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Area 51 spy plane and other aviation tales
Three unique things about Tacit Blue
- Pantyhose made it safer: According to Cynda Thomas' book "Hell of a Ride," an air compressor was blowing tiny flammable aluminum shavings through inlet pipes and into the cockpit, creating a fire hazard. The engineers' unorthodox solution: cover the inlet pipes with filters made of pantyhose, Thomas wrote. "That could be true," Easter acknowledges.
- They created an artificial wind tunnel with a huge transport aircraft. Developers used a huge C-130 Hercules plane to create artificial winds that hit the side of the plane so they could test Tacit Blue's performance. Dyson described it as a sort of "wind tunnel" that was set up "in the black of the night so no one could see us flying overhead with a satellite."
- It was very hard to pilot: Tacit Blue at the time was "arguably the most unstable aircraft man had ever flown," ex-Northrop engineer John Cashen told Air Force Magazine.
edited 5th Feb '14 6:44:50 PM by TairaMai
I tried to walk like an Egyptian and now I need to see a Cairo practor....
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3 Ways Red Tape Could Ground Private Space
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It's an issue of how the C-130 is made and the safety of the aircraft. For awhile airplanes were used depleted uranium as balast until a 747 crashed and that made the airlines reconsider. The kelvar is mostly around the flight deck, it's not like it makes the plane anything special.
I tried to walk like an Egyptian and now I need to see a Cairo practor....
rollin' on dubs
rollin' on dubs
No, you could built it out of composites. Armor adds weight so most of the vital parts are armored. Unlike the A-10, which is armored, built rugged with redundant systems and was passed from the Gods to the engineers of Fairchild-Republic Aviation.
I tried to walk like an Egyptian and now I need to see a Cairo practor....
And if the USAF are REALLY stupid enough to get rid of them next year, as has been rumored, can we get them and do this to 'em please?
https://forums.bharat-rakshak.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=5678&start=440
Twin-seater, Night Adverse Weather capable. Mmmmmgooood.
On an unrelated note, Danny Baker can witter on for England.

I'm pretty sure the Catalina used exactly that setup. Floats on struts under each wing which folded up into the wingtips during flight.
Yeah, reading the Wiki article, and it says the prototype had them, and I'm not seeing any indication that they went away.