Fighter Jets both old and new - A picture thread...

Saunders-Roe SR.53. Equipped with both jet and rocket motors. Hit the rockets to quickly get up to bomber interception altitude and then return with the jets. The SR.177 was going to follow on from this but was scrapped as new SAMs came on-line.

http://www.aviastar.org/pictures/england/saunders_sr-53_1.jpg

It was Air Force Los Angeles day last week and I took these on the way to work

B-1

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3221/3030588154_dab1ac1604.jpg

B-52

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3250/3029753725_9040c15168.jpg

And coolest of all... A U-2

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3056/3030590034_47e828f2be.jpg

Took the pictures I mean. Can't quite take a U-2 to work yet.

hehe

Can't believe I forgot this one... Saab 37 Viggen

http://www.xplanefreeware.net/barry/X-Plane%208.0/Viggen%20AJ_screenshot%20815.jpg

A Saab Viggen and it's replacement. The Gripen.

http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/aircraft-pictures/viggrip.jpg

http://www.dreamlandresort.com/aircraft/F-104.jpg

Prefer the Draken...
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e5/Saab_Draken.jpg/800px-Saab_Draken.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4c/SAAB_DRAKEN.png

Seeing that pic of the B-1 reminded me of its Russian big brother, the Tu-160:

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y6/akadaver/tupolev_tu160_blackjack_l3.jpg

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y6/akadaver/Tu-160_57.jpg

And yeah, Drakens are great! I always loved the look of those intakes and the compound delta wing. The steeply raked tail just screams "I go fast".

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y6/akadaver/dkntps1l30a1b40wi6.jpg

on a similar design tip...
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c9/F-16XL_afg-041110-016.jpg/300px-F-16XL_afg-041110-016.jpg
F-16XL

Totally badass: Vought XF8U-3 Crusader III. Capable of Mach 2.9, but the windscreen would have melted had it actually gone that fast.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y6/akadaver/db_4501_07.jpg

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y6/akadaver/f8u-3_12.jpg

Not forgetting the crusader's younger brother, the corsair, I used to love these when I was making shedloads of model planes:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/61/A-7E_Corsair_II.JPEG/300px-A-7E_Corsair_II.JPEG

speaking of model planes, I had one of these...
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/42/Jaguar.sideon.arp.jpg/800px-Jaguar.sideon.arp.jpg

When I was eight/nine I planned to make a full squadron of these
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/ce/Red.arrows.single.arp.750pix.jpg
using a rather excellent Japanese import kit, but lost interest after two.

One of the first models I remember building as a kid was of an F-4J I got for my 8th birthday, with markings just like this one:

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y6/akadaver/c182.jpg

A favourite later on was a Bf 109G-10. Sitting next to the other planes on my shelf, you really got an appreciation for how sleek and deadly it looked compared to, say, a P-40.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y6/akadaver/1278951.jpg

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y6/akadaver/071017-F-1234S-032.jpg

let's try the F-104 again

http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/usa/airdef/f-104-E-5071.jpg

Nice picture of some Drakens on FlightGlobal today

http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/aircraft-pictures/2008/08/29/drakkensmall.jpg

i'm here to hurt you
http://www.air-attack.com/MIL/eurofighter/eurofighter_paveway.jpg

Eurofighter Typhoon IPA3 carrying 4 x Paveway II, 4 x AMRAAM air-to-air missiles, 2 x IRIS-T air-to-air missiles, and 3 x 1,000l external fuel tanks

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c0/Two_F-22_Raptor_in_flying.jpg/763px-Two_F-22_Raptor_in_flying.jpg

One crashed in California the other day. Pilot killed and $140 million up in smoke.

$140 million, you sure?
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c0/Two_F-22_Raptor_in_flying.jpg/763px-Two_F-22_Raptor_in_flying.jpg

Well, CNN says $150 million, but I saw $140 million in other reports. There are two of them in that picture, so I that's actually closer to $300 million. But what's 10 million here or there when we're talking about AIR SUPREMACY.

