DragonflyerThere were some very interesting posts relating to performance (top speed, mostly), but pretty far out on the fantasy end of the spectrum. The 3.2 mach number mentioned was, in fact, pretty much the top of the operational range, although short excursions a little higher could be made (and were). The airframe probably had a little more capability, but the real limiting factor was the engine. As you got above 3.2 the movement of the spike was near its aft limit, and if you went much further the ability of the spike to keep the shock wave under control and prevent “unstarts” became seriously compromised.
As an aside, I was at HQ SAC when we retired it the first time, and watched the process unfold. My take: It truely was simply a budget issue at first, as the system was very expensive when you realize the budget paid for not only the SR, but two full squadrons of KC-135Q aircraft at Beale. However, as time went by, the “savings” gained from retiring the SR (that we couldn’t afford) just coincidentally equalled the cost of a SAC plan to retain 50 B-52Gs as a “conventional only” bomber force (the initial DoD plan was to retire all the “G” models and leave only the newer B-52H aircraft). Suddenly we could “afford” the Gs. As the process continued, it was pretty obvious to us where SAC’s loyalties resided. However, the dollars suddenly disappeared from SAC’s budget allocation the day after the SR retirement plan was approved at HQ AF. It turned out SAC really didn’t control those dollars after all, which is what we tried to tell the SAC seniors who were pushing so hard for the “conventional G” program, and, oh by the way, the whole idea of the retirement (in DoD’s mind) was to decrease the overall budget, not spend the same dollars on B-52s. Typical staff shenanigans…
DragonflyerFrom my experience flying the OV-10 I can see this as a well understood phenomenom. In the OV-10, the propwash over the wing at takeoff (low speed, high power) contributed about 40% of the lift. If you suddenly lost one engine for whatever reason the natural human tendency was to maintain or increase power on the other engine. The result is to lose almost half the lift on the bad side while generating max lift on the good side. Looks like the same effect here. Lose the left, keep power on to try to maintain flight, try to hold the nose up, slow and approach the stall, the right wing generates a roll because of the lift imbalance and over you go.
Not a problem with enough altitude to ease the pitch and keep airspeed until you stabilize for single engine flight, but low and slow is a killer.
Another example from YouTube if it attached properly… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oH5hs0B5Oks
DragonflyerThey have a Mk IV Blenheim as well, which was a surprise when I saw pictures of it. PIMA is on my bucketlist of things to do when I make it to the US.
You’ll enjoy it. Of course, it helps to have your museum across the fence from Davis-Monthan AFB and the DoD’s “boneyard”, which you can also tour. If you can, also stop by Wright-Patterson AFB, near Dayton, Ohio, to see the USAF Museum, and schedule to fly in/out via Washington, DC so you can stop by the Smithsonian’s Air and Space museum downtown and it’s Dulles Airport Udvar-Hazy museum annex out at Dulles. Quite a set of locations for an aviation enthusiast to visit.
DragonflyerHaving been inside the original Plane Sailing one I can vouch for the fact that it is dark in that area. I have to say that I would not have wanted to be the flight engineer on them when they were in service. Imagine being stuck up in the pylon with your head right between those two noisy great lumps for hours on end. I think the nicknames of three flight engineers would probably have been eh, wot and pardon.
I have come to the conclusion that the more I see photos of the Spartan Executive, the more I think they are good looking machines.
My father-in-law flew as a Catalina flight engineer for a while just after the war and often talked about liking the job. Apparently once off the ground and cruising he could generally just stretch out and relax. He never commented on the noise or being bothered by the engines. On the other hand maybe he was just being polite, although that wasn’t his normal approach to discussions about airplanes he didn’t like! He was assigned to Eglin AFB in Florida where they were storing excess aircraft and had an opportunity to regularly fly as the FE on B-17s, B-24s, B-25s, B-26s, and Catalinas. Many were flown straight to Eglin from the factories and had less than 10-20 hours on them. They weren’t supposed to fly the new ones, but he said the pilots and other crew would frequently go out and switch tail numbers between old, beat up returnees from overseas and new off the factory floor models so they could enjoy the benefits (and safety) of new hardware as opposed to old, bent, patched up airframes. Nobody at Eglin cared so apparently it was a fairly common practice. He had a civilian pilots license so they let him fly the aircraft a little, as well. He loved that assignment.
DragonflyerThanks for the comments guys – spoke with my sister last night she seems to think it was 1988 and thinks Tim might have been under supervision for the take off
Could well have been. At the time Castle was the B-52 Combat Crew Training base and did all the initial qualification training.
DragonflyerBoth, actually. I believe the yellow tanker on the right is the foam supply/dispenser, the yellow fire truck on the left is a basic “fire truck”, and hidden in front of the left wing is a green fuel truck, probably defueling the aircraft, with the other two available for fire suppression support in case of an emergency.
DragonflyerYep. I suspect that’s what they were doing. Trying to haul the aircraft away with 300,000+ pounds of fuel onboard and no landing gear to roll on would be tricky!
