Assuming that XM173 arrived at Bently Proiry by road it must have been taken to pieces, does anybody know when and how she was transported ? I think that comon practice today is to cut the wings off and splice them back on. I guess that this is easier than taking the aircraft apart at a manufacturing joint, indeed was the lightning wing made in one piece without ‘bolted’ connections ? Lets hope a good home can be found for her.

This one was transported by the RAF in ’77, I can’t remember them chopping the wings. We did gut the airframe before it was moved. Not everything was done iaw AP’s.

Obviously that nice fantasy land where the RAF strike force in the 1960/70s would consist of supersonic Harriers (P1154) for tactical missions, TSR2’s for theatre missions and Avro-730’s for strategic missions is a nice place to imagine.;)

True, it’s a pity that a little thing like money got in the way of the idea.

I take it you did not know that the A-12 (also YF-12 and SR-71) hydraulic fluid had to to heated so it will flow. I could see a broken line, happen often, but heat was the hydraulic fluids friend. Even the ground service cart were called “hot carts” because they had a heater system on them.

Yes I do know that, still, too much heat is nobody’s friend.

google maps shows a victor sat next to a vulcan at cosford, i haven’t been there in an age but is it still there, or was this the B1 that was scrapped?

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=Cosford,+Shifnal,+Shropshire+TF11,+United+Kingdom&sll=52.644222,-2.31679&sspn=0.002383,0.005021&ie=UTF8&ll=52.642959,-2.314317&spn=0.004765,0.010042&t=k&z=17&om=1

It seems to be a very old photograph, because forgive me if im wrong, but it looks like there are 3 Jet Provost’s sat on the ramp outside the farthest hangar to the right, and the airliner collection is still intact, can anyone shed some light on this? 🙂

It’s a K2, only the mk2’s had the Whitcomb pods on the trailing edge of the mainplane.

Strangely, for the Blackbird, nobody ever asked if it made sense after all, while you can have a lively discussion when you ask if the Blackbird made M3.4 or M3.5.

Many misunderstandings come from the disability of some media (and euphoric people) to separate between a low-scale study and a full rate production or at least test program. I would only start talking of an aircraft if the approved budget is at least 8-digit (in 2007 USD), if the term “supersonic” appears somewhere add a digit.

Actually the only time that the A12 approachd Mn 3.3, it was so badly damaged it took eight weeks to get it airworthy.

I didn’t write it and actually I think it is not entirely correct. What exactly do you want to tell me?

My mistake, #4.

It is not a matter of preference, but of offloading speed. The boom was designed to offload large quantities of fuel in the shortest amount of time possible. SAC (then the owner of virtually all tanker aircraft) operated the big ones, such as strategic bombers and cargo aircraft. KC-135s have 5 different speeds to offload their cargo, with (IIRC) speed #5 for bombers and C-5s (and since its introduction the E-3) and speed #2 for fighters such as F-16s (and if fitted with a dogue USN aircraft). If you would offload the fuel to a Sentry with a drogue it would take forever, as the speed would be equal to the settings used for fighters: drogues cannot offload any faster than that.
(this according to a boom-operator of the Hawaii ANG I flew with out of Geilenkirchen years ago)

It is correct, the boom can off-load substantially more fuel than the probe and drogue. The mk17b HDU (centre-line fitted to Victor and VC10) can has a flow-rate of something in the region of 4,000lbs/min. The boom can be much higher. The trouble with getting the HDU to flow as much as a boom lies in the diameter of the hose. If it gets any bigger, you have more aerodynamic stabillity problems. Although the boom gives a higher flow rate, the three point tanker gives you more flexibility. It’s horses for courses.

Yes, but 1) I thought we were discussing the feasibility of a quick fix that’d “do a trip”, & 2) if something more was wanted (i.e. we wanted to make our C-17s capable of regular air-air refuelling), the time constraint no longer applies, & a full replacement of the receptacle by a probe could be done. Not a technically challenging job, I reckon. It’s not as if one would have to worry about supersonic speeds, or radar signature. A simple fixed boom would do.

The technicallities are not the problem with a probe, validation and certification are. That’s what eats into the budget and that is the biggest stumbling block.