Let's play guess that aircraft

[fatpat268]

Handley Page Victor

 

[Blitzvogel]

Close, but it's a Mirage 4000.

Those are IAI Kfirs, which IIRC are based on the Mirage III but refitted with Israeli avionics, and I think the GE J79 engine in place of the SNECMA Atar. They also say "Kfir" on the nose

 

[DominionSeraph]

They also say "Kfir" on the nose

d'oh!

 

[Arkaign]

d'oh!

I dunno what that is, but it's a beautiful looking piece of engineering.

 

[Blitzvogel]

That's one of the F-16XL prototypes modified by NASA for supersonic cruise and airflow tests. The F-16XL lost out to the F-15E Strike Eagle for a competition to replace the F-111 in the tactical strike role. The XL was one of the first fighter aircraft with "real" supercruise capability thanks to it's cranked arrow design, which allowed for AIM-120 AMRAAMs to be carried semi-recessed in the wing, improving aerodynamics, as well as an 80% increase in fuel load. To be honest, I kind of think that the USAF would've been better off adopting the XLs instead of F-16Cs. The huge increase in range, payload, and what not would've served the USAF much better despite the slight loss in low speed maneuvering capability and lower thrust to weight ratio when the plane was fully loaded up on internal fuel (about 3:4 for the XL, compared to 1:1 for F-16C). The actual XL airframe was about 3000 lbs heavier than the F-16C's due to the small fuselage length increase and larger wing.

The addition of either canards on the intake (a la certain versions of F-16s tested) or 3D thrust vectoring would've "fixed" the low speed maneuvering vs what an F-16C could do. I also wonder how well a two engined version of the XL with let's say GE F414s would've worked. The huge increase in total max thrust (44,000 lbs vs 28,000) would help offset the increase in weight of having a second engine (two GE F414s would be ~5000 lbs, vs the ~4000 lbs of a single GE F110) as well as other weight increases, while adding two engine survivability. Range obviously would've been decreased by a bit by the widening of the fuselage, intake and increased weight, but the range was already so good, it wouldn't be too sore of a loss. Though thinking about it, I can think of where fuel storage increases could've been made thanks to the forced widening needed for two GE F414s as well as using CFTs like later block F-16s.

 

[davmat787]

Can anyone identify this beauty? There is an interesting story about this specific aircraft I will share once identified.

 

[gevorg]

Nerves of steel:

 

[foghorn67]

Can anyone identify this beauty? There is an interesting story about this specific aircraft I will share once identified.

Boeing 307.

 

[DominionSeraph]

Nerves of steel:

SU-27 Flanker.

 

[davmat787]

Boeing 307.

Correct. The interesting story: This photo was taken after restoration from a forced water ditching into Puget Sound in Seattle. More details here: http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=20020328&slug=webcrash28

 

[GTaudiophile]

One of the most beautiful passenger planes ever created:

 

[Bulk Beef]

One of the most beautiful passenger planes ever created:

de Havilland Comet

 

[foghorn67]

Correct. The interesting story: This photo was taken after restoration from a forced water ditching into Puget Sound in Seattle. More details here: http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=20020328&slug=webcrash28

So it was restored, went Red October, then back to restoration?

 

[Blitzvogel]

One of the most beautiful passenger planes ever created:

Never found the Comet to be all that pleasing to my eye. Not bad, just not that pleasing, especially with the vertical tail not looking so slick while the rest of the plane does. The Nimrod Maritime patrol plane, based on the Comet took ugly to a whole 'nother level though.

 

[Printer Bandit]

 

[101mpg]

del

 

[skyking]

I have a fun story about the F-111 Wild Weasel variant.
I was working on the Cowlitz Falls Dam Project, located right below the
934 foot elevation text for the Randle-Kiona airport as shown here.

http://skyvector.com/?ll=46.47296813629913,-122.05305955433684&chart=1&zoom=1
Note that we were very near IR344, a low level Instrument training route for military aircraft. We saw dozens of low level flybys at speed, mostly by A-6's out of Whidbey Island NAS.
One day I looked up to see this Aardvark at a *very low* altitude, passing behind what was a very slight hill. He had to be no more than 300' and 500+ MPH. He pops out from behind the hill, pitches up 10 degrees and does a victory roll!
They were having a very good time.

 

[Brigandier]

Thx for that.

 

[BigDH01]

Never found the Comet to be all that pleasing to my eye. Not bad, just not that pleasing, especially with the vertical tail not looking so slick while the rest of the plane does. The Nimrod Maritime patrol plane, based on the Comet took ugly to a whole 'nother level though.

I also believe the Comet in that photo has the old square windows. That particular model had design flaws that caused a couple of crashes and a redesign leaving the Comet with circular windows.

 

[davmat787]

I also believe the Comet in that photo has the old square windows. That particular model had design flaws that caused a couple of crashes and a redesign leaving the Comet with circular windows.

It was actually the square window design itself that lead to the fatal crashes. The corners cut into the metal to allow for the windows introduced a spot where cracks could easily start, harder for a crack to start from a circle than a square. The repeated pressurization/depressurization cycles eventually led to fatigue cracks originating from the corner of the windows.

I had wrote out a longer more detailed thread about this yesterday, but the packets are somewhere out in there in the ether, never reaching their destination.....

 

[Blitzvogel]

I have a fun story about the F-111 Wild Weasel variant.
I was working on the Cowlitz Falls Dam Project, located right below the
934 foot elevation text for the Randle-Kiona airport as shown here.

http://skyvector.com/?ll=46.47296813629913,-122.05305955433684&chart=1&zoom=1
Note that we were very near IR344, a low level Instrument training route for military aircraft. We saw dozens of low level flybys at speed, mostly by A-6's out of Whidbey Island NAS.
One day I looked up to see this Aardvark at a *very low* altitude, passing behind what was a very slight hill. He had to be no more than 300' and 500+ MPH. He pops out from behind the hill, pitches up 10 degrees and does a victory roll!
They were having a very good time.

The F-111 was designed from the start to be a low level interdictor, with terrain following radar.