Staredge
One of the Regulars
- Messages
- 100
- Location
- Martinsburg, WV
Isn't the internet great???lol
-
The Fedora Lounge is supported in part by commission earning affiliate links sitewide. Please support us by using them. You may learn more here.
What is your favorite aircraft of all time?
- Thread starter Jerekson
- Start date
Isn't the internet great???lol
Diamondback
I'll Lock Up
- Messages
- 5,916
"Dinky"? For all you know, they might be monster GE90-115Bs (777 engines), at 115,000 pounds thrust each--besides, runway length isn't a consideration when you got the ocean for your airstrip!
Or maybe they talked to the same GE tech-rep who I was discussing even more powerful GE90s (125,000 and up rated-thrust) for my "Super Stratofortress" concept...
As I see it, the hardest parts would be getting moving to begin with, and then getting out of ground-effect, but I think it could do it--777 is slightly overpowered by airliner standards IIRC...
Or maybe they talked to the same GE tech-rep who I was discussing even more powerful GE90s (125,000 and up rated-thrust) for my "Super Stratofortress" concept...
As I see it, the hardest parts would be getting moving to begin with, and then getting out of ground-effect, but I think it could do it--777 is slightly overpowered by airliner standards IIRC...
phyllis1753
New in Town
- Messages
- 24
- Location
- DC
I've been fascinated by aviation since a trip in a DC-3 in 1955, when I was two. I don't have ONE favorite but the sound of a P-51 flying past will ALWAYS send such a chill up my spine and a tear to my eye. The growl of the Merlin and the whistle undertone of air passing through the radiator...even now as I just think about it, I can hear it in my mind and I feel my eyes mist over. So many esthetically beautiful aircraft to choose from but a razorback Mustang will probably do for me. So pretty and so historically significant. Cheers!
Staredge
One of the Regulars
- Messages
- 100
- Location
- Martinsburg, WV
I think your biggest problem is breaking the surface tension just to get up on the step. Sure would be impressive seeing something like that take off though.
What I wouldn't give to see it in Pan Am livery.
What I wouldn't give to see it in Pan Am livery.
Fletch
I'll Lock Up
- Messages
- 8,865
- Location
- Iowa - The Land That Stuff Forgot
Another fave
I like 'em big, ugly, and prone to spectacular crashes.
Tupolev ANT-20 Maxim Gorky
This brute weighed 46 tons loaded, was 206' across the wings, carried 8 engines and served as a Soviet propaganda platform in 1934-'35 (at one point she was actually painted red). Onboard amenities included a library, sleeping berths (in the wing cores), printing press, darkroom, movie projector, radio station, and loudspeakers for haranguing the inevitable masses of gaping onlookers. Where they couldn't land a plane this big, they'd ship her by rail: she could be broken up into several large pieces and put together on the other end.
Sadly, the Gorky met her end at an air show over Red Square in May, 1935, when a fighter pilot tried to loop-the-loop around her and instead flew smack into her, sending her hurtling to earth in several large pieces (so much for the transport-by-rail concept).
All 45 people aboard were killed, most of them relatives of the workers who had built her. All are interred in a Moscow cemetery beneath this striking memorial.
Of course, rather than embarrass glorious Soviet state, work was soon started on an ANT-20bis - same plane without the 2 hilarious-looking strut-mounted engines thanks to advances in powerplant technology.
This ship went into longhaul transport service with Aeroflot in 1939, and crashed in Uzbekistan in 1942.
I like 'em big, ugly, and prone to spectacular crashes.
Tupolev ANT-20 Maxim Gorky
This brute weighed 46 tons loaded, was 206' across the wings, carried 8 engines and served as a Soviet propaganda platform in 1934-'35 (at one point she was actually painted red). Onboard amenities included a library, sleeping berths (in the wing cores), printing press, darkroom, movie projector, radio station, and loudspeakers for haranguing the inevitable masses of gaping onlookers. Where they couldn't land a plane this big, they'd ship her by rail: she could be broken up into several large pieces and put together on the other end.
Sadly, the Gorky met her end at an air show over Red Square in May, 1935, when a fighter pilot tried to loop-the-loop around her and instead flew smack into her, sending her hurtling to earth in several large pieces (so much for the transport-by-rail concept).
All 45 people aboard were killed, most of them relatives of the workers who had built her. All are interred in a Moscow cemetery beneath this striking memorial.
Of course, rather than embarrass glorious Soviet state, work was soon started on an ANT-20bis - same plane without the 2 hilarious-looking strut-mounted engines thanks to advances in powerplant technology.
