Vahe.DThere’s a video on Youtube showing the Mikoyan-Gurevich 1.44 in flight:
Vahe.DThe book Osprey Encyclopedia of Russian Aircraft 1875-1995 is a very comprehensive compendium of Russian/CIS aircraft built during the last years of Romanov dynasty, the timespan when the USSR existed, and the Russian Federation’s first years. There are two alphabetic sections in this book devoted to the OKB-1 and OKB-2 design groups which were formed by captured German aeronautical engineers who had worked on the DFS 346 supersonic research aircraft and Junkers EF 126 pulsejet fighter but also the Ju 287 and EF 131 forward swept wing bomber programs and EF 132 strategic jet bomber project during the last years of the Third Reich. In fact, when Brunolf Baade was in the USSR working as part of OKB-1, he used the EF 131 prototype FSW jet bomber as the basis of the twin-engine EF 140 derivative, which used newer-generation turbojets with greater output than the Jumo 004 and BMW 003. I should point out that the entry about the Myasishchev M-50 in this book is a bit incorrect with respect to the aircraft’s developmental history because although the M-52 was derived from the M-50, it differed in having a side-by-side cockpit and a compartment in the nose for a navigator but also the extra horizontal stabilizer atop the vertical stabilizer, and five M-52 prototypes were ordered (only the first was nearly completed but not yet flown when the Myasishchev OKB was closed down in 1960). There was also a second M-50 prototype on order, which would have had the Zubets turbojets, but it was not completed.
Vahe.DI purchased a copy of this document a few years ago and while the Boeing Model 448 was already included in a lot of books on the B-47 with respect to the history of design and development of the B-47, many of the bomber designs in this publications had only been previously covered in news journals or otherwise remained cloaked in secrecy until researchers got the chance to take notes on those proposals after the archives were opened. The inclusion of the Vought SLAM nuclear-powered cruise missile in the document is problematic because the SLAM wasn’t a bomber but instead a cruise missile despite carrying a nuclear weapons payload. With respect to the D-436 proposals that constituted the first phase of North American’s design studies for the AMSA competition won by the B-1A, research by the late Robert Bradley in the 2010s confirmed that North American Aviation had a D-series design number sequence separate from the company’s NA-series company designation sequence, in which case the D-436 designation was part of the company’s D-series company designation sequence (the X-15 bore the internal designation D-250 whereas the delta-wing X-15 project was internally called D-435-1-4).
As a side note, the first issue of US Bomber Projects notes in the preface that Scott Lowther shelved his planned “magnum opus” on post-World War II US bomber projects, US Bomber Projects Since WWII, long ago after he realized that such a book would not be a financially cost-effective publishing project due to several authors coming out with books covering many aspects of the scope of his planned book US Bomber Projects Since WWII, including the initial and revised editions of Tony Buttler’s American Secret Projects volume about bomber, attack, and ASW aircraft as well as Jared Zichek’s book on carrier-based strategic bomber designs for the OS-111 and OS-115 requirements by the Navy (the Douglas D-593 won the OS-111 contest and became the A3D, but the Navy shelved the OS-115 requirement before it could evaluate the Douglas Model 1186 or any other OS-115 design submissions and decide which one should be selected).
Vahe.DThe Boeing KC-97G on display at the Berlin Airlift Historical Foundation in Farmingdale, New Jersey, and given the serial number 52-2718 is painted in the colors of the YC-97A with serial number 45-59595.
It is also interesting to note that the KC-97G with serial 52-2718 was one of 81 KC-97Gs converted to the KC-97L variant with two auxiliary General Electric J47s to add speed.
Also, why was 52-2718 and not another derelict KC-97G spared from the scrapping chosen as the aircraft to be painted in the colors of the YC-97A with serial number 45-59595 that took part in the Berlin Airlift?
Link:
https://registry.faa.gov/AircraftInquiry/Search/NNumberResult?nNumberTx…
Vahe.DThe Gloster Meteor NF.14 with RAF serial number WS726 was removed from Royton ATC in 2022 to be moved to a private collection in Essex:
https://www.theoldhamtimes.co.uk/news/20060156.meteor-military-plane-le…
Vahe.DI took this photograph in January 2024 of a Hispano HA-200 Saeta preserved in the outdoor display section of the Planes of Fame Museum.
Vahe.DJust to answer the question, there are probably more than 40 P-40s left judging from the list of surviving P-40s in the link below:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_surviving_Curtiss_P-40s
Vahe.DThe US Air Force is currently operating in secret an unmanned stealthy flying wing built by Northrop Grumman and tailored for the same stealthy strategic reconnaissance role that the Quartz and Tier III would have filled. Informally dubbed “RQ-180” because it was referred to by this label in a December 2013 issue of Aviation Week and Space Technology (although that may not be its true designation), it first flew on August 3, 2010 and nine service test vehicles were built before production began in 2016-2017. The “RQ-180” draws upon Northrop Grumman’s SensorCraft design studies conducted under contract from the Air Force Research Laboratory, and it is apparent from Northrop Grumman financial records that NG won a secret USAF competition initiated in 2007 for a stealthy strategic reconnaissance drone drawing heavily upon the requirements laid out for the SensorCraft program. Northrop Grumman’s experience with development and flight testing of the “RQ-180” probably helped the company with design of the flying wing bomber proposal that won the LRSB competition in September 2015 and became the B-21 Raider.
