Post amazingly cool pictures of aircraft (Volume 2)
Discussion
Sorry, no pictures, but worth sharing I think...
On the subject of AVPIN
https://rhodesianforces.org/No1sqnavpin.html?fbcli...
On the subject of AVPIN
https://rhodesianforces.org/No1sqnavpin.html?fbcli...
DJFish said:
Already?
Will it have paid for itself?
The owners who leased it to Singapore AL for 10 years reckon it did return a profit but I would be a bit sceptical. As in any asset leasing they would have assumed a decent residual value so would have priced the monthlies accordingly. It might be that the first one scrapped returns something decent for the sale of components but the ones after that are unlikely to do that to the same extent given the small market.Will it have paid for itself?
irocfan said:
I'm sure it's been mentioned before but why did the 380 fall on its arse so spectacularly? I'd have thought the ability to carry twice the passengers compared to the next biggest would make all sorts of sense
There aren't many routes requiring that much capacity. Even the 747 is a bit large for most airlines. Something like a 777 has far cheaper running costs and is usually big enough to carry the really profitable passengers even if there isn't as much space left for cheapskate backpackers.
Dr Jekyll said:
irocfan said:
I'm sure it's been mentioned before but why did the 380 fall on its arse so spectacularly? I'd have thought the ability to carry twice the passengers compared to the next biggest would make all sorts of sense
There aren't many routes requiring that much capacity. Even the 747 is a bit large for most airlines. Something like a 777 has far cheaper running costs and is usually big enough to carry the really profitable passengers even if there isn't as much space left for cheapskate backpackers.
irocfan said:
I'm sure it's been mentioned before but why did the 380 fall on its arse so spectacularly? I'd have thought the ability to carry twice the passengers compared to the next biggest would make all sorts of sense
Because the airliner industry has to place its bets on what the future airline market will be like, and Airbus got it wrong. The big debate was whether travel would be ‘hub and spokes’ with shorter smaller flights feeding from regional airports into big hub airports for the long transcontinental flights, or ‘city to city’ where flights would be directly between far apart cities in one hop. The 380 was built to be a hub to hub machine, but the market went the other way and so a city to city machine like the Dreamliner is winning. 
The Soviets received a Northrop F-5A Freedom Fighter from Vietnam via Czechoslovakia near the end of the Vietnam War. The fighter was extensively evaluated against the current fighters in Soviet service at the time, where it proved a formidable opponent despite being, by American standards, an extremely basic aircraft.
Apparently, the Soviets were so impressed by the F-5A, they gave serious consideration to copying the aircraft like how they did the same for the Boeing B-29 Superfortress despite the fact that the F-5A/B Freedom Fighter is the close equal of their own Mikoyan-Gurevich Mig-21 Fishbed. The reasons for such a consideration merits some explanation.
The Soviets copied the B-29 as the Tupolev Tu-4 Bull as they needed a strategic bomber capable of reaching the United States and, for obvious reasons, the Americans refused to provide the real deal. Hence, they produced the Tu-4 by reverse engineering 3 original B-29's which had landed in Soviet territory for various reasons.
The consideration to copy the F-5 was in view of the clearly superior performance it has displayed over existing service fighter types like the Mig-21 and Mig-23. In a virtual repeat of the World War II B-29 example, a clearly superior American design had fallen into Soviet hands and is open to exploitation. Unlike the B-29 however, the Soviets decided not to follow through in the end as they were confidant that their upcoming models, the Sukhoi Su-27 Flanker and Mikoyan Mig-29 Fulcrum would negate any advantage the F-5 had.
I first read about that as far back as 1967. It was in an annual I got for Christmas. It was the first time I'd ever seen a Rogallo wing design. I promptly went out and built a Rogallo wing kite from cardboard and a plastic bag. It actually worked.
The Rogallo wing was originally designed as a foldable wing which could be used by a spacecraft to land on land rather than on water. The US Air Force were planning on using a militarised version of the Gemini spacecraft as part of their Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL) project and their Geminis would have glided in to land on skids in the desert.
