Historic Aircraft from back in the day

SEEMEFIRST
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SEEMEFIRST 3/17/2022 8:20pm
3/17/2022 8:20pm
I was working for General Dynamics in the 80s and 90s.
One of the programs I was working on was the A-12.
It was a flying wing attack bomber for the Navy.
It failed miserably. It was grossly over weight and moreso over budget, but it taught us a lot about "plastic aircraft".

The thing is, everytime a F-111part needed work, they pulled me. Pissed off the A-guys, but here we are.
We couldn't build anymore F-111s, but we were damn sure interested in keeping the one's we had flying.
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Joey_Bridges
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Joey_Bridges 3/21/2022 9:38am
3/21/2022 9:38am
early wrote:
Not really historic but these guys are incredible https://youtu.be/Ynvoriv09Ks
Grew up in Santee, which was just outside the crosswind approach to Miramar NAS.
We would ride up to the top of the hills behind the house and watch them whenever they put on a show there.
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Sully
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Sully 3/21/2022 4:45pm
3/21/2022 4:45pm Edited Date/Time 3/21/2022 5:52pm
early wrote:
Not really historic but these guys are incredible https://youtu.be/Ynvoriv09Ks
Joey_Bridges wrote:
Grew up in Santee, which was just outside the crosswind approach to Miramar NAS. We would ride up to the top of the hills behind the...
Grew up in Santee, which was just outside the crosswind approach to Miramar NAS.
We would ride up to the top of the hills behind the house and watch them whenever they put on a show there.
I grew up in Mira Mesa. If we didn't feel like fighting traffic getting in and out of Miramar, we'd just get on the roof of the house and have a perfect view. Later, when I joined the Navy and went to photo school in Pensacola (their home base), they would use our school building as show center for their weekly practices, so every Wednesday at 8:15, we got front row seats to an air show.
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SEEMEFIRST
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SEEMEFIRST 3/21/2022 5:23pm
3/21/2022 5:23pm
early wrote:
Not really historic but these guys are incredible https://youtu.be/Ynvoriv09Ks
They are!
Did you know that they are only on the team for 2 years?
Then those bad asses are back in the skies defending our country.
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plowboy
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plowboy 3/22/2022 11:17am
3/22/2022 11:17am
Falcon wrote:
I loved watching the Blue Angels as a kid. This trickery gets me every time:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrYmOEvDEUE
ExactlyWoohoo . That scared the poop right out of everyone. I'm retired AF but had the great privilege of working for a decade or so with several Navy test pilots. Just next level bad ass motherfuckers (pardon my French).
SEEMEFIRST
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SEEMEFIRST 3/22/2022 6:46pm
3/22/2022 6:46pm
Falcon wrote:
I loved watching the Blue Angels as a kid. This trickery gets me every time:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrYmOEvDEUE
plowboy wrote:
Exactly:woohoo: . That scared the poop right out of everyone. I'm retired AF but had the great privilege of working for a decade or so with...
ExactlyWoohoo . That scared the poop right out of everyone. I'm retired AF but had the great privilege of working for a decade or so with several Navy test pilots. Just next level bad ass motherfuckers (pardon my French).
No, no. That's exactly how you describe it.

I too got to work with test pilots, Air Force, not Navy (Don't tell Dad), but yeah.

I was on a team that worked on the Blue Angles tooling.

A test pilot that used to come around and shoot the shit once a week or so came by in street clothes one day.
I barely recognized him.
Me: "What's up, Bob?"
Bob: "Grounded".
Me: "What?!?!?"
Bob: "Evidently some tight ass fisherman on Eagle Mountain lake got my tail numbers while I was inverted".
Me: "Copied that....bummer".
Falcon
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Falcon 3/25/2022 11:40am
3/25/2022 11:40am
I'm also a big fan of the B-58 Hustler. Just the idea of fast, high-flying, nuke the shit out of the Soviets, and then fly home seems so 1960 to me. I love that era in aviation:

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plowboy
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plowboy 3/25/2022 11:50am
3/25/2022 11:50am
Falcon wrote:
I'm also a big fan of the B-58 Hustler. Just the idea of fast, high-flying, nuke the shit out of the Soviets, and then fly home...
I'm also a big fan of the B-58 Hustler. Just the idea of fast, high-flying, nuke the shit out of the Soviets, and then fly home seems so 1960 to me. I love that era in aviation:

They had a B-58 on a pedestal at Chanute AFB IL, back in the day. It was cool as heck. The old timers said it was a maintenance nightmare though. Years later, I worked on the F-111...THAT was a nightmare. Badass but the flight hour/maintenance hour ratio was horrendous.
Sully
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Sully 3/25/2022 6:12pm
3/25/2022 6:12pm
Falcon wrote:
I'm also a big fan of the B-58 Hustler. Just the idea of fast, high-flying, nuke the shit out of the Soviets, and then fly home...
I'm also a big fan of the B-58 Hustler. Just the idea of fast, high-flying, nuke the shit out of the Soviets, and then fly home seems so 1960 to me. I love that era in aviation:

That era of aviation was definitely badass…


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G-man
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G-man 4/16/2022 1:29pm
4/16/2022 1:29pm
Sully wrote:
That era of aviation was definitely badass… [img]https://p.vitalmx.com/photos/forums/2022/03/25/540043/s1200_865434DF_EF66_4C1A_BC8F_234F49DB50FF.jpg[/img]
That era of aviation was definitely badass…


Never knew of this Aircraft.....