This ship went into longhaul transport service with Aeroflot in 1939, and crashed in Uzbekistan in 1942.
rumblefish
One Too Many
- Messages
- 1,326
- Location
- Long Island NY
lolFletch said:
Big, ugly, and drafty. ANT-6
Staredge
One of the Regulars
- Messages
- 100
- Location
- Martinsburg, WV
Fletch said:
I think we've dated some of the same women!!!
lol OH, airplanes!!! USSR was a good place to look for 'em then.
Will
Fletch
I'll Lock Up
- Messages
- 8,865
- Location
- Iowa - The Land That Stuff Forgot
I think we've dated some of the same women myself
Here's a Google Books link to a book about Andrei Tupolev, Russia's all time great aircraft engineer. The highlights give some more info on the two ANT-20 crashes. (The second happened in Uzbekistan when the pilot took a break and put one of his passengers in the left seat - I am not making this up - and the poor shlub managed to disengage the autopilot. He, the captain and 34 other people bought the dacha that day.)
Here's a Google Books link to a book about Andrei Tupolev, Russia's all time great aircraft engineer. The highlights give some more info on the two ANT-20 crashes. (The second happened in Uzbekistan when the pilot took a break and put one of his passengers in the left seat - I am not making this up - and the poor shlub managed to disengage the autopilot. He, the captain and 34 other people bought the dacha that day.)
Regarding the confusion about the H-1 and the speed record.
The Schneider racers held the absolute speed record, not being bound by take-off distances and wing loading, while the H-1 held the record for land planes. The heavier version of this aircraft, with larger wings, was intended to compete in the Bendix race, and thus needed more lift and fuel.
The Aviator was inaccurate in that Hughes was not "the fastest man alive", only the fastest land-based man alive.
Doesn't have the same ring to it does it?
And where is the love for the P-39. Not the greatest aircraft, but a beauty none the less.
The Schneider racers held the absolute speed record, not being bound by take-off distances and wing loading, while the H-1 held the record for land planes. The heavier version of this aircraft, with larger wings, was intended to compete in the Bendix race, and thus needed more lift and fuel.
The Aviator was inaccurate in that Hughes was not "the fastest man alive", only the fastest land-based man alive.
Doesn't have the same ring to it does it?
And where is the love for the P-39. Not the greatest aircraft, but a beauty none the less.
Fletch
I'll Lock Up
- Messages
- 8,865
- Location
- Iowa - The Land That Stuff Forgot
WAG: seaplane speed records didn't impress people as much or didn't get the press coverage. Also: Didn't they stop running the Schneider race fairly early in the 30s?
The 777 powered by two 115bs has a MTOW of 775,000 #Diamondback said:
The Boeing superclipper looks to be 4-5 times more massive, some of which may be offset by more surface areas of wing for more lift, but that adds more drag, not to mention the drag from the ancillary fuselages, and the huge main fuselage. Merely using a linear equation, the MTOW of the BSC would be 2.3 million pounds. I think that would in reality be much less given all the contributing factors, not to mention the added problems of water takeoff.
Fletch
I'll Lock Up
- Messages
- 8,865
- Location
- Iowa - The Land That Stuff Forgot
Big, Ugly, and Prone to Spectacular Crashes: Part 2
The Kalinin K-7, an experimental ultraheavy Soviet bomber-transport built in 1932-'33, was another epic failure.
This last pic sort of illustrates how unbelievable it is that something this big and ponderous could actually fly.
However, the K-7 didn't fly very well or for very long. All large aircraft in the '30s were up against the limits of engine technology and power/weight ratio. Konstantin Kalinin had to add a 7th, central pusher engine to what was basically a 6-engine flying wing with tailbooms, a revolutionary design for the day.
Another thing they didn't know much about then was material stresses. That No. 7 engine introduced hellish vibration in the airframe, and one day in late 1933, after only about 5 hours of test flights, one of the tailbooms began to shake apart in midair. Debris jammed the elevators and the K-7 went into a dive, with the pilots helpless to pull her out. 15 of the 20 crew were killed in the crash.
Kalinin's team was put to work to build 2 more planes (naturally), but these were cancelled and scrapped mid-project (naturally). Kalinin went on to design a true flying-wing bomber, the K-12, which had its own problems. In 1940, after he'd failed several times to fix these, Stalin had him shot.
The Kalinin K-7, an experimental ultraheavy Soviet bomber-transport built in 1932-'33, was another epic failure.
This last pic sort of illustrates how unbelievable it is that something this big and ponderous could actually fly.
However, the K-7 didn't fly very well or for very long. All large aircraft in the '30s were up against the limits of engine technology and power/weight ratio. Konstantin Kalinin had to add a 7th, central pusher engine to what was basically a 6-engine flying wing with tailbooms, a revolutionary design for the day.
