Interesting or unusual planes?

[spesh]

you lucky, lucky man. I've done some of that as an air cadet, but nearer 150mph in a chipmunk than 280 in a spit.

Where's my cheque book?

What's the going rate for a kidney these days? It's not like you need both of them... 

[Jaded]

 

[Jaded]

A Stealth bomber just few over. It was pretty noisy.

[Hot Flatus]

 Two of them, taking off from Fairford. Quite beautiful against a clear deep blue sky.

[ElyDave]

No photos, but so far this morning 3 Ospreys and 3 C130's in close succession

[TheLurker]

Two of them, taking off from Fairford. Quite beautiful against a clear deep blue sky.

Oh is that what the noise was?  I assumed it was B-52s.  Heard them and wandered round to the front of the house to see if I could see anything, but they must have been taking off west-bound.

[Jaded]

Oh, you can't see them! 

[Hot Flatus]

Oh, you can't see them! 

All I could see was a little man in a sitting position at 4000ft with a thermos flask at his side.

[Hot Flatus]

Two of them, taking off from Fairford. Quite beautiful against a clear deep blue sky.

Oh is that what the noise was?  I assumed it was B-52s.  Heard them and wandered round to the front of the house to see if I could see anything, but they must have been taking off west-bound.

Different sound. B2 are like a loud roaring jetliner, B52 have a high-pitched whine.

Tend to hear the B2s at night.

[Hot Flatus]

Just gone over again heading west towards Fairford

[Mr Larrington]

Some anti-social bugger performed a low-level pass over the bit of Mesa Verde National Park wot I was in in some kind of Rutan powered by the noisiest engine in the Four Corners region

[Jurek]

Courtesy of LFGSS.....

https://lfgss.microco.sm/api/v1/files/21591dc9abf078470060cf11cd97969ba8d90180.jpg

[Jurek]

Courtesy of LFGSS.....

https://lfgss.microco.sm/api/v1/files/21591dc9abf078470060cf11cd97969ba8d90180.jpg

In the background is North Foreland lighthouse. Situated between Broadstairs and Margate.
They took the pretty route.

ETA :I confess to being gobsmacked as to how big they are - compared to the Eurofighters.

[spesh]

Courtesy of LFGSS.....

https://lfgss.microco.sm/api/v1/files/21591dc9abf078470060cf11cd97969ba8d90180.jpg

In the background is North Foreland lighthouse. Situated between Broadstairs and Margate.
They took the pretty route.

ETA :I confess to being gobsmacked as to how big they are - compared to the Eurofighters.

That's a pair of F-35 Lightning IIs (which are about the same length as a Eurofighter Typhoon) with the B-2s in that picture.

For future reference:

Typhoon - delta wing with canard foreplanes just ahead of the cockpit, chin intake, twin engines, single tail fin.

F-35 - conventional layout, trapezoidal wings, side intakes, single engine, twin tails, tailplanes stick out behind engine nozzle.


HTH


edited to correct position of foreplanes on Typhoon and add F-35 tailplane position.

[Jurek]

Courtesy of LFGSS.....

https://lfgss.microco.sm/api/v1/files/21591dc9abf078470060cf11cd97969ba8d90180.jpg

In the background is North Foreland lighthouse. Situated between Broadstairs and Margate.
They took the pretty route.

ETA :I confess to being gobsmacked as to how big they are - compared to the Eurofighters.

That's a pair of F-35 Lightning IIs (which are about the same length as a Eurofighter Typhoon) with the B-2s in that picture.

For future reference:

Typhoon - delta wing with canard foreplanes abaft the cockpit, chin intake, twin engines, single tail fin.

F-35 - conventional layout, trapezoidal wings, side intakes, single engine, twin tails.

HTH

I stand corrected
Thx
 

[TheLurker]

Well if we're doing basic aircraft recognition...

Apart from the obvious spinny things up the front (and the god-awful racket*) the A400-M has much less swept back wings than the C-17, the TE especially is much closer to a straight line and the C-17 has winglets on the tips.  The fin on the A400-M goes more or less all the way to the end of the fuselage whereas there's an obvious length of fuselage after the fin on the C-17.

You wouldn't believe how many years of watching the damn things it has taken for me to be able to readily tell them apart.

Was speaking to one of the A330-Voyager maintenance bods from Brize a few days ago and learnt that Fairford will be home to Yank F-35s.  Which was news to me, it may not be news to you.

*Really.  For modern aeroplane engines they're bloody noisy.

[pcolbeck]

*Really.  For modern aeroplane engines they're bloody noisy.

I suspect that unlike with civil airliners low noise wasn't very high up the list of requirements when they were designing the thing.

[spesh]

*Really.  For modern aeroplane engines they're bloody noisy.

I suspect that unlike with civil airliners low noise wasn't very high up the list of requirements when they were designing the thing.

The thing with modern airliners is that they are using high bypass ratio turbo fans (compare the size of the front fan with the central core exhaust pipe) where most of the mass flow is at a comparatively low velocity (the thrust comes from the sheer volume of air being shifted) - old airliners with turbojets and fighters with low bypass ratio turbofans have all or nearly all of the mass flow at high velocity, therefore were and are noisier than modern airliners.