DragonflyerI’m pretty sure that’s the Castle AFB crash….too brown and dry to be Loring (very green, lots of trees up there!). I was the Director of Recce Operations at Beale at the time (about 100 miles north) and when we heard about the crash I sent one of our U-2 training sorties over Castle the next day and photographed the base for the investigators to use. Even with a very quick glance when we developed the film that evening it was obvious that at least part of the problem was a dragging brake; you could follow the black skid mark from a point on the parallel taxiway to the final resting spot. I believe they determined that one of the rear landing gear wheels was locked up and reduced the acceleration on takeoff enough that they couldn’t get a heavy aircraft to liftoff speed nor feel the resistance. BTW, it was a “G”, with the tail gunner up front running the gun remotely. If it had been an older “D” model, with the gunner in the tail, he’d have seen the skid marks and they’d have aborted the mission and saved the aircraft!
DragonflyerActually I don’t think this is too poorly written if you look into how the USAF coding of airframes works. This is a shell game played at various times of decreasing budgets. Changing the code of the status of the aircraft (combat coded, backup, attrition reserve etc) helps save some money by cutting flight hours, billets etc, but is not as drastic as sending aircraft to the boneyard. This has been done in the USAF heavy fleets for years in the C-5, B-1 and B-52 etc, and all types of squadrons. The aircraft will get enough money for some work and will likely be flown on occasion by sister squadrons at the base. May also serve as a canibalization parts source for other aircraft and may be swapped out for regularily coded aircraft at times. This gives the remaining squadrons some extra aircraft, but yes without the same level of funding for flight hours or crews. This allows some shifting of aircraft between status’ as heavy maintainence comes up, to even out flight hours etc. Backup aircraft can usaully be regenerated much quicker than boneyard aircraft if the ballon goes up somewhere. Down side is if it goes on too long and you have to regenerate aircraft that have been sitting for too long. Harder to turn back on if too much has been deferred, or they have been stripped as hanger queens.
You can do a vertical cut (take some airframes and some squadrons out of the mix) or a horizontal cut (less flight hours for everyone). If you just cut flight hours for everyone, you still have lots of folks and airframes sitting around, but just saving some gas money and maintence hours. Overhead is still high. This is a better alternative to save some money. Cuts some billets, reduce a few squadrons. If you really wanted to save money you would close entire bases, send airframes to the boneyard and cut billets permanantly.
Given the current status of US ground requirements, there is likely much less strain on global US airlift than there has been since 2002. I recognize that can change. Every part of the mix will likely take a cut, and here is the C-17 cut- and it is reversable.
Great explanation. A PAA (combat coded) aircraft has manpower, parts, and flying hours linked to it. A BAI (Backup) is normally assigned to the same unit, but has no aircrew assigned and limited maintenance funding, but is generally used interchangably by the unit. It becomes primary again when funding is restored. I’ve been in units with a dozen BAI assigned (and a few Attrition Reserve), but you couldn’t tell out on the flightline…we flew them all. The real measure of what you could do was based on funded flying hours, not the PAA/BAI/AR coding. Flying hours is what drove the money!
DragonflyerWrite-up by pilot whose aircraft flew in a slight yaw:
Aircraft flew sideways
*Twisted aircraft to fly straight. Ops check next flight please”
Note: Nearly had to hospitalize the grizzled old Lockheed factory representative (Travis Mason…great guy but sometimes operated with his ‘low humor warning light” illuminated!) due to a near stroke while yelling at the pilot that airplanes don’t fly sideways and how was he going to answer this entry when queried by the Skunk Works engineers (by the way, the engineers never called).
DragonflyerHow about this one then 😉
Geoff.:D
A somewhat unique photo…That’s the SR71B two-seat trainer. You don’t see many of it behind the tanker.
DragonflyerThanks Charlie, I’m happy to contribute and answer questions if I can.
DragonflyerI had to do that (chase a U-2 in a T-38) once when the Duece had a hydro failure and uncertain gear indication. It is not very comfortable when you’re in the T-38! Normal T-38 final turn is about 175kts and final about 155kts (both fuel dependent) and the Duece is doing 160 for the check, which means you (the T-38 pilot) are holding a very mushy airplane as you maneuver. Not too bad staight and level, but as you move around it’s pretty easy to get into the pre-stall “burble” if you bank and pull just a little. You and the guy in the back seat have to split the looking and flying duties carefully to make sure you don’t get into a bad situation.
DragonflyerHmmm…how low?? I don’t exactly have the picture (wouldn’t be very spectacular anyway), but many years ago I was flying a U-2 from Arizona to the U.S. east coast for some sensor test work over the Atlantic coast. Given the length of the flight (13+ hours) I was flying at a max range setting vice our normal max altitude setting and passed through the Atlanta Air Traffic Control Center on the way out, but only at about 59,000 feet. The controller inquired about the altitude because we were normally above 60,000 feet (the transponder quit reporting at 60,000 and they weren’t used to seeing an actual altitude). I told him I was flying one of our new “low level routes”. I could hear the entire control center break out in laughter in the background…they must have been having a group discussion of the odd display at the time.
DragonflyerPayload configuration?
Possibly, although it seems to me that the photographic effect of that particular shot makes the nose look a bit out of proportion compared to real life. There were really only two “noses”, one for the radar sensor and one for the film camera, although there were slight modifications to each as systems were modified (old radar to updated radar, antenna mods for other systems). Shape was occasionally adjusted (slightly) for aero reasons as the systems matured.
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