$65 billion project, which is more than the GDP of 2/3 of the countries in the world.

Sukhoi's new T-50 PAK-FA flew this morning. Looks like the lovechild of a Su-27 and YF-23:

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y6/akadaver/pak.jpg

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y6/akadaver/201001291030avisnapshot.jpg

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y6/akadaver/60867473.jpg

http://www.airplane-pictures.net/images/uploaded-images/2007-11/28/8237.jpg

It does not really need saying that this aircraft was painted in the seemingly outrageous very pale pink (nearly white) colour all over. However there were very sound reasons for this: (1) the aircraft were supposed normally to operate just below the cloud base and, when seen from the ground, this colour merges well with the cloud, however, from above it was highly visible to enemy fighters; (2) the main reason for it was to carry out operations at sunrise and sunset when the sun is low in the sky, and the pink colour made the aircraft all but invisible at low altitude to ground forces.

The greatest drawback of the pink camouflage was that this colour made the pilots feel very vulnerable even though this was not the case. The pink colour was only ever used on Spitfires and was still being used on the F.R. Mk. IXC's of 16 Sqn after D-Day when based in continental Europe (complete with D-Day stripes). There are some excellent colour photos of the latter taken on "captured" German Agfa 35 mm film by a 16 Sqn pilot. Copies are available in the RAF Museum collection and they have been published in a number of books.

Some nice photos from the Edwards AFB air show last year. I love fly-bys with both current and vintage planes in them...

http://home.comcast.net/~bzee1a/Edwards09/DBZ_8599.jpg

the f22 is so good that the f35 just looks like a malformed pygmy
pak-fa rly nice too, although more classicist with hints of the b2 and various 4th gen aircraft
nothing beyond aesthetic considerations naturally

First person view of everything required to fly the P-51
http://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/this-amazing-first-person-view-shows-every-move-it-take-1698638721

Neither fighters nor jets but I was out walking yesterday and a B-17, a B-25, and a C-47 all flew overhead.

Were you somewhere in... the past ??
I may have said it already but the opening picture of this threas is great.
I've always found the F4 so cool and massive.
As for the Mig21, I remember a few years ago at Hanoi international airport : parked on the side they still had Mig21s !
Surely they're not in service anymore but then why were they in their individual hangars and seemingly operational...

I live not far from what was a huge bomber plant in WWII (where apparently none of these were actually produced) and it was VJ Day so I’m guessing the historical plane nerds got together for a ride.

They were LOUD in a way I’m not used to hearing

Really ? not louder than modern jets, surely ?
I've always wondered how loud/impressive those WWII bomber operations including hundreds of planes must have been...

I literally can't imagine what this must have looked/sounded like !

"On the morning of March 18, 1,329 bombers and 733 fighters of the US Eighth Air Force formed up over England and set a course for northern Germany. The target for 1,221 of the bombers was Berlin. This mission, the largest wartime raid on Berlin, was intended to support the Russian advance by attacking rail stations and tank factories in the city."

I have friends who live close to the Minneapolis airport and definitely not as loud as jets right overhead.

But they were flying kind of low and I don’t know if I’ve ever heard a prop plane with more than one engine before - they were sort of buzzing in and out of tune with each other so very droney

Speaking of F4s, due to the situation between Greece and Turkey , I've learned that the Greek AF still has around 30 F4s in service !

As for the sound of modern jets, since my parents live near the Bourget airport, near Paris, where there's an international air show every two years, I'm quite used to see/hear them fly over and they're noisy af !

TOMBOT to thread, kinda curious about his take on the f-35 debacle, where the money went, and if it's a good plane

I don't have a lot of good insight into how the F-35 went so wrong, other than collusion between parts of the Pentagon and Lockheed Martin to force the DoD to put all its eggs in one basket.

Here's a decent piece on what might ought to happen to avoid repeating those mistakes in the future: https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/how-air-force-could-avoid-f-35-trap-47737

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/35947/navy-f-a-18-squadron-commanders-take-on-ai-repeatedly-beating-real-pilot-in-dogfight

Fun read.