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Dusting this off for a reread...
Legend.
I have probably read 2 or 3 books in my lifetime as I have ADD, that was before it was actually a thing. 🙄
But Chuck Yeager's book and Jeremy McGrath are the two I can think of off hand. 😁
At one time Chuck Yeager was the FMOTP (Fastest Man on the Planet) and was the FIRST one to break the sound barrier. He was in a Rocketship that was dropped out of a B-29.
"On 14 October 1947, Yeager's plane - nicknamed Glamorous Glennis, in honour of his first wife - was dropped from the bomb bay of a B-29 aircraft above the Mojave Desert in the south-western US. Yeager, who was at the time just 24, reached the speed of more than Mach 1 (1,225km/h; 767mph) at 45,000ft (13,700m)."
The Right Stuff was a fantastic movie and the timing was really cool for me I had just graduated from Aviation Maintenance school and the movie came out. It's still one of my favorite movies of all time. If you've never seen it try to check it out as there's a lot of Aviation history back then.
I even went to Hollywood and saw it at the infamous Garmin Chinese theater when it premiered.
The way the movie was played out Chuck Yeager really got the short end of the stick by not being allowed into the Apollo program.
He clearly was the Baddest test pilot out there.
I don't read a lot of books but Chuck Yeager's autobiography I definitely did, he was a hero of mine who I looked up to.
Finally got to chat with him which was really cool.
There will never be another one like him.
GODSPEED Chuck....
Here are a couple of cool movie clips.
https://youtu.be/ABdJcpoOakU
https://youtu.be/hKGYm_jW60A
"The shots from my first Nighthawk Catch!"
They say she will stay in service until 2034 training.
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And performing “other duties”.
I've always loved how those look .Wild they were designed over 50 years ago. 1970's , crazy to think about what it would be like seeing one back then. I would love to see some of the newest stuff that doesn't officially exist . My grandmother worked on project Bluebook. I hoped to read something about aliens or UFO's in her diary when she passed. After reading a couple pages I learned more about my grandmother than any grandson should ever know. NEVER read Your grandmothers diary !! My mother warned me and I should have listened. No aliens or UFO's . She was always very tight lipped about what she did other than saying hat she worked on Project bluebook .
We are going to the Pima Air Museum while we are in town for SX. Looks pretty cool.
I really like watching this guy on YouTube. He tours a lot of the historic clandestine sites and occasionally catches some shapes being tested out in the wild. His last video was pretty good, catching some of the call signs out at Area-51.
Soviet paratroopers deploying from a Tupolev TB-3 in 1930.
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DRmdn2fjex9/?igsh=MXFqM2d0cjY5YXd4cg==
Makes me wonder what type of unmanned recon tech we're going to start seeing pop up in the coming years, and whether this could fit a similar bill to something like an RQ-180.
I saw another thread about this, and they referenced a similar sighting from 12 years ago: https://news.usni.org/2014/04/23/analysis-mystery-plane-seen-kansas-likely-u-s-military-aircraft
Some people say it was an A-12 Avenger in Kansas. The video footage from the video I posted looks like an A-12, too. They say it has similar tech to the B-2, so maybe they use it as a test mule at Area-51?
The absolute worst thing that could have happened to those guys is they didn't burn in and had to go back to living in 1938 Soviet Russia.
Not sure if you have read his other book, Press On.
If not, it’s a great read.
The Quest For Mach One is also really good.
I grew up idolizing Chuck Yeager. He was my hero for most of my childhood.
I just started listening to the Audio book. Brings back great memories.
I had a friend who worked on those in Burbank in the early 80's top secret program. Of course he couldn't tell me anything about the aircraft, but he did say one thing. "If batman had an airplane, it would look like this".
Nobody could ever top what the Skunk Works program put out. Sarting with the YA12 that evolved into the awesome Blackbird and then the F117.
From Google
The top engineered designers of Lockheed's Skunk Works were led by founder Clarence "Kelly" Johnson, a visionary who pioneered rapid, secret development, followed by his successors like Ben Rich, who oversaw stealth technology, and later Sherman "Sherm" Mullin, who led the F-22 development, all fostering small, innovative teams for iconic aircraft like the U-2, SR-71 Blackbird, F-104, and F-117 Nighthawk.
WoW! 😲
Avro Canada CF-105 Arrow
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avro_Canada_CF-105_Arrow
Pit Row
This thing looks like a death trap! 😲
https://www.facebook.com/share/r/17p9wtFHoc/
Sabres.
It’s so wild how from WW2 through the Cold War, we were putting out new planes, ships, helicopters, etc in a matter of months compared to decades now. An Essex carrier in WW2 took 8-12 months compared to 8-10+ years now. Ben Rich talks about it a bit at the end of his book, but all of the red tape and regulations have really slowed things down.
I listened to an interview on the Shawn Ryan show, and he mentioned that by the time any of these current projects are completed, the technology is already outdated and behind. For comparison, China is building a carrier in 3 1/2-8 years. Is that a sustainable pace for us?
Phantom factory.
Even though the F4 isn’t a “Century” bird…it was produced in the Century era.
Ol’ Smokie.
Growing up in Santee, under the crosswind of the Miramar approach, these were always flying overhead.
Another common sight...
When we were kids…
The Buffs had smaller POS J series smoke makers…
And they were LOUDER! 🤣
Btw, there are a coupl’a 52s out there with “only” 4 engines…
There's two replicas that I'm aware of, one in your neck of the woods and one out here. The one used in the miniseries way back when (hard to believe 1997 was almost 30 years ago) was the one from here. When they were done filming, rather than disassemble the thing properly for its return to Wetaskiwin, the film crew SAWED THE WINGS OFF!!! Then slapped it on a rail car and sent it home. Apparently took years to build in the first place and years more to repair that.
Grew up in Mira Mesa under the outbound pattern, and slowly watched the F4 fade out from the late 70s into the early 80s as the fleet squadrons, then the RAGs gradually shifted to the Tomcat.
We watched them at El Toro growing up. Such a cool plane! My Dad worked on those and B-52's in the Air Force in the 60's.
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