Although the US Air Force has yet to publicly unveil the “RQ-180”, ground-based sightings of the drone flying at high altitudes in 2020 and 2021 show that the USAF may lift the cloak of secrecy surrounding this UAV program sooner of later. In short, the Northrop Grumman “RQ-180” fills the penetrating ISR niche left vacant by the SR-71’s retirement in the 1990s, and notwithstanding the fact that rumors in the early 1990s about the Air Force deploying a hypersonic follow-on to the SR-71 turned to be untrue due to the “donuts-on-a-rope” contrails being dismissed as being produced by airliners and the fact that scramjet and turbine-based combined cycle engine technology was in its infancy in the 1980s and 1990s, Lockheed did work on designs for a hypersonic spyplane for the USAF in the late 1970s and 1980s, including the methane-fueled Mach 5 Penetrator.
References:
Merlin, P.W., 2023. Dreamland: The Secret History of Area 51. Atglen, PA: Schiffer Publishing. (available for purchase at Amazon)
https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2021/09/07/americas-new-stealth-d…
https://aviationweek.com/defense-space/aircraft-propulsion/possible-pho…
https://premium.globalsecurity.org/intell/systems/rq-180.htm
Vahe.DI have copies of the books Junkers Ju 287: The World’s First Swept-Wing Jet Aircraft by Horst Lommel (Schiffer Publishing, 2004) and Junkers Ju 287: Germany’s Forward Swept Wing Bomber by Stephen Ransom and Peter Korrell (Ian Allan Publishing, 2008), and they have given me an opportunity to correct the historical record regarding subsequent Ju 287 prototypes and a few other aspects of the Ju 287’s gestation:
1. Everyone knows the first Ju 287 prototype, because it was merely intended to test forward swept wing technology. However, this aircraft was not optimized for high-speed testing, which was the intended goal of the second Ju 287 prototype. The Ju 287 V2 was a six-engine plane like the Ju 287 V3, but was actually built from the same components as the first Ju 287 prototype. However, the second Ju 287 prototype (assigned the Stammkennzeichen code RS+RB) differed from the first prototype in having the horizontal stabilizer lowered by 12 inches (30 cm), the main undercarriage struts having an inward cant, the tail wheel removed, and trouser pants for the nose undercarriage painted in light color.
2. The engine arrangement for Ju 287 V2 (and Ju 287 V3 and the production series aircraft as well) originally was to feature two fuselage mounted Jumo 004s and four BMW 003As in pairs under the wings. However, after wind tunnel tests revealed aerodynamic problems with this engine arrangement, Junkers decided to change the engine configuration for the Ju 287 V2 and the planned production Ju 287 (as well as Ju 287 V3) to two clover leaf-shaped pods of jet engines under the wings,. This could partly explain why some authors confused the Ju 287 V3 and EF 131 with the Ju 287 V2, because they had six engines like V2.
3. The Ju 287 V3 (powered by six BMW 003A turbojets) was to be unarmed, even though it was the first of four Ju 287 prototypes to reflect the design of the production Ju 287, which was basically a jet-powered, swept-wing Ju 288/388 with retractable tricycle landing gear. Three more Ju 287 prototypes were planned, V4 was to be the planned prototype for the Ju 287A-1 production version, and V5 and V6 being intended to be fitted armament. The Ju 287 V3 and V4 were under construction during the last months of World War II in Europe, with V3 having reached 80-90 percent completion and Ju 287 V4 reportedly being 60 percent complete.
4. The Ju 287 V2 was nearing completion by early September 1944 when it was shipped to Brandis, only waiting to be fitted with the BMW and Jumo jet engines. However, the triple engine pod arrangement wasn’t fitted to the Ju 287 V2 due to the cancellation of the Ju 287 program in late September.
5. The first and second Ju 287 prototypes were blown up by retreating German troops at Brandis in early 1945 to avoid falling into the hands of approaching Allied forces. However, US troops entered Brandis on April 16, 1945, and they also captured the Junkers plant in Dessau the same month. The Dessau factory was later handed over to Soviet forces in summer 1945, and remnants of the second Ju 287 prototype, including the wings would be used in construction of the EF 131.
6. Because Ju 287 V2 was blown up by German forces at Brandis, and Ju 287 V3 was incomplete, neither V2 nor V3 flew in the USSR after World War II as claimed in some older books; the claim that Ju 287 V3 flew 200 flying hours in the Soviet Union is erroneous, as the FSW bomber flown in the USSR in 1947-1948 was the EF 131 and not the Ju 287 V2 or V3.
That said, the second Ju 287 prototype was a Frankenstein plane like the first Ju 287 prototype, while Ju 287 V3 was never intended to possess armament (V5 and V6 were the armed prototypes), and Ju 287 V2 and V3 never flew. I’ve attached a diagram depicting the first three Ju 287 prototypes (from the 1991 issue of the Aviatik magazine) to give everyone an idea of what the second and third Ju 287 prototypes would have looked like had they flown.
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