of the better threads.
sometimes have to scroll way too far down to keep it alive.
Have to ask if the Mrs. ever did the Tevis Cup?
She was signed up last year. But had some issues at the intro ride. Planning to do it eventually, but wants to make sure she is in group one so as not to be stuck in the mob. This year she has been focusing on multi day 50’s. She has a few hundreds under her belt, and generally does well. Not bad for considering her main horse came from a kill pen in Texas.
Dornier flying boat.
https://vintageaviationnews.com/vintage-aviation/reviving-a-legend-stud…
Wow I did not know they were still operating the U2's. Originally built-in the 50s and over 70 years later, it was still performing missions.
Goes to show what an awesome aircraft it was and the Engineering dept at Lockheed was way ahead of its time. It was that fateful day when Gary Powers got shot down by a Russian missile that the SR-71 came to concept headed by the legend, Kelly Johnson and the Skunk Works program in the early 60's. The Blackbird was never shot down by a missile and in fact there's a story about it out-running one. 😲
Phantoms were Badass! 😎
In 1961, as part of the commemoration of 50 years of Naval Aviation, the Navy sponsored a project known as Sageburner. This project was to attempt new extreme low altitude high speed records flying F-4A Phantoms (F4H-1) also known as the Double Ugly, Lead Sled, The Anvil, The Hammer, The Louisville Slugger, and the world's Largest Distributor of MiG parts!
On the 18th of May 1961, Commander J. L. Felsman made the first attempt to break the record but was killed when a pitch dampener failure led to pilot-induced oscillations, causing his Phantom to break up mid-flight.
On August 28th, 1961, Lt. Huntington Hardisty (pilot) and Lt. Earl De Esch (RIO) made the second attempt and flew their “ Sageburner” F4H-1F Phantom at an average speed of 902.760 mph over a 3-mile course below 125 feet, skimming the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico.
www.Sierrahotel.net
Pit Row
Growing up in Santee California, saw countless phantoms fly over our house on crosswind on approach to Miramar.
Especially when carrier's were off loading before they came back to North Island.
Airplane Boneyards
Link above has a listing of web-pages for boneyards... ...and none of those annoying intermediate ads...
Grew up in Mira Mesa and used to watch them fly over my house on the outbound pattern. Phantoms, Tomcats, & Hawkeyes, with the occasional Intruder or Prowler when they'd come down from Whidbey.
Kelly Johnson says he goes over and sits down and the guy just stares at him for about a minute.
Then he says “we will take six for 30 million.”
They just stare at each other then Johnson feels something against his leg and looks down. There is a large brown paper bag under the table and when he looks up the guy is gone. So, he looks in the bag and is bundles of 100,000 dollar bills. Johnson said his first thought was “Kelly you’re a*s is dead.” Downtown Georgetown (Washington DC) brown bag with 30 million in cash. The CIA Director was the only federal government employee who can spend unvouchered Government money. Dave Peters recalls; ‘I obviously can’t prove the story but Kelly told it to me when I was just starting the program. He and Bill Parks were there for a ceremony dedicating Kelly Johnson Street at Beale. My backseater Ed Bethart and I were assigned to escort them. The only time he was under control was the actual ceremony.
So, Ed and I had the unbelievable pleasure of escorting them anywhere Kelly wanted to go for about nine hours. The majority of that time the four of us alone.’ this is how the CIA gave Kelly Johnson leader of the Skunk Works the money to start up the A-12 program
Dave Peters he told me this story a few years ago.
Linda Sheffield.
My dad flew BUFs out of Grand Forks. He spent a year as a FAC in Vietnam and upon return asked what he wanted to do. He said “anything but B-52s”. So the USAF naturally gave him B-52s. Made ditching the Air Force for Delta Air Lines a no-brainer.
I have no reason to not believe this accounting. I have witnessed similar in defense contracting. Pretty standard actually. The only thing thats changed is that its all digital now. Less traceability.
I worked at Tinker depot on the B-52 for a while. If your dad had to fly anything in the inventory...the Buff is probably the safest design we ever had. The Boeing 707 a close second. There's that.🙃
I can tell you stories about Air Force logic when it comes to assignments...bottom line...there ain't none. Until you reach the rank of E-7...then you can actually have input at San Antonio. By then you're NCOIC somewhere.
Especially in 1968. Dad flew 222 FAC missions in Cessna O-1 and O-2. Shot down twice, couple of air medals, DFC, etc., and USAF still sent him to the one platform he didn’t want.
The best nose art ever on a B-52
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