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The little yellow one is a Piper Cub, and also note that you seem to have seen 2 different F-104 Starfighters: A single seat, and a dual seat trainer.
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Aug 9, 2012 03:41
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Goddamn, that's a pretty beat up Hawg...usually they make sure the jets going to an airshow are cleaned up. As for the markings... Subdued U.S. insignia (obviously) and the Squadron emblem of the 303d Fighter Squadron, which is the A-10 FS stationed at Whiteman that is part of the 442nd FW...the unit sports the KC tail flash due the fact that they used to operate at Richards-Gebaur AFB near Kansas City but when that base closed as part of BRAC in the early '90s the unit relocated to Whiteman. They kept the tail flash, though, instead of adopting Whiteman's tail flash of WM. Should be pretty self explanatory, but that is the pilot who is nominally "assigned" to this jet (although in reality pilots are going to fly whatever jet is available). However, the Crew Chief is what's called a Dedicated Crew Chief and he and the Assistant Crew Chief are responsible for that jet. It's not like they ONLY work on that jet, but they are assigned that jet and maintaining it is their primary responsibility...being a DCC is a semi-big deal (they usually have a ceremony when they get chosen for the position.) 442d Fighter Wing emblem. AFRC is "Air Force Reserve Command" (the 442d FW is a Reserve unit) and 79-121 is the aircraft's tail number...79 is the year that airframe was manufactured (1979...yes, it's that old) and 121 is the specific identifier for that airframe. That specific identifier is also painted on the nose.
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Aug 9, 2012 04:39
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Do they seal the crew chief(s) inside the airframe when it gets parked in the boneyard? Egyptian style!
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Aug 9, 2012 05:11
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Koesj posted:The first jet's a MiG-21F-13 painted in Czechoslovakian colors and the second one's an ex-RAF BAC Jet Provost. The second to last one is a (Finnish?) Fouga Magister and the last (red) one is an early version Hawker Hunter made to look like one of the Red Arrows I think but they flew Gnats so that would be wrong. British jets look so....different, why don't we bloody make them anymore?
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Aug 9, 2012 05:37
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dogmaan posted:British jets look so....different, why don't we bloody make them anymore? Fifty years of successive governments pissing your industrial base down their legs.
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Aug 9, 2012 06:18
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Vincent Van Goatse posted:Fifty years of successive governments pissing your industrial base down their legs. The future of America
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Aug 9, 2012 06:26
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The De Havilland Sea Vixen is another oddball British design that is pretty awesome in a weird way: Crazy how the pilot canopy is offset and the "observer" has a little flush hatch to peek out of.
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Aug 9, 2012 06:29
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When you look at British designs of WW2 where there were locations for the navigators to take measurements with sextants you can kind of see philosophy of this sort of setup.
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Aug 9, 2012 06:33
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I am picturing a pipe smoking brit reclining in an upholstered chair peering through a gorgeous brass sextant while zooming along at near mach speed in that thing. Possibly wearing a Fez + smoking jacket. De Havilland had a boner for twin boom tails too, the Vampire and Venom also were rocking that stuff. Not quite as weird looking with the asymmetry of the Sea Vixen, though.
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Aug 9, 2012 06:38
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mikerock posted:The future of America Except at least in the case of Britain (TSR-2) and Canada (Arrow) the program that killed the industry was pretty badass. Not so much in the case of the JSF.  mikerock posted:When you look at British designs of WW2 where there were locations for the navigators to take measurements with sextants you can kind of see philosophy of this sort of setup. Not just Britain...pretty much every WWII era heavy bomber/transport/etc aircraft had a navigator bubble for this purpose. This was a thing even into the '50s, mostly due to the reliability and accuracy issues with long range navigation systems up to that time which meant that sextants were still sometimes a necessary skill for safe navigation.
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Aug 9, 2012 06:40
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The JSF's claim to fame is "it does everything" and is good at nothing  I miss the old days when there were a good half-dozen aircraft in service for each different purpose (interceptor, air superiority, ground attack, etc). Sure made airshows a lot more fun in the 80s
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Aug 9, 2012 06:45
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Yeah it sucks not having dedicated interceptors anymore. When I was a kid in the 80's we'd occasionally get Phantoms in to Stewart ANG near me. Back then, with the philosophy being "strap a big loving engine on that, go really fast", it was so awesome hearing the thunder of an F-4 overhead. F-15's too. I've seen one Raptor fly over and it was so quiet in comparison. There's something to be said for auditory intimidation over the battlefield. I think that's why I love the stories of B-1's flying on the deck in Afghanistan. "How'd you guys break up that ambush?" "Sound waves" 
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Aug 9, 2012 12:06
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Then again it's pretty nice not to need to have dedicated interceptors anymore.