With a turboprop-driven aircraft, the noise can be a function of the local velocity of the blade tips (especially if they go trans/supersonic*), blade count, blade shape and constructive interference of the sound waves. The A400M has two of its props spinning one way, and two in the opposite direction in order to balance the torque effect, so I suspect that there is some kind of weird effect going on there.

* Which is why the Tu-95 "Bear" is notoriously noisy, to the point that it can be detected by the passive sonar on submarines. Then there was the Republic XF-84H "Thunderscreech" - probably the noisiest aircraft ever built, which could induce nausea, and in one instance a seizure, in ground crew.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_XF-84H_Thunderscreech#Noise

[Steph]

I have a colleague. She has a number of interesting personality traits, which include her assumption that everyone else is wrong, as well as a consistent resultant refusal to accept advice. A relevant and real sample:
Git of a colleague: You can tell the difference between a Boeing 777 and an Airbus A330 but you have to get really close up so you can read the 'Rolls Royce label on the engine.
Me: [Couple of quick hints, such as bulkier appearance and wingtips, including...] Look at the end of the tail. 777 APU exits to one side, and the tail looks squared off. 330 is round, like a rocket nozzle or a giant biro with the nib retracted.
GOAC: YOU CAN'T EXPECT PEOPLE TO NOTICE TINY THINGS LIKE THAT!

Sigh...

[TheLurker]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_XF-84H_Thunderscreech

Ohhh what a tempting project for a kit scale rubber powered model.  A jet airframe that can legitimately by driven by a prop. I do so like NMF aeroplanes and it just happens that I have lots of Al. tissue to hand.... 

*Lurk looks at his current build programme, does quick mental calculation...*  OK, should be in a position to start draughting a plan in.... Oh. January 2021.  Oh well.

[spesh]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_XF-84H_Thunderscreech

Ohhh what a tempting project for a kit scale rubber powered model.  A jet airframe that can legitimately by driven by a prop. I do so like NMF aeroplanes and it just happens that I have lots of Al. tissue to hand.... 

*Lurk looks at his current build programme, does quick mental calculation...*  OK, should be in a position to start draughting a plan in.... Oh. January 2021.  Oh well.

There were a number of mixed-propulsion projects in the late 40s/early 50s, but advances in power and reliability of jet engines meant that most never got beyond the prototype stage:

Ryan FR-1 Fireball (US Navy's first aircraft with a jet engine - only 66 were built before Japan surrendered in 1945)
Ryan XF2R Dark Shark
Convair XP-81
Curtiss XF15C-1

Or if you want to go completely off-the-wall, look up the various prop-driven tail-sitter projects of the early 1950s:

Convair XFY-1
Lockheed XFV-1
Northrop N-63 (I don't think that one made it off the drawing board though)

[TheLurker]

There were a number of mixed-propulsion projects ...

Aye, but the 'screech looks like a "proper "1950s jet only with a prop. up front rather than the, interesting, oddballs that you've noted that look, in the main, like standard piston engine airframes.  It should also be possible to find good three-views of the 'screech's donor airframe well, which may be a bit more of a problem with at least some of the others. The airframe is also quite conventional in plan so it's likely to be susceptible to the usual trimming techniques for rubber powered models.

... prop-driven tail-sitter projects of the early 1950s:

Beyond, way beyond, my aeromodelling talents I think.  Can't for the life of me see how you'd even begin trim one of these for rubber powered freeflight.  You might just be able to get a ROG - the torque effect of an unwinding motor without the equivalent of a helicopter tail rotor would be "interesting" -  but I can't see how you'd transition to level flight.  Think that the flight profile would be, "Corkscrew up, 'hang' for a second or three in mid-air until power out then fall straight back to earth creating a pile of splinters and tissue on contact."  Or possibly a corkscrew parabola with impact under power.  Nooo.  An experiment for some-one braver than me I think. 

Suspect the only practical solution for a tail sitter would be to gut a cheap multi-rotor drone for its gyro(s)* and motor(s) and go the RC route and even then I still can't see how you'd transition to level flight.



*Or accelerometer/whatever they use for stabilization.

Perhaps this discussion should be continued - if necessary - on pub/flights of fancy?

[spesh]

Nah, it's fine. I was just spitballing. 

Be thankful I didn't venture into the realms of Luft '46 napkinwaffen and bring up the Triebflügel.

[Exit Stage Left]

Some confusion as we saw the Southport Air Display participants while we were watching kites, and having a go at sand yachting at Lytham. Hard to tell between a Saab Viggen and a Typhoon at a distance.

I thought the P47 Thunderbolt in its D-Day markings might be a Hawker Tempest. The T33 Shooting Star might have been a Jet Provost. No idea what the Saab Tunnan might be. The BBMF included a Dakota.

[spesh]

The aircraft that the Saab Tunnan resembles the closest is one of the design variants of the Focke-Wulf Ta 183 Huckebein, which only ever got as far as the wind tunnel model stage, but which has often been claimed to have influenced the F-86 Sabre and MiG-15.