I live 45min away from a small airport/museum where they have a flying ME 262. I saw one in the air while driving on the Autobahn passing the airport. Couldn't believe my eyes when I first saw it.
They have a website. Check out the videos.
https://www.flugmuseum-messerschmitt.de/
For me it's the F-104 all the way.
Its planform and name sure fit together. Had a funky way of opening canopy too.CF-105 Arrow anyone?
I'd do anything to get a ride around the world in a SR-71!
Not a fighter, it has no offensive or defensive capabilities other than it's speed.
It's what a jet plane is suppose to look like.
Mine's an A12, the Air Force variant and I do believe it had an air-to-air "solution". Very limited to two missiles if I remember right. One variant I saw had a gun buried the fuselage, a 20 or 30mm cannon with the muzzle right next to the cockpit. I think all were prototypes and the CIA didn't like the Air Force having it's own supersonic spyplane...
Didn't the A12 have a longer tail section? Or am I thinking of a SR-71 variant?
"HERE" is some interesting data.
Something else I came upon...
M-21 Blackbird Aircraft
The Lockheed M-21 Blackbird is a unique variant of the A-12, the earliest Blackbird type. Built for a CIA program code-named "Tagboard," the M-21 carried unpiloted Lockheed D-21 vehicles for intelligence gathering. These drones were intended for launch from the M-21 "mother ship" for flights over hostile territories. Design features of the M-21 include the second seat for the Launch Control Officer and the launch pylon on which the drone is mounted. The sole surviving M-21 was built in 1963, and today is on display at the Museum of Flight in Seattle.
A few interesting notes about the "BLACK BIRDS"
None were lost in combat operations
Over 800 missiles were fired at them in South East Asia
They are considered the first true "stealth" aircraft
The top speed is still classified--Mach 3.3 is confirmed--Mach 3.5 is unconfirmed over Libya--( a friend of mine-older than me--flew A-12's and would never tell me the top end !!)
Cost was about $100,000 per flight hour
Turn around was about one week per aircraft for missions ( basically they had to go back and tighten everything up after a flight )
Design work was done with slide rulers,pencils and paper
It is still the fastest air breathing manned aircraft ever flown
On it's last flight to a museum , it set four new records!!!
All of the records set by the "BLACK BIRD" were by operational aircraft---not stripped down variants!!!
Because of heating, the windscreen was pure quartz---ok that's cool!
The aircraft "grew" several inches at operating temps---View attachment 323362
It was not condensation, the fuel tanks did leak fuel until the aircraft skin was at operating temps and the the tanks were sealed.
Part of the reason for partial fueling was to reduce stress on the wheels and landing gear.
I've heard as well that they leak like a sieve on the tarmac, due to things not sealed very well (not "stretched" into proper specs) and had to be quickly refueled once in flight & warmed up (grown a bit). I've also heard that this was just condensation under the bird before flight..
Ya know, we sort of high jacked the thread with the SR-71! Here's one for you--those other guys make some pretty planes as well! SU-47--View attachment 323369
Yes they leaked fuel until they reached operating temps. It was designed that way!!! They typically took off with a lite fuel load and tanked off before climbing to altitude. As they reached cruise altitude and speed they heated up and everything sealed up. This was typical at the start of a mission--during the mission they would tank off several times but the aircraft was heat soaked and didn't leak during these operations --it was timed in minutes---they immediately climbed back to altitude and speed after tanking. Upon landing they were still hot! They did not fly around in a pattern but came straight in from altitude. Of interest-- since they tanked at a higher speed than regular aircraft--- the boom on the tankers had high speed fins installed. The tankers were SR specific --used only for the "BLACK BIRD"
So do we, same style done 20 years ago...
No offense to my friends who worked on the 29, but they're both great examples of how not to build fighters.Only difference---theirs is full size!!
Only difference---theirs is full size!!
Went to a talk by a former SR71 pilot/instructor recently.
The SR71 had to fly really slow, and the tanker aircraft really fast, just so they could match velocities. Complicating things was that the fill port for the SR71 was at the rear of the aircraft. To achieve full tanks the SR71 had do go into a nosedown attitude to top off the tanks fully, meaning the tanker had to follow of course. So the final part of refueling involved a dive!
They were compulsory afterburner too.
When he discussed "unstarts", where one engine would lose thrust, he said the first thing to determine was which engine had unstarted. That was easy as the side of the cockpit hit you quite hard and the engine that suffered the unstart was on the other side At that point you had only a few seconds to deal with the problem.
Afaik the X-29's were not scaled at all. A model of one was built for display, but both of the actual aircraft were built full size and the year was 1984.
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