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red750

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  1. red750
  2. red750
    weight shift aloft.jpg
  3. red750
    The British Martin-Baker MB 5 was the ultimate development of a series of prototype fighter aircraft built during the Second World War. Neither the MB 5 nor its predecessors ever entered production, despite what test pilots described as excellent performance. Martin-Baker Aircraft began the MB 5 as the second Martin-Baker MB 3 prototype, designed to Air Ministry Specification F.18/39 for an agile, sturdy Royal Air Force fighter, able to fly faster than 400 mph. After the first MB 3 crashed in 1942, killing Val Baker, the second prototype was delayed. A modified MB 3 with a Rolls-Royce Griffon engine, rather than the Napier Sabre of the MB 3, was planned as the MB 4, but a full redesign was chosen instead. The redesigned aircraft, designated MB 5, used wings similar to the MB 3, but had an entirely new steel-tube fuselage. Power came from a Rolls-Royce Griffon 83 liquid-cooled V-12 engine, producing 2,340 hp (1,745 kW) and driving two three-bladed contra-rotating propellers. Armament was four 20 mm Hispano cannon, mounted in the wings outboard of the widely spaced retractable undercarriage. A key feature of the design was ease of manufacture and maintenance: much of the structure was box-like, favouring straight lines and simple conformation. It was built under the same contract that covered the building of the MB 3. Only 1 example was built, the colour photo shows this aircraft after refurbishment, before the elevators wer reinstalled.
  4. red750
    More information about "MBB 223 Flamingo"
    The MBB 223 Flamingo was a light aircraft developed in West Germany in the 1960s in response to a competition for a standard trainer for the country's aeroclubs. Designed by SIAT, it was a conventional low-wing monoplane with fixed tricycle undercarriage. The cockpit was enclosed by a large bubble canopy. SIAT had not undertaken much production of the type before the firm was acquired by MBB in 1970. Eventually, the new owners transferred production to CASA in Spain. A fully acrobatic, single-seat version, and a four-seat utility version were also developed. Variants Model 223A-1 Flamingo Trainer A1 Two or four-seat trainer aircraft, powered by a 149-kW (200-hp) Avco Lycoming IO-360 piston engine. Model 223K-1 Flamingo Trainer K1 Single-seat aerobatic aircraft, powered by a 149-kW (200-hp) Avco Lycoming AIO-360 piston engine. Model 223T-1 Flamingo Trainer T1 One aircraft fitted with a turbocharged 157-kW (210-hp) Avco Lycoming TO-360-C1A6D piston engine. Model 223-M4 The Model 223T-1 Flamingo Trainer T1 was later fitted with a Porsche PFM 3200 engine. One aircraft only.
  5. red750
    The Convair XB-46 was a single example of an experimental medium jet bomber which was developed in the mid-1940s but which never saw production or active duty. It competed with similar designs, the North American XB-45 and Martin XB-48, all of which saw little use after the successful development of the Boeing XB-47. In 1944, the War Department was aware of aviation advances in Germany and issued a requirement for a range of designs for medium bombers weighing from 80,000 pounds (36,000 kg) to more than 200,000 pounds (91,000 kg). Other designs resulting from this competition, sometimes named the class of '45, included the North American XB-45 and the Martin XB-48. Procurement began with a letter contract (cost-plus-fixed-fee) on 17 January 1945 with mockup inspection and approval in early February. Orders for three prototypes followed on 27 February 1945 with certain changes recommended by the board. Serials 45-59582 to 59584 were assigned. Budgetary concerns also led to the contract being changed to a fixed-price type. In the fall of 1945, Convair found it was competing with itself when the USAAF became interested in an unorthodox forward-swept wing jet attack design, the XA-44-CO that the company had also been working on. With the end of World War II severely curtailing budgets, the company considered canceling the XB-46 in favor of the other project as there was insufficient funding for both. Company officials argued that it made more sense to allow them to complete the XB-46 prototype as a stripped-down testbed omitting armament and other equipment and for the AAF to allow them to proceed with two XA-44 airframes in lieu of the other two XB-46s on contract. In June 1946, the AAF agreed to the substitution but that project was ultimately cancelled in December 1946 before the prototypes were completed. The B-46 would be completed with only the equipment necessary to prove its airworthiness and handling characteristics.
  6. red750
    I try when possible, but they still do. And, you have to watch out for the huge American 4x4 tradie trucks coming the opposite way and using more than their share of the road.
