This Date in Aviation History: July 31 - August 2

"ttyymmnn" (ttyymmnn) 08/02/2019 at 12:35 • Filed to: wingspan, Planelopnik, TDIAH

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Welcome to This Date in Aviation History , getting of you caught up on milestones, important historical events and people in aviation from July 31 through August 2.

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A U-2 of the 9th Reconnaissance Wing from Beale Air Force Base in flight in 1996 (US Air Force)

August 1, 1955 – The first flight of the Lockheed U-2. At the close of World War II, the Communist Soviet Union was firmly in control of much of Eastern Europe, while the Democratic western allies held Western Europe. It was the beginning of an ideological struggle between East and West known as the Cold War, and while it never broke out into WWIII, the struggle brought about an arms race, space race, and numerous proxy wars as the two sides strived to become the dominant influence in the world. In the early stages of the Cold War, the United States was desperate for accurate and timely intelligence on Russian military activities. Today, that sort of information is gained by powerful satellites, but it wasn’t until the 1960s that satellites began providing pictures from the safety of space, and even then, they were unreliable. Long ranging reconnaissance aircraft like the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , a variant of the WWII-era !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , and the jet-powered !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , probed the edges of the Soviet Union, but it was hazardous duty and many planes and pilots !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! to Russian fighters and antiaircraft fire. What the US desperately needed was an aircraft that could fly high enough to be out of range of Soviet fighters, and perhaps even out of the range of Russian radars.

The US already had in their arsenal the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , the American-built version of the remarkable English Electric Canberra. The B-57 had a ceiling of 48,000 feet, just beyond the reach of Russian !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! fighters. For added safety, Martin lengthened the wings of the B-57 in the hopes of reaching 70,000 feet, but came up 2,000 feet short. So the Air Force sent out requests to other aircraft manufacturers who might be able to devote all of their attention to this important project. Lockheed was not one of them. Nevertheless, the company heard of the project and submitted their own proposal, dubbed the CL-282, designed by the brilliant !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . Initially based on Lockheed’s !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , the single engine CL-282 had long, slender wings and was powered by a single !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! engine housed in a short fuselage. To save weight, the CL-282 had no landing gear, and would take off from a rolling cart and land on its belly. Even though the CL-282 promised the performance the Air Force requested, and perhaps even more, they passed on the Lockheed design in favor of a Bell aircraft that never actually flew. The CL-282 passed to the Central Intelligence Agency.

The first Lockheed U-2, known as Article 001 to mask its true mission. (US Air Force)

The CIA’s codename for the project to develop the CL-282 was Dragon Lady, and that gave the finished U-2 its unofficial nickname. But the CL-282 needed some improvements to make it operational. Lockheed added landing gear in the form of two wheels directly behind the cockpit, and another set of two wheels behind the engine. The rear wheels are coupled to the rudder and provide steering on the ground. Outrigger wheels on the wingtips, called pogos, keep the wingtips off the ground during taxi and takeoff. The pogos fall out on takeoff, and are replaced after landing, with the wingtips protected by titanium skid plates. The engine was also upgraded more powerful and proven !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! turbojet. The J57 added even more altitude to the U-2, which now had a service ceiling of nearly 75,000 feet, high enough to see the curvature of the Earth. So high, in fact, that pilots breathe 100% oxygen beginning an hour before their mission, and wear space suits in case the cockpit depressurizes at altitude.

Test flights began in 1956, and the Dragon Lady entered service the following year. CIA pilots, all civilians (military pilots were not allowed to make reconnaissance flights over the Soviet Union), were called “drivers” rather “pilots.” With its long slender wing and unpowered controls, the U-2 was very difficult to fly at lower altitudes, and required constant attention at high altitude. In 1956, three U-2s crashed with the loss of the pilot. Despite these difficulties, the first U-2s were deployed to Germany in 1956 and began with overflights of East Germany and Poland in June, followed by the first overflights of the Soviet Union the following month. Though the Dragon Lady could be tracked by Soviet radars, more accurately than the US thought possible, it remained out of reach of the fighters sent up to knock it down. With the threat of nuclear war should the Soviets shoot down a U-2, President Eisenhower was reluctant to continue the flights, and they were canceled numerous times, only to be restarted at a later date. U-2s also made flights over other global hotspots such as the Suez, and later over Cuba and Vietnam. Despite the relative safety of extreme altitude, the Russians did mange to claim one U-2 with CIA pilot Francis Gary Powers was !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! by a surface to air missile on May 1, 1960. Another was shot down over Cuba in 1962.

A Lockheed ER-2 operated by NASA for high altitude research. (NASA)

Though very much a product of the Cold War, the U-2 remains in service today, and has provided intelligence for conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan more than 60 years after its maiden flight. The airframe has been updated with more powerful !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! turbofans along with upgraded sensors and cameras. The ability to quickly change sensors for different mission parameters makes the U-2 a valuable asset to this day. NASA also flies updated ER-2 variants for high altitude research. Capable of providing critical reconnaissance with more flexibility than orbiting satellites, and the judgement of a human pilot, it is likely that the U-2 will continue flying for years to come.

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Louis Blériot at the controls of one of his monoplanes (US Library of Congress)

August 1, 1936 – The death of Louis Blériot. The Wright Brothers made history in 1903 with their flight at Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina, and while they are widely recognized as being the first to fly a fully controllable aircraft (some contend that they weren’t really the first), aviation pioneers in Europe were working hard to catch up to them. Three years after the Wright Brothers’ historic flight, Brazilian inventor !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , working in France, made a public flight in his !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , which resembled a giant box kite, while Frenchman !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! made the first flight of his !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! in 1907. Despite the news surrounding the successful flights of the Wright Brothers, many in Europe remained skeptical of their achievements. To prove the doubters wrong, Wilbur Wright traveled to Europe in 1908 and made a series of demonstration flights near Le Mans, demonstrating just how far he and his brother Orville had come with their !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . Wilbur made numerous demonstrations in which he flew circles and figure-eights that stunned the French audience, and one of those in attendance that day was Louis Blériot.

The Blériot V. Though its design appears to resemble a modern aircraft, it is actually a pusher, with wings and engine at the rear and a small canard at the front. (Author unknown)

Though Blériot is best known today for his pioneering work in aviation, he originally made his money as an inventor and engineer. Blériot was born on July 1, 1872 at Cambrai, France, and following his education at the prestigious !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!!   in Paris and compulsory military service with an artillery regiment he went to work for an electrical engineering firm where he developed the first practical headlamp for automobiles. The money he earned from this invention funded his foray into aviation. Blériot began with attempts at building !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , but these flapping-wing designs proved unsuccessful for what today seem obvious reasons. In 1905 he met Voisin, and the two agreed to work together. They formed the Ateliers d’ Aviation Edouard Surcouf, Blériot et Voisin , but the partnership was unsuccessful, and Blériot realized that he was still far from his goal. After witnessing a successful flight by Santos-Dumont, Blériot dissolved his partnership with Voisin and struck out on his own. He continued experimenting with different configurations and, at a time when most aircraft pioneers were working with multiple wings, Blériot instead focused on the development of the world’s first powered monoplane, the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , which took its maiden flight on March 21, 1907. The aircraft only made short flights, and was damaged beyond repair after its third flight, but Blériot was on his way.

Numerous modifications and experiments followed, and his !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , with a large forward wing and smaller tail wing, established the basic layout of almost all aircraft to follow. The controls of the Blériot VII featured tail surfaces that could be moved together or separately and formed the predecessor to the elevators, ailerons and elevons used in modern aviation. Though the success of the Blériot VII established Blériot as a pioneering innovator, his greatest public notoriety came when he completed the first successful crossing of the English Channel. On July 25, 1909, the Frenchman took off from Calais at 4:41 am in his !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! monoplane which was powered by a 25-horsepower, 3-cylinder !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . After a 36-minute flight, Blériot made a hard landing in Dover and claimed the £1000 prize which was being offered by the British newspaper the Daily Mail . The feat brought him fame and helped the success of his aircraft manufacturing business, and led to 100 orders for his Type XI and more than 900 orders for aircraft during WWI.

Blériot, standing in the cockpit of his Type XI monoplane, prepares for his cross-channel flight on July 25, 1909. (US Library of Congress)

Blériot continued his manufacturing work after the war, and was present at Le Bourget Airport in 1927 to welcome !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! to Paris after his solo crossing of the Atlantic Ocean. Blériot died in 1936 at the age of 64 and, in his honor, the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! established the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! to recognize !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! set in speed, altitude and distance.

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August 2, 1966 – The first flight of the Sukhoi Su-17. Before the adoption of the jet engine, almost all aircraft, dating back to the Wright Flyer, were built with straight wings. Generally, straight wings provide good low-speed stability and handling, but the advent of the turbojet engine during WWII led designers to experiment with swept wings that would incur less drag at higher speeds. However, swept wings also had the drawback of requiring higher landing speeds. But what if you could design an airplane that could benefit from both straight and swept wings? As early as 1944, the idea of having an airplane with a !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! (also called variable-geometry) was being investigated in Germany with the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . But this aircraft, which never entered production, could only change the sweep of the wings to a fixed position before takeoff. In England, !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! began working on a swing-wing concept in 1949, but it wasn’t until the experimental !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , which first flew in 1951 and had three different wing positions, that an aircraft could change its wing sweep in flight.

