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2011-02-24 Africa North
How a Pilot Risked His Life To Spy On Libya
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Posted by OldSpook 2011-02-24 15:36|| || Front Page|| [11130 views ]  Top

#1 Of course, this was back when we had a REAL leader as President, not an empty-suited union-tool machine-pol narcissistic leftist moron that we have now.
Posted by OldSpook 2011-02-24 15:47||   2011-02-24 15:47|| Front Page Top

#2 From the article:

I estimated that we could beat the rocket-powered missiles to the turn and stayed our course, betting our lives on the plane's performance. After several agonizingly long seconds, we made the turn and blasted toward the Mediterranean 'You might want to pull it back,' Walter suggested. It was then that I noticed I still had the throttles full forward. The plane was flying a mile every 1.6 seconds, well above our Mach 3.2 limit. ... I pulled the throttles to idle just south of Sicily , but we still overran the refueling tanker awaiting us over Gibraltar.


Thats 5760 mph - Mach 8.73. Whoa.
Posted by OldSpook 2011-02-24 15:53||   2011-02-24 15:53|| Front Page Top

#3 That's 1.6 s/mi, not 1.6 mi/s. :-)

In any case, there is a story I read about Kelly Johnson being interviewed and he was asked if it could really go mach 3.5. His answer was along the lines of "Yeah, and a $hitload more."

I don't believe anyone ever really tried to get it up to full speed. The probably would have run out of room.

Those engines were the closest thing we had to a ramjet until a few years ago.

Not bad for '50s technology, eh?

Given their drive, common sense, breadth of understanding, and ability to absorb information and take it to the next level, I wonder what those engineers could do with today's technology.
Posted by gorb 2011-02-24 17:09||   2011-02-24 17:09|| Front Page Top

#4 Thanks for the correction. I was wondering how the hell it went that fast, Id never heard numbers like that even on the classified side of things.
Posted by OldSpook 2011-02-24 18:43||   2011-02-24 18:43|| Front Page Top

#5 I know they've been retired, but I hope they've still got a couple stashed someplace. Put fake solar panels on them and rename them "Greenbirds" to keep Fearless Leader happy...
Posted by tu3031 2011-02-24 19:36||   2011-02-24 19:36|| Front Page Top

#6 From the article:

One day, high above Arizona...

Har! I heard that story told in legend form. In that case, the Cessna pilot was an instructor showing his student that he could request his airspeed from ATC.

Another good one, shorn of real pilot lingo, 'cause I don't know it:

Pilot: Requesting clearance to 100,000ft.
ATC: *snort* OK, if you can get there, it's all yours.
Pilot: Roger, descending to 100,000...
Posted by Angie Schultz 2011-02-24 20:09||   2011-02-24 20:09|| Front Page Top

#7 2250 mph. Somewhere around mach 3.4, if I use whatever scale OS was using.

(Mach number, of course, varies with temperature. Some settling may occur during shipping, etc.)
Posted by Thing From Snowy Mountain 2011-02-24 20:28||   2011-02-24 20:28|| Front Page Top

#8 There's nothing quite like taking your hand off the throttle a little too late over Sicily and overshooting Gibraltar.
Posted by Halliburton - Mysterious Conspiracy Division 2011-02-24 21:49||   2011-02-24 21:49|| Front Page Top

#9 i think NASA has a coupls stashed for research purposes. or else commuting to the nearest mosque.
these were wonderful airplanes. all the ones that have been retired had the spars severed to ensure they would never fly again. and the USAF had the tooling destroyed.
Posted by USN,Ret 2011-02-24 23:38||   2011-02-24 23:38|| Front Page Top

00:00 JosephMendiola
23:50 JosephMendiola
23:48 JosephMendiola
23:44 darrylq
23:43 USN,Ret
23:38 USN,Ret
23:21 KBK
23:15 trailing wife
22:56 trailing wife
22:52 Thing From Snowy Mountain
22:51 Procopius2k
22:44 OldSpook
22:41 OldSpook
22:35 DarthVader
22:31 Thing From Snowy Mountain
21:58 newc
21:54 newc
21:49 Halliburton - Mysterious Conspiracy Division
21:28 Zhang Fei
21:15 tu3031
21:13 trailing wife
21:04 trailing wife
21:01 tu3031
20:59 Nimble Spemble









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