Other For the love of Aircraft...

Even as one of the biggest Vulcan fans around I'm starting to get annoyed with her. There's so much media attention about keeping her flying that its detracting from dozens of other equally important and beautiful and/or awesome aircraft which also desperately need funding.

Obviously I'd be heartbroken if she became permanently grounded but with money it takes to keep her up we could have 3 or 4 other aircraft all airworthy. K

 

Still have a copy of A-10 Cuba, fond memories of failing to land properly and spitting yellow blocks from the gun in annoyance or missions where you start already flying and end up nose diving when the auto pilot went off

Do agree the Vulcan is beautiful but its costs so so much to run and keep airworthy as much as I love it I would love to see some other historic aircraft up there.

 

A-10 Cuba was the only A-10 game i've played. Menu Music was awesome from what i remember too:


Sam

 

pfftt. Earplugs. I didn't wear earplugs when the Lancaster taxi'd over my head, or at either of the Le Mans I've been to, not going to wear ear plugs for the Vulcan,


WHAT?

 

The Vulcan makes the single greatest man made noise that there has ever been. Ear plugs are just wrong

 

+1



im still madly in love with the SU-47... the forward sweep on the wings just looks so epic

also surprised that nobody has mentioned the Air Force One
I wonder just how much technology is aboard this aircraft

 

Airforce one - last I checked, they said this thing could fly through an EMP storm. So let's start with the required shielding for that.

On big aircraft that do things well, there's the AC-130 Spectre. A plane that they (being the US Airforce) claim has never lost a defense operation it was involved in.

And then there's the old UH-1 Huey. I have a massive thing for the Huey.

 

It's only called Airforce One if POTUS is onboard...

 

True... wasn't there a rumor of POTUS getting an Osprey as well?

 

HMX-1, the Marine squadron that operates the rotary-wing fleet for POTUS (VH-3, VH-60 etc) got a couple of V-22s but not for POTUS to travel in, they're just support aircraft. Looks like they're not confident enough about the Osprey's safety to put the big cheese inside.

This is also why the Ospreys operated by HMX-1 carry their USMC designation, MV-22, as opposed to a VIP-transport designation (VV-22 perhaps?).

 

If it's forward swept wings you like, how about the Bugatti R100:



Originally developed as a racing plane back in the late 30's but the second world war saw that it it never flew in its time. A lot of people have built and flown RC models of it and I think there was some attempt to get a full scale manned flight sorted out but not 100% on that.

Still an awesome looking beastie

 

Another forward swept wing, the Grumman X-29:



Another experimental aircraft with an odd (but elegant) wing design, the Custer Channelwing:



One I find fascinating but utterly barking, the Dornier Do 29:

 

Nothing barking about that - STOL is rather useful, the Osprey's father.

 

I'll take your channel wing, and raise you an ellipse wing

 

Those Channelwings were the inspiration for the fighter planes seen dotted around Fallout 3 and in a couple of places in New Vegas

 

I match you with a barrel fuselage (Stipa-Caproni):


And raise you with no wings (Lippisch Collins Aerodyne):


@Krikkit: It's always made sense to me to rotate the engines as that just seems to be mechanically simpler. It's impressive that they had STOL sorted in 1958 but something about it just looks so wrong and mad to me.

I think I've just seen about the most ambitious (and possibly mental) aircraft ever - the Beriev Bartini VV14. Amphibious, VTOL, ekranoplan and high altitude capable:

 

Some rather awesome passes in this...