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Aug 9, 2012 12:47
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I'm slogging through America's secret MiG squadron and the first two chapters are pretty poo poo, esp. compared to Red Eagles. It reads like a misguided who's who with all kinds of insidery tracks. I guess aerospace guys either need better ghostwriters or better leave this kind of stuff to journalists and historians anyway since I had the same problem with the ATF book. e: this guy, quoting unsourced internet pieces in his book and repeating the same info over and over again. Koesj fucked around with this message at 15:01 on Aug 9, 2012 |
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Aug 9, 2012 12:59
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atomicthumbs posted:Then again it's pretty nice not to need to have dedicated interceptors anymore. When the Taliban gets high-speed bombers, you'll regret those words. 
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Aug 9, 2012 15:05
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I wonder what a modern all British jet would look like. Now I am picturing a stealth buccaneer, I'm not sure that would work.
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Aug 9, 2012 15:38
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dogmaan posted:I wonder what a modern all British jet would look like. BAE Replica:  
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Aug 9, 2012 16:17
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Android Bicyclist posted:
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Aug 9, 2012 18:34
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Koesj posted:BAE Replica:  name like Venom or Vixen or something?
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Aug 9, 2012 18:47
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BAE Vajayjay
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Aug 9, 2012 19:37
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Holy poo poo the YF-23 lives on!
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Aug 9, 2012 19:43
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This is a Navion. I used to hate them until I got to fly one with this style cockpit.  Nice planes.
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Aug 9, 2012 21:09
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atomicthumbs posted:Then again it's pretty nice not to need to have dedicated interceptors anymore. Am I right in thinking the only modern dedicated interceptor is the MiG-31 Foxhound?
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Aug 9, 2012 23:25
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The MiG-31 or the Tornado ADV are pretty much the main "interceptor-y" planes I can think of still in service. Nowadays air superiority fighters handle that kind of thing too.
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Aug 10, 2012 00:14
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priznat posted:The MiG-31 or the Tornado ADV are pretty much the main "interceptor-y" planes I can think of still in service. Was the ADV ever any good?
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Aug 10, 2012 00:15
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Hard to say, really. Never had to intercept flights of incoming Soviet bombers  The radar suite was pretty good at the time, iirc.
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Aug 10, 2012 00:18
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Yep, Blue Circle was revolutionary.
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Aug 10, 2012 02:38
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 Sikorsky S-64 Skycrane Check out N227AC for more on that specific one.
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Aug 10, 2012 02:44
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priznat posted:The MiG-31 or the Tornado ADV are pretty much the main "interceptor-y" planes I can think of still in service. Nowadays air superiority fighters handle that kind of thing too. Also Iran still flies the F-14. Granted that's a little more arguable, since it was technically part of the teen-series, the F-14 was used capably in an air to ground role later in life (although some MiG-31s were modified to carry ARMs in the SEAD role, and it's not like the Tornado ADV is that different from the IDS), and the F-14 is quite capable as an all around fighter...but I think that anything which has a radar/missile combo capable of tracking 24 targets at over 100 miles range while simultaneously engaging six is definitely an interceptor. Forums Terrorist posted:Yep, Blue Circle was revolutionary. 
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Aug 10, 2012 02:56
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I had to look it up. So much funnier since that's apparently a brand of concrete in the UK.
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Aug 10, 2012 05:11
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It was ahead of its time due to the delays and overruns getting the manufacturer to actually hit the project requirements.  Had some decent specs though, once installed. IMO the neatest thing about the ADV was the little "crutch" that held the Sky Flash/AMRAAM missiles out from their flush mounts.
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Aug 10, 2012 05:40
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Tomorrow myself and another TFR goon are going plinking as well as exploring the former site of a former AN/FPS-14 Gap Filler radar. This particular one was attached to the Mt. Hebo AFS, part of the SAGE system. This particular station's SAGE center was built just north of Corvallis, and the gigantic windowless building the computers were housed in still stands. Apparently a BOMARC site was to be constructed nearby, but was not completed. The remnants still exist, though.
