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B-29ski

Air and Space magazine had a great article a few years ago about how the Soviets recreated the B-29 into the TU-4 including, since Stalin had said make a direct copy, the graffiti and grease marker notes inside the structure.

That's funny.

But the sad thing is, you know the boys working at Tupolev weren't about to not copy it literally. Too many vacancies at the posh dachas East of the Urals.

Thanks for the link. I did not have that one.

The General Electric jet engine group had asked the airforce for some jets that were equipped their engines. GE wanted to do a flying photo shoot for PR purposes. I believe the GE photographer was in a Lear Jet.

The group of aircraft rendezvoused near Victorville, CA, outside Edwards AFB airspace. (You can see the photo shoot pictures here.) It was reported that the GE photographer radioed the F104 pilot and asked him to get closer to the XB80. "Closer." "Closer." "Closer." The Starfighter got caught in the XB70 turbulence and was flipped into the Valkyrie's tail. The F104 pilot was killed instantly.

The airwaves crackled, "Midair!" The XB70 crew wondered who got hit. They did not realize it was them. In the spin downward, only the copilot was able to eject. The chief test pilot was apparently pinned helpless in the spinning aircraft.

That was the "What will we do with this thing now?" experiment.

From:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_P-38_Lightning

"Very early in the Pacific War, a scheme was proposed to fit Lightnings with floats to allow them to make long-range ferry flights. The floats would be removed before the aircraft went into combat. There were concerns that saltwater spray would corrode the tailplane, and so in March 1942, P-38E 41-1986 was modified with a tailplane raised some 16-18 in (41�46 cm), booms lengthened by two feet and a rearward-facing second seat added for an observer to monitor the effectiveness of the new arrangement. A second version was crafted on the same airframe with the twin booms given greater sideplane area to augment the vertical rudders. This arrangement was removed and a final third version was fabricated that had the booms returned to normal length but the tail raised 33 in (84 cm). All three tail modifications were designed by George H. "Bert" Estabrook. The final version was used for a quick series of dive tests on 7 December 1942 in which Milo Burcham performed the test maneuvers and Kelly Johnson observed from the rear seat. Johnson concluded that the raised floatplane tail gave no advantage in solving the problem of compressibility. At no time was this P-38E testbed airframe actually fitted with floats, and the idea was quickly abandoned as the U.S. Navy proved to have enough sealift capacity to keep up with P-38 deliveries to the South Pacific."


It would have looked something like this model, which used a standard tail.

That looks like the vintage of RC's we had at Offutt. I was there in 84-85 in the 55 AMS. Used to work on the electronics that were on board. We also supported the EC-135 and E-4 NEACP as well.

Jeff

Not peeking, but it's a Russian copy of an Americian B-29. At the end of WWII Several B-29s made emergency landings in Russa after making bombing runs on Japan and the Russians used them as templates in developing their version of the B-29.

I've been told by Air Force jocks that the F-104 was one of the toughest fighters to fly. Most have told me the 104 was just a manned rocket.

I don't know for sure.

The 104 was nicknamed the "widowmaker" in Europe. There were still Italian and German 104's in use when I was stationed in Germany. We had an Italian F-104 go down en route to our base for an exercise. Took half a day for us to find it. Pretty much ended up an aluminum hole in a hillside.

The Germans lost about 110 Luftwaffe pilots in Starfighters. The fact that the early versions of the 104 had downward firing ejection seats didn't help the situation. If you had to punch out at low altitudes you were in a world of hurt.

TU 4... Tupolev 4

Yeah, that's an older RC. I looked up the tail # and that one had served in Vietnam and then was retrofitted in the early 80's as a Rivet Joint.

With a landing speed close to 170kts, it sure as hell ddin't leave much room for error between being too fast or too slow and stalling.

Clearly the engineers of the 104 made a mistake in some conversion, those wings are too small! And, you could shave on the leading edge (I exaggerate, but not much).

I remember the ones parked in Sigonella that belonged to the guinea Air Force. They had rubber protectors on the leading edges, they noshit cut you!

Seeing as how we've been talking about the F-104 I thought some of these you videos would be nice.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIvv1PAmesM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6K4iSxET6g

Ahh, Love those Lysanders!

Foxbat

Before the Cold War ended, there was a RC here in Alaska, called the Cobra Ball, that flew missions off of Shemya AFB out at the end of the Aleutian chain. When KAL flight 007 was shot down by the Ruskies, there was a lot of speculation that they thought they'd finally caught an RC straying into their airspace, and took it out. Probably will always be lot's of controversy/conspiracy theories over that incident.

I remember the event well, as I was in the midst of basic at Lackland in Sep 83, and the TI's had us convinced were about to be at war with the red menace.

Jeff

Yeah, I recall hearing about that years later. We (my office at FTD) had some tasking with RC-135's out of Offutt and Kadena flying Burning Wind missions. This was some years later so the "mistaken identity" theory had of course grown into legend by then.

I had an evening to relax and have greatly enjoyed this thread. I was hoping to see one of my favorites but it would be exceedingly easy to identify. The F86

Thanks,

Jim