NASA carried out a number of drop tests of half scale Genmini craft. The Rogallo wing did actually work quite well as far as a steerable parachute went but they could not get the deployment and unfurlment to work reliably. In the end, MOL was cancelled and the Rogallo wing experiments ended.
However, they did form the basis for the first generation of hang gliders.
The Rogallo wing was originally designed as a foldable wing which could be used by a spacecraft to land on land rather than on water. The US Air Force were planning on using a militarised version of the Gemini spacecraft as part of their Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL) project and their Geminis would have glided in to land on skids in the desert.
NASA carried out a number of drop tests of half scale Genmini craft. The Rogallo wing did actually work quite well as far as a steerable parachute went but they could not get the deployment and unfurlment to work reliably. In the end, MOL was cancelled and the Rogallo wing experiments ended.
However, they did form the basis for the first generation of hang gliders.
MartG said:
Sorry, no pictures, but worth sharing I think...
On the subject of AVPIN
https://rhodesianforces.org/No1sqnavpin.html?fbcli...
That's also a very well known RAF liney tale. We called the single cylinder tugs Donkeys, and there are many tales of mishaps involving them, including the use of Avpin.On the subject of AVPIN
https://rhodesianforces.org/No1sqnavpin.html?fbcli...
Eric Mc said:
I first read about that as far back as 1967. It was in an annual I got for Christmas. It was the first time I'd ever seen a Rogallo wing design. I promptly went out and built a Rogallo wing kite from cardboard and a plastic bag. It actually worked.
The Rogallo wing was originally designed as a foldable wing which could be used by a spacecraft to land on land rather than on water. The US Air Force were planning on using a militarised version of the Gemini spacecraft as part of their Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL) project and their Geminis would have glided in to land on skids in the desert.
NASA carried out a number of drop tests of half scale Genmini craft. The Rogallo wing did actually work quite well as far as a steerable parachute went but they could not get the deployment and unfurlment to work reliably. In the end, MOL was cancelled and the Rogallo wing experiments ended.
However, they did form the basis for the first generation of hang gliders.
The Gemini capsule used for these tests is on display hanging above the cafe in the Space Centre in Leicester.The Rogallo wing was originally designed as a foldable wing which could be used by a spacecraft to land on land rather than on water. The US Air Force were planning on using a militarised version of the Gemini spacecraft as part of their Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL) project and their Geminis would have glided in to land on skids in the desert.
NASA carried out a number of drop tests of half scale Genmini craft. The Rogallo wing did actually work quite well as far as a steerable parachute went but they could not get the deployment and unfurlment to work reliably. In the end, MOL was cancelled and the Rogallo wing experiments ended.
However, they did form the basis for the first generation of hang gliders.
Edited by Willow1212 on Friday 3rd January 13:07
On this day: 53 years ago, F-4Cs from the 8th Tactical Fighter Wing, led by Colonel Robin Olds, and “electronically” disguised as F-105s, tricked 16 North Vietnamese MiG-21s into battle at a disadvantage (January 2, 1967). The result: Seven MiGs went down over Phúc Yên, for zero American loses. Operation Bolo, the most elaborate sting in military aviation history, was a complete success!
MartG said:
On this day: 53 years ago, F-4Cs from the 8th Tactical Fighter Wing, led by Colonel Robin Olds, and “electronically” disguised as F-105s, tricked 16 North Vietnamese MiG-21s into battle at a disadvantage (January 2, 1967). The result: Seven MiGs went down over Phúc Yên, for zero American loses. Operation Bolo, the most elaborate sting in military aviation history, was a complete success!
Everything about your post is awesome. 
MartG said:
The Soviets copied the B-29 as the Tupolev Tu-4 Bull as they needed a strategic bomber capable of reaching the United States and, for obvious reasons, the Americans refused to provide the real deal. Hence, they produced the Tu-4 by reverse engineering 3 original B-29's which had landed in Soviet territory for various reasons.
According to a documentary I saw, even the rudder pedals were cast with the word 'Boeing' on them.Gassing Station | Boats, Planes & Trains | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff