23/4!

"Cé hé sin" (michael-m-mouse) 04/23/2018 at 17:34 • Filed to: Arado Ar-234, Planelopnik

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Something fast and obscure for today.

Meet an Arado Ar-234, or as things now stand the 234 as it’s the only survivor of 200 odd that were built. Note the sticky-up thingy above the cockpit, which is a periscope for rear vision. The Ar-234 was the first jet bomber and had the useful attribute of being too fast to be intercepted in flight by prop driven planes. Indeed it couldn’t even be detected by the technology of the time - at the very end of WW2 one was flown over the UK, the last Luftwaffe plane to do this.

During its short life the 234 went through several variations, beginning with a pair of horribly unreliable Junkers engines and an exotic jettisonable undercarriage (to reduce weight at takeoff) like this:

Subsequently it progressed to conventional wheels. and later four BMW turbojets which did wonders for performance. The disposable undercarriage arrangement meant that the unlucky pilot had to land on a skid with no brakes whatever, an experience likened to landing on soap, and then abandon his plane on some random part of the airfield until somebody could get a trolley out to it.

Ash78, voting early and often > Cé hé sin 04/23/2018 at 18:15

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I’ve seen this one in person a couple times, just an amazingly rare piece of history. I can’t say enough good stuff about the Udvar-Hazy museum at Dulles airport in DC. Anyone with more than a couple hours’ layover should visit. Free entry — all funded by taxes and donations (and parking fees).

ttyymmnn > Ash78, voting early and often 04/23/2018 at 18:44

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The UHC is extraordinary. It’s not a B-29 meant to look like the Enola Gay, it IS the Enola Gay. It’s not a 707 painted to look like the Dash 80, it IS the Dash 80. In fact, when they parked it there, they didn’t even wash the bugs off the window.

Spoon II > Ash78, voting early and often 04/23/2018 at 20:51

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I was there when they still had the Enterprise shuttle on display! It was awesome!

Ash78, voting early and often > Spoon II 04/23/2018 at 22:47

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Is the Enterprise gone now?!

user314 > Ash78, voting early and often 04/25/2018 at 15:22

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Enterprise was moved to the Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum in ‘12. Discovery is now in the UHC.

Ash78, voting early and often > user314 04/25/2018 at 16:07

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Ahh, thanks. I guess I’ve seen both and didn’t even realize. I thought you meant that all STS models had been removed, not just a swap.