  7. red750
    What annoys me is roundabouts with chicane entries which cancel your turn indicators. I use the below roundabout at least twice daily, travelling up Karwitha St and turning right to exit via Nurlendi St to the north. I indicate approaching the roundabout, but the chicane cancels it before I enter the roundabout. I put the right indicator on again till I pass the western exit then put on the left indicator to exit to the nortth. On the way home, it is the opposite, left, left again. The buildings above the roundabout are primary school classrooms.
  8. red750
    The Northrop F-20 Tigershark (initially F-5G) is a light fighter, designed and built by Northrop. Its development began in 1975 as a further evolution of Northrop's F-5E Tiger II, featuring a new engine that greatly improved overall performance, and a modern avionics suite including a powerful and flexible radar. Compared with the F-5E, the F-20 was much faster, gained beyond-visual-range air-to-air capability, and had a full suite of air-to-ground modes capable of utilizing most U.S. weapons. With these improved capabilities, the F-20 became competitive with contemporary fighter designs such as the General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon, but was much less expensive to purchase and operate. Much of the F-20's development was carried out under a US Department of Defense (DoD) project called "FX". FX sought to develop fighters that would be capable in combat with the latest Soviet aircraft, but excluding sensitive front-line technologies used by the United States Air Force's own aircraft. FX was a product of the Carter administration's military export policies, which aimed to provide foreign nations with high quality equipment without the risk of US front-line technology falling into Soviet hands. Northrop had high hopes for the F-20 in the international market, but policy changes following Ronald Reagan's election meant the F-20 had to compete for sales against aircraft like the F-16, the USAF's latest fighter design. The development program was abandoned in 1986 after three prototypes had been built and a fourth partially completed.
  9. red750
    Victorian Road Death Statistics. TAC Stats. 2021 234 2022 241 2023 YTD 236
  10. red750

    Saab 17

    red750 posted an aircraft in Warbirds

    More information about "Saab 17"
    The Saab 17 is a Swedish single-engine monoplane reconnaissance dive-bomber aircraft of the 1940s originally developed by ASJA prior to its merger into Saab. It was the first all-metal stressed skin aircraft developed in Sweden. The project was initiated in response to a 1938 request from the Flygvapnet (Swedish Air Force) for a reconnaissance aircraft to replace the obsolete Fokker S 6 (C.Ve) sesquiplane. Design work began at the end of the 1930s as the L 10 by ASJA, but once accepted by the Flygvapnet it was assigned the designations B 17 and S 17 for the bomber and reconnaissance versions respectively, and it became better known as the Saab 17. The design chosen was a conventional mid-wing cantilever monoplane with a long greenhouse canopy and a single radial engine in the nose. Control surfaces were covered in fabric but the remainder was stressed-skin duraluminum. It could be fitted with wheels or skiis, both of which retracted straight to the rear along the underside of the wing, leaving prominent fairings, and when fitted with wheels the undercarriage doors could be used as dive brakes. A retractable tailwheel was provided. A floatplane version was built in small numbers for coastal reconnaissance to replace the obsolete Svenska S 5, with massive fairings joining the floats to the wings where the wheels would have been. To maintain stability small vertical fins were added to the horizontal stabilizer. The wings were reinforced so that it could be used as a dive bomber and bomb racks were provided under the wings, along with a small bomb bay below the cockpit, although some examples used a conventional rack on the centreline, while on the bomber versions, a crutch was fitted to swing the bomb clear of the aircraft in vertical diving attacks, when the bomb could otherwise have passed through the propeller. The reconnaissance versions lacked the crutch. Split flaps broken into four segments were fitted to the underside trailing edge of the wing. Two L 10 prototypes were ordered, the first being powered by a 880 hp (660 kW) Bristol Mercury XII radial engine built by Nohab in Sweden, and the second with an imported 1,065 hp (794 kW) Pratt & Whitney R-1830 Twin Wasp C radial. Supplies of suitable engines remained a major problem, and resulted in the aircraft being built in three versions with different engines. The definitive B 17A used the Swedish-built STWC-3 (Swedish Twin Wasp C-3), an unlicenced copy of the R-1830. The B 17B used a Bristol Mercury XXIV built by Svenska Flygmotor AB (SFA) in Sweden, and the B 17C used an imported 1,060 hp (790 kW) Piaggio P.XI radial from Italy. The United States government denied a request to purchase a licence to build the Twin Wasp, so an unlicensed, reverse engineered copy was built instead as the STWC-3 (Swedish Twin Wasp C-3) to supplement and replace the lower powered Mercury radials already being built under licence. Until production caught up to demand, the earliest aircraft being delivered were flown to their