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SEEMEFIRST
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SEEMEFIRST 4/16/2022 2:28pm
4/16/2022 2:28pm
Falcon wrote:
I'm also a big fan of the B-58 Hustler. Just the idea of fast, high-flying, nuke the shit out of the Soviets, and then fly home...
I'm also a big fan of the B-58 Hustler. Just the idea of fast, high-flying, nuke the shit out of the Soviets, and then fly home seems so 1960 to me. I love that era in aviation:

plowboy wrote:
They had a B-58 on a pedestal at Chanute AFB IL, back in the day. It was cool as heck. The old timers said it was...
They had a B-58 on a pedestal at Chanute AFB IL, back in the day. It was cool as heck. The old timers said it was a maintenance nightmare though. Years later, I worked on the F-111...THAT was a nightmare. Badass but the flight hour/maintenance hour ratio was horrendous.
I worked on the one hundred and oneie one some, but on the tooling end.
Primarily on the guillotine that separated all the wires and stuff from the capsule during an ejection.

Very complicated, but also very cool.

We got ahold of some correspondence from a delivery of 2 F-111s to Great Britain.

They delaminated the nacelles, there were chunks of the horizontal stabilizers missing, and the "Mach 2" paint was boiled off in front of the canopy.

Piolts notes said "You have received a very fine aircraft."

Hehe.... yeah, someone was going WFO on the deck across the ocean it sounds like to me.
plowboy
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plowboy 4/16/2022 3:33pm
4/16/2022 3:33pm
Falcon wrote:
I'm also a big fan of the B-58 Hustler. Just the idea of fast, high-flying, nuke the shit out of the Soviets, and then fly home...
I'm also a big fan of the B-58 Hustler. Just the idea of fast, high-flying, nuke the shit out of the Soviets, and then fly home seems so 1960 to me. I love that era in aviation:

plowboy wrote:
They had a B-58 on a pedestal at Chanute AFB IL, back in the day. It was cool as heck. The old timers said it was...
They had a B-58 on a pedestal at Chanute AFB IL, back in the day. It was cool as heck. The old timers said it was a maintenance nightmare though. Years later, I worked on the F-111...THAT was a nightmare. Badass but the flight hour/maintenance hour ratio was horrendous.
SEEMEFIRST wrote:
I worked on the one hundred and oneie one some, but on the tooling end. Primarily on the guillotine that separated all the wires and stuff...
I worked on the one hundred and oneie one some, but on the tooling end.
Primarily on the guillotine that separated all the wires and stuff from the capsule during an ejection.

Very complicated, but also very cool.

We got ahold of some correspondence from a delivery of 2 F-111s to Great Britain.

They delaminated the nacelles, there were chunks of the horizontal stabilizers missing, and the "Mach 2" paint was boiled off in front of the canopy.

Piolts notes said "You have received a very fine aircraft."

Hehe.... yeah, someone was going WFO on the deck across the ocean it sounds like to me.
I don't doubt it. The "official" top speed of the 111 was understated. During the gulf war...our planes flew out of their paint pretty quick.
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Money
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Money 4/16/2022 3:48pm
4/16/2022 3:48pm
When ever these fly its gonna be epic. The f9 already flys and is crazy how it lands on the drone ship




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Jeremy A.K.
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Jeremy A.K. 4/16/2022 7:24pm
4/16/2022 7:24pm
I don't really know shit about fug when it comes to military aircraft but I will say the A10 is one bad ass piece of equipment.
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freeh
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freeh 4/17/2022 5:38am
4/17/2022 5:38am
G-man wrote:
Never knew of this Aircraft..... [img]https://p.vitalmx.com/photos/forums/2022/04/16/544199/s1200_xb_70_valkyrie_6_of_24.jpg[/img] [img]https://p.vitalmx.com/photos/forums/2022/04/16/544200/s1200_xb_70_valkyrie_16_of_24.jpg[/img] [img]https://p.vitalmx.com/photos/forums/2022/04/16/544198/s1200_xb_70_valkyrie_5_of_24.jpg[/img]
Never knew of this Aircraft.....




The sole remaining Valkyrie is on display at the Wright Patterson Museum in Dayton. It is quite an aircraft!
1
harescrambled
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harescrambled 4/17/2022 6:57am
4/17/2022 6:57am
freeh wrote:
The sole remaining Valkyrie is on display at the Wright Patterson Museum in Dayton. It is quite an aircraft!
I saw a documentary on this aircraft years ago. Word is that the MIG-25 was developed specifically to counter the XB-70
1
Ace Dudemeister 4/17/2022 7:48am
4/17/2022 7:48am
While a little late, Gail Halvorsen died in February. While not flashy, what he did was as important as the jets.
G-man
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G-man 4/17/2022 10:22am
4/17/2022 10:22am
freeh wrote:
The sole remaining Valkyrie is on display at the Wright Patterson Museum in Dayton. It is quite an aircraft!
A lot of creative aircraft was designed back in the day before the advantage of using computers, 3D programs etc like they do now.

The thought of a supersonic bomber is pretty cool.

https://www.cnet.com/pictures/an-up-close-look-at-americas-forgotten-su…..
Joey_Bridges
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Joey_Bridges 4/17/2022 11:08am
4/17/2022 11:08am
Jeremy A.K. wrote:
My brother is a marine and says there is no sweeter sound in the world ,lol.
Listening to those pilots, and those guys on the ground gives you goosebumps.
2
Ace Dudemeister 4/17/2022 1:00pm
4/17/2022 1:00pm
Joey_Bridges wrote:
Every single minute of this film is worth watching.
https://youtu.be/PSwNVJYUXtw
Jeremy A.K. wrote:
My brother is a marine and says there is no sweeter sound in the world ,lol.
That depends. If you are CONUS and they are launching sorties every 30 min they are a massive annoyance.

If you are in CENTCOM, and you need some help, yes, they are awesome.

Amazing how just the small change of being in CENTCOM, can change your opinion.

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