F-14 Tomcat

[PR19_Kit]

..... and it comes with a handy new fin and tail gun too.   

[tahsin]

One single hazy photo over Isfahan yesterday if you trust the source and guess what it reportedly shows.

[Weaver]

"Goose didn't have to die" - a recent paper on the F-14 stability issues, downloadable from here:

https://www.aerosociety.com/publications/jah-goose-didn-t-have-to-die-the-evolution-of-lateraldirectional-departure-metrics-and-the-design-of-the-f-14a/

Havn't had a chance to read it all yet, but it looks interesting.

[PR19_Kit]

If you go ,through that, all 206 pages of it (!), you'll note that the answer to everything ISN'T 42, it's 57.3! 

[NARSES2]

Sorry, but I've just done something I very seldom do and that is delete a post simply because in my view it breaks the politics rule at best and was likely to start a row at worst.

Can we just be careful in this current world of ours not to stray down the "Nationalistic" path ?

[Diamondback]

Well, the US Senate supposedly just passed a bill to preserve three F-14D's, one to be made flyable.

IF the House can agree, then... "We're Back, Baby!"

Personally, I've long thought the US services should have done our own version of Battle of Britain Memorial Flight, or more broadly term it a "Heritage Demonstration Fleet" where representatives of landmark types would be preserved to work the airshow and open-house circuit.

[zenrat]

Its incredibly impractical, but imagine the fly past if they'd kept one of everything airworthy.

[Diamondback]

That's why I said just "landmarks" - firsts, lasts, most successfuls, that kind of stuff. If we coud have somehow made good use of that Golden Hour Yeltsin bought and seen a Russia with peace instead of Putin, imagine a joint Cold War Memorial Flight with a US early-model (suitably "sanitized" of course) B-52 and crew based at Monino flying alongside a similar early Bear, and similarly another Russian-crewed Bear based at Wright-Pat alongside another B/C-model, maybe each flight also having an F-106 and MiG-21.

[PR19_Kit]

We had a Bear flying alongside two Tornadoes at The Fairford RIAT in 1993.

I'm not sure if the Tonkas were 'flying alongside' or 'escorting' though as they had live rounds under their bellies.................

[zenrat]

There was a B52 at Avalon a few years ago.  Awesome sight in the air.  Very smoky and not as big as I expected when i got up close and personal with it and stuck my head up into it's bomb bay (ooher missus!    ).

[Charlie_c67]

Saw one way back in the early 90's at an airshow at Greenham Common. Took a good portion of the runway to take off and disappeared in a cloud of very dark smoke before finally climbing to start its routine with the B-1B that was also there. Not quite the Vulcan howl, but pretty loud all the same!