OT F-117 retired

It seems just like yesterday when it was the most secret thing in the air:
http://makeashorterlink.com/?D11A2493E
I imagine they'll start showing up at museums now.

Pat

Pat Flannery wrote:

It seems just like yesterday when it was the most secret thing in the
air:
http://makeashorterlink.com/?D11A2493E
I imagine they'll start showing up at museums now.


Here's a weird-looking new supersonic VTOL design BTW:
http://www.sonicblueaerospace.com/military/index.html
highlight the "military unmanned" to look at the design, click on it to
read the specs.

Pat

Pat Flannery wrote:
It seems just like yesterday when it was the most secret thing in the air:
http://makeashorterlink.com/?D11A2493E
I imagine they'll start showing up at museums now.

Pat


This pilot didn't get the word.
http://www.joe-ks.com/archives_mar20...lthFighter.jpg


Rusty

On Sun, 19 Nov 2006 21:18:39 -0600, Pat Flannery
wrote:

Here's a weird-looking new supersonic VTOL design BTW:
http://www.sonicblueaerospace.com/military/index.html
highlight the "military unmanned" to look at the design, click on it to
read the specs.

....Jeez, what episode of which Trek series did they rip that one off
of?

OM
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]=====================================[
] OMBlog - http://www.io.com/~o_m/omworld [
] Let's face it: Sometimes you *need* [
] an obnoxious opinion in your day! [
]=====================================[

On Sun, 19 Nov 2006 19:27:45 -0600, Pat Flannery
wrote:

It seems just like yesterday when it was the most secret thing in the air:
http://makeashorterlink.com/?D11A2493E
I imagine they'll start showing up at museums now.

"Paul Cabot, curator of the Toronto Aerospace Museum, said the fact
that the F-117A has lasted 25 years shows how combat aviation has
changed from the 1960s, when aircraft designs had a much shorter shelf
life."

....This begs the question: what military aircraft that entered active
service had the shortest shelf life? I'm guessing one of the Century
Series, or one of the F-86 P-Series predecessors, but no doubt Henry
has this one on the top of his head.

OM
--
]=====================================[
] OMBlog - http://www.io.com/~o_m/omworld [
] Let's face it: Sometimes you *need* [
] an obnoxious opinion in your day! [
]=====================================[

Don;t think there's anything definitive on dates yet. It still is
flying according to an article in AF magazine recently, and appartently
will be for a while. Its retirement is on the horizon, but nothing set
in the tarmac, actions or times have been set yet. Thats what I got
from the AF article, and this article really skirts that issue also, I
think its going to be a little while...........................Doc

On Nov 19, 5:27 pm, Pat Flannery wrote:
It seems just like yesterday when it was the most secret thing in the air:http://makeashorterlink.com/?D11A2493E
I imagine they'll start showing up at museums now.

Pat

OM wrote:

...Jeez, what episode of which Trek series did they rip that one off
of?




I'm sure we have every bit as much chance of seeing it in service as the
Phalanx Dragon:
http://www.kulikovair.com/Moody.htm

Pat

OM wrote:

...This begs the question: what military aircraft that entered active
service had the shortest shelf life? I'm guessing one of the Century
Series, or one of the F-86 P-Series predecessors, but no doubt Henry
has this one on the top of his head.




The Navy's F7U Cutlass lasted none too long.
On the Air Force side, the Republic P-43 Lancer came and went mighty fast.
The B-32 Dominator might hold this distinction, as it was only
quasi-operational from May 29th, 1945 to sometime in 1947, and most of
that time the few in flyable condition stayed on the ground, as it was
not a reliable aircraft:
http://www.csd.uwo.ca/~pettypi/elevo...s/b032-01.html

Pat

Pat Flannery wrote:
It seems just like yesterday when it was the most secret thing in the air:
http://makeashorterlink.com/?D11A2493E
I imagine they'll start showing up at museums now.

I remember seeing an F-117 flying overhead, apparently on its way to a
local air show. I was in a parking lot and overheard this
conversation.

"Look, it's one of those new stealth jets."
"I thought they were supposed to be invisible? How come we can see
it?"
"Maybe they have the stealth turned off."

I can't make up stuff this good!

Bill Sullivan

"You know, I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I
thought, wouldn't it be much worse if life were fair, and all the
terrible things that happen to us come because we actually deserve
them? So, now I take great comfort in the general hostility and
unfairness of the universe." - Marcus Cole

The Rocket Scientist wrote:

"Look, it's one of those new stealth jets."
"I thought they were supposed to be invisible? How come we can see
it?"
"Maybe they have the stealth turned off."

I can't make up stuff this good!



I've seen two of them; one flying at an airshow, and one close-up on the
ground at another airshow.
Whatever else it was in flight, stealthy from an acoustic point of view
it wasn't - the thing was damn loud.
IIRC, on a lot of missions they throttled their engines back to idle as
they would approach their bombing targets in a very shallow dive from
fairly high altitude to keep the noise down.
Seen close-up, the thing doesn't even look like a real aircraft; the
mass of flat panels with RAM tape over all the places where the panels
join makes it look like something made of fiberboard held together with
black painted duct tape. If something like that had shown up in a
Hollywood movie as a "stealth fighter" before the aircraft was revealed,
people would have thought it was a pretty cheap and clunky prop. :-)

Pat