Another thing they didn't know much about then was material stresses. That No. 7 engine introduced hellish vibration in the airframe, and one day in late 1933, after only about 5 hours of test flights, one of the tailbooms began to shake apart in midair. Debris jammed the elevators and the K-7 went into a dive, with the pilots helpless to pull her out. 15 of the 20 crew were killed in the crash.
Kalinin's team was put to work to build 2 more planes (naturally), but these were cancelled and scrapped mid-project (naturally). Kalinin went on to design a true flying-wing bomber, the K-12, which had its own problems. In 1940, after he'd failed several times to fix these, Stalin had him shot.
Diamondback
I'll Lock Up
- Messages
- 5,916
Okay, if we're going BIG... not a favorite, just something I designed.
FYI, the sections shown in white are engineering changes since the last revision. First image is in perspective, other four are parallel-projection (more like 3-view drawings)
Design power 16 hybrid 125K-uprated GE90/ramjet/linear-aerospike rocket hybrid engines, gross weight 2 million pounds, optimal weight 1 mil. Final revision will also be able to "mothership" 16-18 X-47 UCAVs... and "Col. Norm", my old fighter-pilot prof, thinks this monster could deliver an entire war's worth of firepower on one pass.
FYI, the sections shown in white are engineering changes since the last revision. First image is in perspective, other four are parallel-projection (more like 3-view drawings)
Design power 16 hybrid 125K-uprated GE90/ramjet/linear-aerospike rocket hybrid engines, gross weight 2 million pounds, optimal weight 1 mil. Final revision will also be able to "mothership" 16-18 X-47 UCAVs... and "Col. Norm", my old fighter-pilot prof, thinks this monster could deliver an entire war's worth of firepower on one pass.
KilroyCD
One Too Many
- Messages
- 1,966
- Location
- Lancaster County, PA
newsboy said:
Another of my very favourites! Here it is:
Diamondback
I'll Lock Up
- Messages
- 5,916
Good choice--the AAC 37mm, when used properly, could ruin just about anything short of a cruiser or battleship's day.
Diamondback
I'll Lock Up
- Messages
- 5,916
Actually, it started from a clean piece of paper, but was inspired by the wave of "black triangle UFO" sightings in the mid-'90s and the "Project Aurora" disinformation that's still proliferating (Aurora was really about paying for the ATB competition that brought us the B-2). Figured what better way to camouflage the project than to make it look like the Art Bell crowd's object of hysteria du jour? (Especially since even building just one prototype would break every arms-limitation treaty we've ever signed...) You'll recall, though, that the so-called "Aurora" only had a single ventral nacelle, this beast has two along with a dorsal. (Actually, original design for this size was just the eight dorsal engines, with a wing half as thick--the redesign became necessary between additional buoyancy and larger cargo: the original version was only 15' high along the centerline!)
The original concept was a 200', 2-GE90 engine design with a high-subsonic cruise, designed to approach its target either by stealth or outright blasting its way in, kind of a 2-in-1 bomber/high-speed stealth transport. As mission-creep came into play, it just got bigger... those Sketchup screencaps show a spacecraft 415' long, 400' span with wingtips in "subsonic cruise" position as shown, basically it would be the largest heavier-than-air craft ever built, dwarfing even the Apollo Saturns.
For comparison, that little black speck in front of the far-right outboard dorsal engine is a person, to give you some idea of the size of these leviathans.
For weight comparison, we're talking about four loaded Space Shuttles, basically, or a small World War II destroyer. And if I have my way, the darn thing will never be built--quite frankly, I'm scared of what I've created! If the old Colonel who worked with me on it, my simulations guy and I are right, this thing would be as close as you can get to unstoppable... the only check-and-balance I could see would be for one of them to be placed in my custody as an R&D ship, as a counter should anyone go off-the-rails with the Air Force's.
The original concept was a 200', 2-GE90 engine design with a high-subsonic cruise, designed to approach its target either by stealth or outright blasting its way in, kind of a 2-in-1 bomber/high-speed stealth transport. As mission-creep came into play, it just got bigger... those Sketchup screencaps show a spacecraft 415' long, 400' span with wingtips in "subsonic cruise" position as shown, basically it would be the largest heavier-than-air craft ever built, dwarfing even the Apollo Saturns.
For comparison, that little black speck in front of the far-right outboard dorsal engine is a person, to give you some idea of the size of these leviathans.
For weight comparison, we're talking about four loaded Space Shuttles, basically, or a small World War II destroyer. And if I have my way, the darn thing will never be built--quite frankly, I'm scared of what I've created! If the old Colonel who worked with me on it, my simulations guy and I are right, this thing would be as close as you can get to unstoppable... the only check-and-balance I could see would be for one of them to be placed in my custody as an R&D ship, as a counter should anyone go off-the-rails with the Air Force's.