destinations, the engines were removed and shipped back, to be used on the next aircraft to be delivered.Number built 326 (including 2 prototypes) Variants Company designations L 10 internal ASJA/Saab designation; two produced Saab S 17BS mounted on floats L 10A internal ASJA/Saab designation for 17A, B, and C L 10BL internal ASJA/Saab designation for S17BL L 10BS internal ASJA/Saab designation for S17BS Flygvapnet designations P 7 L 10 development prototypes B 8 Preliminary designation for bomber version of L 10, not used B 17A Bomber with 1,065 hp (794 kW) Svenska Flygmotor Aktiebolaget (SFA)-built STWC-3 (Pratt & Whitney R-1830-S1C3G Twin Wasp) radial engine; 132 built B 17B Bomber with 980 hp (730 kW) SFA-built Bristol Mercury XXIV radial engine; 55 built B 17C Bomber with 1,060 hp (790 kW) Piaggio P.XIbis R.C.40D radial engine; 77 built S 15 Preliminary designation for reconnaissance version of the L 10, not used S 17BL Reconnaissance version of B 17B with wheeled or ski landing gear; 21 built S 17BS Reconnaissance version of B 17B with floats, powered by a Bristol Mercury XXIV engine; 38 built
  11. red750
    The Hawker Tornado was a British single-seat fighter aircraft design of the Second World War for the Royal Air Force as a replacement for the Hawker Hurricane. The planned production of Tornados was cancelled after the engine it was designed to use, the Rolls-Royce Vulture, proved unreliable in service. A parallel airframe that used the Napier Sabre engine continued into production as the Hawker Typhoon. Number built 4 (3 prototypes and 1 production).
  12. red750
    The XB-38 was the result of a modification project undertaken by Vega (a subsidiary of Lockheed) on a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress to fit it with liquid-cooled Allison V-1710-89 V-12 engines. It was meant as an improved version of the B-17, and a variant that could be used if air-cooled Wright R-1820 radial engines became scarce. Completing the modifications took less than a year, and the XB-38 made its first flight on May 19, 1943. Only one prototype was built, and it was developed from an existing B-17 bomber.
  13. red750
    More details.
  14. red750
    Why was it reported as 3 days ago, and how come it didn't appear here?
  15. red750
    https://au.yahoo.com/news/grim-search-missing-chopper-055500691.html
  16. red750
    Read more about the XP-40Q series.
  17. red750
    A photo from yesterday at Lilydale
  18. red750
  19. red750
    Pardon my for sidetracking for a moment, but I had a thoroughly disappointing day today. Our Men's Shed was closed as some members, including a co-ordinator, have Covid, so I thought I would enjoy a glorious sunny day and go to Lilydale airport, a place I haven't been in about 5 years. There were a number of aircraft tied down in various states of neglect. On the flightline, there were three PA-28s, and three ex-Soar Aviation yellow Foxbats. A red and white Pitts Special, which I think had been performing aeros overhead, landed and taxied past the flying school. One of the PA-28's and one of the Foxbats started up, and after a short while, taxied to the holding point. They held there for a short while, waiting while another Foxbat came in, floated about halfway down the runway before landing. I didn't wait to see the others take off. So in the half hour or so I was there, four movements. Then I drove to Coldstream, which was even more depressing. Only one PA-28 parked outside the clubrooms, and a partly disassembled Pier Aztec way down the back next to a hangar. Not a thing was moving. Granted, it is Friday, and things may liven up tomorrow, but I thought there may have been a little more action.
  20. red750
    The Savoia-Marchetti SM.93 - An Italian dive-bomber prototype designed by Alessandro Marchetti in the early-1940s. The thing that sets this aircraft apart from the rest is its cockpit, it not only looks odd from the outside, it was also unique in the inside. As you can see part of the cockpit is placed above the engine, this was made to better accommodate the pilot in a prone position, he was set in such a position to help him resist the g-force that he would experience in flight, however as you may have already imagine, this only limited the pilot’s visibility and handling of the aircraft, therefore the project was cancelled. Only 1 produced.
  21. red750
    Rutan Varieze. Rudolph is getting a bit old and slow.
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  24. red750
    The Vickers Windsor was a Second World War British four-engine heavy bomber, designed by Barnes Wallis and Rex Pierson at the Vickers-Armstrongs factory at Brooklands. Only three examples (the original plus successive prototypes known as Type 457 and Type 461) were built. This was due to refinements in the existing Lancaster bomber, rendering it suitable for the role for which the Windsor had been designed. The first prototype flew on 23 October 1943, the second on 15 February 1944, and the third on 11 July 1944. All three were built at Vickers' secret dispersed Foxwarren Experimental Department between Brooklands and nearby Cobham. The two latter prototypes were tested until the end of the Second World War, when further development and production were cancelled.
  25. red750
    Picture or video, Walrus?
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