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Aug 10, 2012 18:45
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I am a ridiculously big fan of this thread, and all who post within, and I thought I could contribute in a few areas through tales of my Pop. In relation to the F22/F35/Eurofighter/Every Modern Weapons System Ever discussion, I can state that the ridiculous poo poo that private contractors are allowed get away with in the name of advancement of force is not a new thing at loving all. My father worked with General Dynamics in systems design in the early sixties, and a good amount of his ideas went into the production and design stages of the F111. At the time governmental sponsorship from such an early stage of development was a relatively new thing, and it led to a ridiculous amount of corruption, to lit. blatant embezzling. Though he spent most of his time working on things like proto-CAD and making computer assisted calculation more easily available to the dudes doing hard design, he started looking into the expenses more closely after hearing about the price of some particular thing for production (His background and primary degree was in Business Sytems, apparently knew he knew the price offhand, maybe sheet metal?). So, after trying to get info from one of the guys in charge of such acquisitions; and was more or less told to gently caress off. He ended up calling the company that supplied it directly; who quoted him the same price as before, but not when he called from home pretending to be working for a different company, with a price differential of nearly a third; meaning they were collecting a premium from the guys at GD and splitting the profit. After a hard audit it turns out they were losing something like 220 dollars on the K to people essentially writing blank cheques to themselves. I have a ton more applicable stories that he has, including some work he did with NASA, meeting Von Braun on a daily basis, and looking at top secret aerial photography of North Vietnam at the bar on weekends for shits and giggles (while it was happening), which I will type up later. danquixotic fucked around with this message at 04:06 on Aug 12, 2012 |
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Aug 11, 2012 06:17
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SyHopeful posted:Tomorrow myself and another TFR goon are going plinking as well as exploring the former site of a former AN/FPS-14 Gap Filler radar. This particular one was attached to the Mt. Hebo AFS, part of the SAGE system. This particular station's SAGE center was built just north of Corvallis, and the gigantic windowless building the computers were housed in still stands. Apparently a BOMARC site was to be constructed nearby, but was not completed. The remnants still exist, though. Please take lots of pictures, this sounds awesome. I love to see info about old radar/SAM sites, it's so fascinating to me. (Same with old AFB's) Plus the company I work exists because of SAGE. (MITRE) I keep meaning to stop and take pictures of this Nike Hercules launcher in front of Fort Meade. http://www.panoramio.com/photo/61103168
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Aug 12, 2012 05:31
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If this is where I think it is that's where my friends used to play Airsoft. Your pics will determine if this is true or now. Definitely bring a good light if it is.
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Aug 12, 2012 06:03
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hannibal posted:Please take lots of pictures, this sounds awesome. I love to see info about old radar/SAM sites, it's so fascinating to me. (Same with old AFB's) Plus the company I work exists because of SAGE. (MITRE) Thanks for reminding me I need to hike up to Site Summit and check out the old Nike site sometime this summer before I PCS. The site itself is closed off but supposedly you can get fairly close to one of the building clusters without trespassing on the restricted area. They apparently used to do live firing at Site Summit during the '60s (one of only two Nike sites in the U.S. that did this), which is pretty wild (picture of it a couple pages in to this document.) Gail Peck (author of America's Secret MiG Squadron) was hanging out in our Squadron bar for a few hours on Friday...pretty cool/friendly guy. I ended up buying a copy of the book off him, which he signed for me. Flipping through it I can see what someone earlier in the thread was saying about it being rather disjointed, but I think the amount of primary source material contained in it (even if they are pretty much all disjointed stories) makes it a decent companion to Steve Davies's book. Definitely read Red Eagles first (and if you are going to only read one book on the subject, make it that one) but I wouldn't pass up reading Peck's book if you are interested in the subject. Of course, this opinion may change when I actually start reading it.
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Aug 12, 2012 06:04
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A Nike missile radar was mounted atop Battery Benson of Fort Worden, a pre-WWI defensive fortification North-West of Seattle. The NIKE missile radar station (S-93 R) was operational there from 1957 to 1961. Was rather disappointing compared to the fort itself. My photo of the mount turned out like crap, unfortunately: If you ever get a chance to check out the puget sound defensive forts (Ft Casey, Ft Worden and Fort Flagler), they're pretty awesome. I've visted all 3 and would post more, but they were closed down because airpower made coastal artillery obsolete so they played little role during the cold war. grover fucked around with this message at 20:01 on Aug 12, 2012 |
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Aug 12, 2012 15:00
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load bearing cinderblocks
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Aug 12, 2012 19:15
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grover posted:A Nike missile radar was mounted atop Battery Benson of Fort Worden, a pre-WWI defensive fortification North-West of Seattle. The NIKE missile radar station (S-93 R) was operational there from 1957 to 1961. Was rather disappointing compared to the fort itself. My photo of the mount turned out like crap, unfortunately: You forgot Fort Ebey So yeah, made the hike up. Only had my cell phone for pics and I'm having trouble putting together a panorama stitch. Here is where we went. It's been repurposed for commercial stuff, mostly microwave. Interesting point was the complete lack of signage. Nothing from the government, FAA, or any commercial entity. There was, however, a security camera up there. Gorgeous view of the SW Washington/Oregon area. For you other Portland-area guys. The big building NW of the "A" marker is a former SAGE command center. Former Bomarc site.
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Aug 12, 2012 19:32
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SyHopeful posted:You forgot Fort Ebey grover fucked around with this message at 19:47 on Aug 12, 2012 |
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Aug 12, 2012 19:44
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