However, one of the problems faced by variable geometry aircraft is an unfavorable shift in the airplane’s center of gravity when moving between the straight and swept positions. To counter this problem, Russian designers at the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! (TsAGI) modified an existing !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! to use a fixed central wing with a variable outer wing in the hopes of improving the Su-7's low-speed flight characteristics and lowering its landing speed. This new aircraft, dubbed the Su-7IG, was further developed into the Su-17 and became Russia’s first variable geometry aircraft. Along with the modified wing, Sukhoi gave the Su-17 a new canopy, and a dorsal spine for additional fuel and avionics. The new variable sweep fighter was the first in a series that also included the Su-20 and the Su-22 and, despite the different Sukhoi classifications, all of these variants received the NATO reporting name Fitter .

The Fitter was powered by a single !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! afterburning axial flow turbojet that gave it a top speed of 870 mph and was armed with two 30mm cannons. Up to 8,800 pounds of external stores could be carried under the fixed wing section or on the fuselage. The Su-17 entered service with the Soviet Air Force in 1970, where it served during the Soviet !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! from 1979-1989. While high elevation and high temperature operations proved challenging for the Su-17, the ruggedly constructed engine was tolerant to sand ingestion and the Fitter maintained a high level of readiness, though it proved susceptible to anti-aircraft fire and shoulder-fired antiaircraft missiles. The Fitter was widely exported to Soviet allies, and eventually served for over 20 years with the Soviet Air Force and 15 export countries, including Libya, where two Su-17s were !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! by US Navy !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! fighters over the Gulf of Sidra in 1981. Despite advances in Soviet fighter design, the Su-17 and its derivatives remained in service with Russia until 1998, and more than 500 of the 2,867 aircraft produced remain in service today.

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Short Takeoff

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Lt. Col. Martha McSally (US Air Force)

July 31, 1991 – The US Senate votes to allow women to fly combat aircraft. Women were first allowed to fly US military aircraft in WWII as members of the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! (WASP), but they were limited to ferrying flights and were considered civilian pilots, receiving no military benefits. The US Navy was the first branch to accept woman pilots in 1974, while the US Air Force accepted its first group of women pilots in 1976. However, they were still excluded from combat missions, even though they were flying cargo and liaison aircraft into war zones such as Panama, Grenada, and the Persian Gulf. Following the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! became the first American woman to fly a combat mission when she piloted a !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! in support of !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! over Iraq in 1995.

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July 31, 1944 – The disappearance of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. Born on June 29, 1900, !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! was a French author and pilot who is best known for his book   !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! ( The Little Princ e). Saint-Exupéry flew for the French Air Force in the early part WWII, then traveled to America following the fall of France to encourage the US to join the war. He later joined the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! in North Africa, even though his health was failing and he was beyond the age limit for service. While flying a Lockheed F-5B, the unarmed reconnaissance variant of the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , Saint-Exupéry disappeared over the Mediterranean Sea. Though remains of a pilot were found, they were not confirmed to be his, and the details of his disappearance were never learned.

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(US Library of Congress)

July 31, 1941 – The first flight of the Lockheed Ventura, a medium bomber and maritime patrol aircraft developed from the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and designed to replace the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . The Ventura was initially flown by the RAF as a medium bomber, but it suffered high combat losses and was pulled from service in favor of the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . Remaining Venturas were moved to maritime patrol missions. In US Army Air Corps service, it was known as the B-34 Lexington and was used primarily for training, though Army Venturas were subsequently transferred to the US Navy where they gained the designation PV-1 and served primarily in the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! of Alaska.

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August 1, 2002 – The first flight of the Scaled Composites White Knight, an aircraft designed to launch the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! experimental spacecraft as part of a program to take paying passengers into space. Designed by !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , White Knight is powered by two !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! turbojet engines and carried the SpaceShipOne to an altitude of 45,000 feet before releasing the spacecraft to fly on its rocket motor. While Knight made a total of 17 flights with SpaceShipOne before it was replaced by the larger and more powerful !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . Following the completion of the SpaceShipOne test program, White Knight carried out drop tests of the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! Orbital Test Vehicle, and was retired to the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! in Everett, Washington in July 2014.

