The sky-high aircraft and aviation thread

A CR-42 killed a Lightning? That guy must have been some pilot. Fucking embarrassing for the pilot of the Fork-Tailed Devil though, assuming that he survived.

Don't underestimate the Falco - it was arguably the best combat biplane. It had almost twice the wing loading of the Lightning, for instance, and a better power/mass ratio. It was also pretty tough, according to the RAF, though that might have something to do with the weak armament of early-war British fighters. In a low-level turning fight I could well see one destroying a Lightning.

edited 20th Oct '14 5:34:08 AM by Achaemenid

Didn't the Germans want to put it (amongst others) back into production as a night intruder?

Was about to say, a Lightning got swatted by a biplane in 1945? That's just plain undignified.

I'm guessing the formations might have merged head-on. Even facing the superior armament of the P-38, I could see a Lightning getting downed by a lucky shot or several, especially if more than one of the Fiats put him in the crosshairs at the same time. Alternately, as mentioned above, the Lightnings might have made the mistake of getting into an angle fight with the biplanes, playing into their enemies' strengths.

Anyone heard of the C.42DB?

Nope, but I found it on wikipedia after a google search,

"This variant could reach a top speed of 518 km/h (323 mph), with a maximum ceiling of 10,600 metres (34,777 ft) and a range of 1,250 kilometres (780 mi)."

Over 300 mph for a BIPLANE??!!???

Italia stronk! Remove mezze.

Total CEO killed in plane crash with Russian snow-remover.

Isn't it a bit too early to be cranking out the snow gear? Even in Russia?

It was actually a clever assassination to weaken Western oil so that they'd be more depended on Russian exports

Could be they were practicing while the pavement was dry-assuming the involvement of alcohol isn't a factor.

I've never personally worked airside, but isn't it a rule that aircraft have right of way?

Russian investigators claim the snow plough driver was drunk at the time.

edited 21st Oct '14 2:10:13 AM by Deadbeatloser22

@ Garcon: Total is one the largest foreign investors in Russia, and has several projects operational there.

Does the US military have any Government-owned, Contractor-operated aircraft?

All those Black Helicopters have to come from somewhere, I suppose...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_helicopter

I think I remember when that term actually popped up. Shows how old I am.

On the Total executive being killed in a crash thing, I doubt that the Russians had anything to do with it. Given how close a friend he was to Putin.

I feel bad but whenever I see Total I just think of the breakfast cereal

Tam: I am just old enough to remember hearing the term popping up in 90's. The whole thing was rather silly.

Was reading an account of one of the Tse Tse Mosquitos engagements. They attacked a U boat under escort from four destroyers and JU-88's. The U Boat was damaged and they shot down three of the JU-88's. Apparently one of the 88's was hit four times with the 6 pounder with one of the rounds tearing an engine off.

edited 21st Oct '14 5:18:35 PM by TuefelHundenIV

@Greenmantle:

There are range control aircraft, special test aircraft and all protoypes tend to be "owned" by their builders. That is until "material release", when the craft is turned over to the military.

All the "JANET" flights to Area 51 were from a certain charter company that did/does business with the DOD. And there are regular charter flights overseas that are run by smaller companies. These take freight and passengers to overseas duty stations.

The Federal government has a lot of subcontractors who fly aircraft for various reasons. The FAA, NASA and the Dept. of Commerce fly aircraft For Science! They have contractors on the payroll that fly their own or fly their people around. Those aircraft not piloted by the NOAA commissioned corps (one of our Uniformed Services).

At the state and local level it can be cheaper to fly aircraft For Science!, cargo or fire fighting.

edited 21st Oct '14 7:37:44 PM by TairaMai

Reading a recent article, it appears some of the King Airs in Afghanistan were GOCO aircraft.

...and on King Airs — Four dead, five injured after plane crashes at Kansas airport

Both Cessna and Beechcraft are based there.

edited 30th Oct '14 2:43:16 PM by Greenmantle

Yeesh. I used to be stationed near there. They probably threw the base into emergency response mode for that.

What is very strongly believed to be a unique fragment from Amelia Earhart's plane Specifically a unique patch job done in Miami. It was picked up in 1991 but only ID properly recently.

Found a nice article on the Mi G-41. I mentioned it a long while ago but it got buried under what was honestly a much more interesting conversation about the SR-71.

An article speculating on it.

So far all we know is that it is in planning, I don't think there's a prototype yet.

It's supposedly going to be based on the Mi G-31, it's going to be a big scary interceptor with hella flight ceiling and supposedly the Russians want it go hit a top speed of Mach 4 plus.

Part of me wants it to exist and be awesome because fuck yeah superfast planes and part of me wants it to blow up in Ivan's face so I don't feel so bad about the F-35 sucking and all their fancy new projects being great.

The Mig-25 had tons of issues. It was built around it's engines. All that speed meant that the engines would need to be overhauled past Mach 2.5 (indeed the airspeed indicator was redlined at 2.8, a 3.2 flight over Egypt resulted in the engines needing to be replaced).

The Mig-31 and the SA-5 did cause the USAF brass to switch to spy sats. Chuck Yeager himself said that the F-15's ASAT missile was the final nail in the coffin. Once a front line fighter could shoot down a satellite, the SR-71 was doomed.

I doubt that Russia can get the "Mig-41" off the ground by 2017. We'll see. Given that their answer to the F-22 is just an Su-27 with a new front end.

Personally I think all of these "high speed low drag" fancy planes and missiles are drastically over rated by their respective users and manufacturers.

I think 2017 is a bit optimistic too. 2020 maybe.

I dunno, just sorta interesting what this new Russia is gonna come up with. They said a while back they're making a third Su-47 testbed to field ideas for a production model forward swept wing fighter. I can't see that going well though

I swear they found her plane in 1940 or something.