of course, it was thrust SSC…i should think so too, enyone who can drive a car at 650+ mph deserves to be a wing commander. 😉

Thrust SSC actually did an average of 763 MPH. Black Rock is at about 4000 ft.

Scorsch, are you kidding me?

An F-4 set a low-altitude speed record that stood for a very long time in 1960 I believe. It was about 902 mph or so.

The F-4 is quite capable of supersonic speed at sea level, even with a tank attached.

Operation Sageburner on 28 August 1961. 903 MPH at less 125 feet at White Sands over a three kilometer (1.86 mile) course.

Link to Photo Here

All sounds a bit to much like the plot of the Dale Brown book day of the Cheetah.

I liked his earlier books but his later ones are awful.

The Flight of the Old Dog was the only one I’d call any good. (and there were plans to arm B-52s with a Megafortress type AIM 120 AAM/HARM/Tacit Rainbow weapons fit)

UK National Archives at Kew

Leaving aside the issue of guided rockets being missiles, I don’t see the point of this system.

So as I understand it, the rocket homes in on a laser reflection. This means that a laser needs to be pointed at the target, right? So why not just point the rocket at the target in the first place, and do away with the expensive laser business?

Weather and other factors do not cause a laser beam to drift off target (unlike the unguided rocket), Guided round goes to where the laser light is reflected from.

The request for typos reminded me of the bit in an accident report I came across at Middle Wallop. Basically the Driver Airframe of a Chipmunk got it wrong and took a wing off his innocent airframe by hitting the runway control vehicle. The report then said “the aircraft became inverted and slid for a further 100 years”.
After drying my eyes from laughing so much I noticed the vehicle’s registration in the report’s photograph – the vehicle still exists and is part of the Museums collection. Now where’s that Chipmunk shaped stencil and the black paint there’s a Commer’s door that needs it’s kill marking applied.
As to forgotten aircraft heros my vote would go for the AVRO Anson the RAF’s first MRCA.

RAF’s first Electronic Warfare aircraft for sure

I found the information on another web site, doing a on-line dictionary check it translates as

bon (good) homme (man) Richard

which I would say is what John Paul Jones intended (He was also her first Captian under that name).

For a long time i have wondered about the name: USS Bon Homme Richard. Does anybody know how they came up with that name ?
I have been interested in Amerian naval aviation for a longtime, but havn´t really payed much attention to the aircraft carriers…but i have always been puzzled by that name. The same thing goes fro USS Shangri-la ( i do know about the story of the Valley Shangri-la, but why would anybody name a aircaft carrier after a fictoinal vally where you don´t grow old ?)

Hope somebody can help me

webmaster of aircraftprofiles.dk

Hi profile drawer

Bonhomme Richard

The first USS Bonhomme Richard, formerly Duc de Durae, was a frigate in the Continental Navy. She was one of the first ships in the US Navy.

She was originally an East Indiaman, a merchant ship built in France for the French East India Company in 1765, for service between France and the Orient. She was placed at the disposal of John Paul Jones on February 4, 1779, by King Louis the Beloved as a result of a loan to the United States by French shipping magnate, Jacques-Donatien Le Ray. Jones renamed her Bonhomme Richard, the French language equivalent of “Poor Richard,” in honor of Benjamin Franklin’s almanac called Poor Richard’s Almanac.

Shangri-la

According to the US president FD Roosevelt in a press release after the event, Shangri-la was name of the secret base in China where a very well known attack on Japan was launched from in early 1942. as we all known now, Shangri-la was in fact the USS Hornet. The USS Shangri-la was named to honour the president’s statement.