Aircraft Picture Thread

[stkjock]

http://www.warhistoryonline.com/fea...s-plane-found-crashed-in-egyptian-desert.html

 

[Steve@Tasca]

Yikes, not a nice way to go.

 

[Steve@Tasca]

This one had a better ending for the flight crew, not so much for the aircraft.

 

[waylander]

 

[RichardSATX]

Those f22s are badass

What he said.

 

[ford20]

This one had a better ending for the flight crew, not so much for the aircraft.

Here it sits today. Sucks to hear about how it went out though after being preserved for almost 50 years.

 

[Steve@Tasca]

One of the most depressing documentaries I've ever seen, I think I might even have an old videotape I made when it was on PBS back when it first aired.

You have to wonder what's still sitting there and if the engines are good why no one has gone to rescue them.

-Steve

 

[Herknav]

The Black Widow was always one of my favorites, I don't believe there are any left in airworthy condition.

Totally badass fighter. First purpose-built night fighter. And it has that cool quad-50 streamlined turret.

 

[ford20]

One of the most depressing documentaries I've ever seen, I think I might even have an old videotape I made when it was on PBS back when it first aired.

You have to wonder what's still sitting there and if the engines are good why no one has gone to rescue them.

-Steve

I was just thinking that after reading about it. It must have cost a lot of money to rebuild those engines just to leave them there but I guess the price to fly them back into the AFB would have outweighed finding them, pulling them and taking it apart to make sure the fire didn't damage them since from what I read the fire engulfed the entire plane. Although I guess they could have just been talking about the fuselage

 

[Steve@Tasca]

These are post fire pics, I bet the engines are still good.

 

[RichardSATX]

I absolutely hate seeing old birds go to waste!!

 

[ford20]

These are post fire pics, I bet the engines are still good.

I guess the good news is that anyone looking to restore a B-29 knows where they can find 4 new engines, about 3 sets of propeller blades along with brand new tires haha.

 

[69Mach1-409]

I saw the story of them trying to rebuild that plane on history channel or something. Very depressing..

 

[retfr8flyr]

Guys don't forget what I think was the most advanced plane of WWII, the Horton 229. If the Germans had been able to build these in decent numbers the war may have turned out differently.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqgfjXaJxV8

 

[Steve@Tasca]

Guys don't forget what I think was the most advanced plane of WWII, the Horton 229. If the Germans had been able to build these in decent numbers the war may have turned out differently.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqgfjXaJxV8

Can't watch it all now but was there any mention of the actual flight testing from back in the day?

We all know that the U.S. played with flying wings with little success because without computers to aid in the flight controls they simply couldn't control the aircraft and that really didn't change until the B2 came out.

-Steve

 

[RichardSATX]

Guys don't forget what I think was the most advanced plane of WWII, the Horton 229. If the Germans had been able to build these in decent numbers the war may have turned out differently.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqgfjXaJxV8

That thing is amazing! I've read about it. It's curious how genius and bat-guano crazy are often associated.

 

[retfr8flyr]

Can't watch it all now but was there any mention of the actual flight testing from back in the day?

We all know that the U.S. played with flying wings with little success because without computers to aid in the flight controls they simply couldn't control the aircraft and that really didn't change until the B2 came out.

-Steve

The US never finished the 2nd prototype, they just shipped it home. The Germans conducted several test flights on the original prototype and the performance was outstanding. They did some mock combat dogfight trials with the Me-262 and the Horton kicked it's ass. This thing had the same power as the 262 but weighed about 2/3rd's what the 262 weighed and had much better wing loading. The first prototype was lost due to an engine failure and subsequent crash.

The biggest factor was the radar stealth was about 20% better then any of the then current fighters and with the speed of the 229 the radar stations wouldn't have been able to defend against it and they could have knocked out the British radar system.

Horton was also designing a 6 engine version, called the America bomber to hit this country. It's all in the vid when you get time to watch it. The Germans were so far ahead of the rest of the world in aircraft design that it's scary.

 

[Steve@Tasca]

Interesting stuff, always new things to learn.

As for the Amerika bomber, I believe they were looking at several variations of conventional and flying wing type aircraft to perform that task. Pretty shortsighted of them to disregard long range heavy bombers when they built the Luftwaffe.

-Steve

 

[retfr8flyr]

Walther Wever was the big advocate of long range strategic bombers and when he died in a plane crash there wasn't anyone that could push for them. Ernst Udet and Goring himself were huge proponents of dive bombing and light twin engine bombers. Without someone fighting for big bombers they lost out and Germany lost out also. The lack of a big long range strategic bomber was the down fall of Germany. The Luftwaffe couldn't knock out England and Russian's moved all their factories past the range of the German bombers so they couldn't ever reach them, to slow down production.

Yes, the America bomber was Hitlers fascination with bombing New York and there were many company's designing aircraft to meet the specs.

 

[Steve@Tasca]

I know hindsight is 20/20 but they made an awful lot of mistakes like that, Hitler demanding that the ME-262 be used and developed as a bomber caused huge delays and issues in bringing it on line in any decent numbers and that plane could have also had a serious impact if it had been properly developed from the beginning.



This is one of the new "ME-262 Project" aircraft, gorgeous thing isn't it?