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(NASA)

August 1, 1973 – The first flight of the Martin Marietta X-24B, an experimental wingless aircraft developed jointly between the US Air Force and NASA to explore the design of !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! aircraft. The X-24 was dropped from a !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , then powered by a rocket engine in flight before gliding to a landing. The lifting body research was carried out from 1963 to 1975 to investigate wingless vehicles that could land on Earth after flying in space, and data gained during these experiments was put to use in the design of the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . The X-24B made a total of 36 test flights before it was retired to the National Museum of the United States Air Force in Dayton, Ohio.

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(Tim Shaffer)

August 1, 1949 – The first flight of the Northrop C-125 Raider. Following WWII, Northrop’s first offering for a civilian airliner was the three-engine N-23 Pioneer. However, with so many surplus aircraft available, airlines showed little interest. So Northrop instead pitched it to the US Air Force as the C-125 Raider to fulfill the roll of a short takeoff and landing (STOL) cargo carrier. The Air Force placed an order for 23 aircraft, and Raiders began to enter service in 1950. However, the Raider proved to be underpowered, and they were quickly relegated to ground training duty and declared surplus just five years after their introduction. Most of the remaining aircraft ended up flying cargo in South and Central America. Two non-airworthy Raiders remain, one on display at the Pima Air and Space Museum in Arizona and the other at the National Museum of the United States Air Force in Ohio.

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Orville Wright (seated right) trains 1st Lt. Frank Lahm in the US Army’s first aircraft in 1909 (US Air Force)

August 1, 1907 – The Aeronautical Division of the United States Army Signal Corps is created “to study the flying machine and the possibility of adapting it to military purposes.” Though initially cool to the role of the airplane in the military, the US Army began to show interest in the Wright Brothers’ invention four years after the famous first flight. The Aeronautical Division was the world’s first heavier-than-air military aviation organization, and the Army purchased their first aircraft, a !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , also known as the Military Flyer, on August 2, 1909. The Aeronautical Division saw its first action in 1913 when the 1st Aero Squadron was sent into Mexico to take part in the hunt for !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . The Aeronautical Division eventually gave way to the US Army Air Corps and US Army Air Forces in WWII, and then became its own equal branch of the military with the creation of the US Air Force in 1947.

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(UK Government)

August 2, 1917 – Royal Naval Air Service pilot Edwin Harris Dunning becomes the first pilot to land on a moving ship. In 1910, American !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! had made the first landing on a ship moored in Hampton Roads, but to make carrier operations useful an aircraft would have to land while a ship was underway. In the era before arresting wires and tail hooks, Dunning had to rely on crew members assembled on deck to grab his Sopwith Pup and bring it to a halt. He made two successful landings on !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! as it steamed in Scapa Flow in northern Scotland, but on his third attempt a gust of wind caused his aircraft to veer off the deck and into the water. Dunning was rendered unconscious and drowned. He was just 25 years old.

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(Author unknown)

August 2, 1985 – The crash of Delta Air Lines Flight 191, regularly scheduled !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! (N726DA) service from Fort Lauderdale to Dallas-Fort Worth that crashed while trying to land during a thunderstorm. Lacking the sophisticated !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! found on today’s airliners that warn pilots of wind speeds in a storm, the airliner was struck by !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! -induced !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! at low altitude that caused the L-1011 to crash a mile short of the runway. All 136 passengers and crew, plus 1 person on the ground, were killed. The National Transportation Board !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! faulted the pilots for choosing to land through the storm, as well as a lack of training for dealing with wind shear. As a result of this crash, the Federal Aviation Administration now mandates wind shear detection systems on all commercial aircraft. A !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! placed at Founder’s Plaza next to the DFW Airport commemorates the tragedy.

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(Flyernzl)

August 2, 1960 – The first flight of the Bennett Airtruck, an agricultural aircraft constructed from surplus Royal New Zealand Air Force !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! (T-6 Texan) training aircraft. The Airtruck is essentially an agricultural chemical hopper with wings, engine, and twin-boom tail, with the cockpit placed on top. As many as five passengers could also be carried instead of chemicals. Two were built, though the first crashed in 1963, and the second crashed two years later. Despite the loss of the prototypes, the Airtruck proved to be a very efficient agricultural !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . The design was transferred to the Transavia Corporation which produced the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , a similar aircraft that was manufactured from scratch and did not use scavenged Harvard parts.

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(US Library of Congress)

August 2, 1911 – Harriet Quimby becomes the first American woman to be certified as a pilot. At a time when flying was almost entirely done by male pilots, Quimby, a Hollywood screenwriter, became the first woman to earn a pilot license in the United States, and her flying exploits served as an inspiration to many women of her day. Quimby was hired as a spokesperson by the Vin Fiz Company and became the first woman to fly across the English Channel in 1912, a feat that was unfortunately overshadowed by news of the sinking of the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! just one day later. Quimby was killed on July 1, 1912 when her !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! monoplane was struck by a gust of wind and suddenly pitched forward, ejecting both her and her passenger at an altitude of 1,500 feet over Dorchester Bay. The pilotless plane came down relatively intact.

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Connecting Flights

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If you enjoy these Aviation History posts, please let me know in the comments. And if you missed any of the past articles, you can find them all at !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . You can also find more stories about aviation, aviators and airplane oddities at !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! .

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For Sweden > ttyymmnn 08/02/2019 at 12:39

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Fun fact about the U-2; it is quite loud!

Highlander-Datsuns are Forever > ttyymmnn 08/02/2019 at 12:44

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I got to do a lot of work at Beale AFB and was witness to several U2 take offs, landings and touch and go’s. Quite an awesome aircraft considering it’s just for reconnaissance .

ttyymmnn > Highlander-Datsuns are Forever 08/02/2019 at 13:00

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Did you ever get to see the chase cars?

https://jalopnik.com/the-140-mph-chase-cars-of-the-u-s-air-force-5537629

https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/aviation/news/a27570/air-force-tesla-u-2-spy-plane/

Kiltedpadre > ttyymmnn 08/02/2019 at 13:12

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Perfect timing; just last week I was outside the restoration hangar at WPAFB and was trying to figure out what I was looking at. Now I know it  was the C-125

Highlander-Datsuns are Forever > ttyymmnn 08/02/2019 at 13:15

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Yes, at the time they were driving the Camaro’s. For some reason we thought they landed and the wings were supported by the cars, pretty funny really. 

ttyymmnn > Kiltedpadre 08/02/2019 at 13:19

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Ha! I was there summer of 2017 and my son and I went to the NMUS AF (they had to kick us out and lock the doors behind us at closing time). I saw the C-125 and similarly thought, “The hell is that thing?” (That’s my photo, btw, shot from the car window because of the rain you see in the background. Hell of a storm that day.) Had to go home and look it up.

Y2K996Cab > ttyymmnn 08/02/2019 at 13:38

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I believe you have a typo on the Boeing RB-5 7 which I believe should be RB-47 .

Kiltedpadre > ttyymmnn 08/02/2019 at 13:40

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It’s now sitting on base outside of the hangars where they do restoration work. A coworker and I were staring at it trying to decide what aircraft designer let his 4 year old draw a plan and then built it.  It is just odd looking in person. I couldn’t figure out what it was because there isn’t a plaque or anything where it sits.

user314 > ttyymmnn 08/02/2019 at 13:47

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James May:

Adam Savage:

U-2 equipment:

facw > Y2K996Cab 08/02/2019 at 13:54

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Yep. The Martin RB-57 is definitely a thing (and is also referenced in this post), but “Boeing RB-57 Stratojet” is clearly a typo (obviously too much Canberra on the mind).

ttyymmnn > Y2K996Cab 08/02/2019 at 13:58

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I absolutely do. Thanks for pointing that out. If only the 4 and 5 weren’t so close together on the keyboard......

ttyymmnn > Kiltedpadre 08/02/2019 at 14:07

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It reminded me a lot of the Stout Bushmaster 2000 . In 1925,   William Bushnell Stout sold the rights to one of his terrible airplanes to Henry Ford, who then transformed it into the remarkable Ford Trimotor (Henry Ford bought the rights with the stipulation that Stout have nothing to do with the Trimotor) . After the war, Stout bought back the rights to the Trimotor and developed it into the Bushmaster, which was clearly still rooted in the 1930s and turned out  as equally unsuccessful as the other aircraft he designed. He only built two.

ttyymmnn > user314 08/02/2019 at 14:09

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My left nut. I would give it. 

Only Vespas... > ttyymmnn 08/02/2019 at 21:49

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The photo of St Ex is by John Phillips from: Les deniers jours de Saint Exupery

Only Vespas... > ttyymmnn 08/02/2019 at 21:57

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Not what it looks like....On a cold day in Omaha at the SAC Museum I noticed the U2's canopy ajar.  A friend gave me a leg up... the cockpit was stripped bare...

ttyymmnn > Only Vespas... 08/03/2019 at 00:24

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Thank you.

ttyymmnn > Only Vespas... 08/03/2019 at 00:27

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That’s neat. Looks like it might be a little harder to sit in it these days.