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Andy J said:
Pretty impressive.
I lived under the flight path from Fairford so saw many of the trial flights takeoff.
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Pfft …. as a kid my back veranda was like a war zone. Spitfires, Zeroes and bombers all found their fate under that veranda.

Build them, hangem off a string, set them alight and swing them off on a loop.

Had a few injuries when the molten model plastic landed on the skin ….. character making stuff.
 
The Sock said:
Up in the Highlands of Scotland, it was quite common to see them, through the glens, out playing.
I nearly lost a Canadian lass, from the pillion, once.
One came thundering up out of the valley alongside the road, less than a hundred feet away, with afterburners lit.
She was dozing, I think, and damned near jumped off the back in shock.
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I regularly used to get buzzed by A10 ‘tank busters’ on the trip up to Slaters. They could make you jump too!
 
chrisk said:
Pfft …. as a kid my back veranda was like a war zone. Spitfires, Zeroes and bombers all found their fate under that veranda.

Build them, hangem off a string, set them alight and swing them off on a loop.

Had a few injuries when the molten model plastic landed on the skin ….. character making stuff.
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A mate and I used to shoot up airfix model planes etc with his air rifle. We discovered if you put certain matches down the barrel instead of pellets they would ignite as they were fired. After awhile we got bored with that and started shooting the wild life. My mate was nicknamed ‘starling Philip’ by his mother. We were then banned for awhile as his dad got fed up with clearing the pile of dead bodies from the chimney stack.
I also earned the wrath of my father as I shot up, what would be now, a quite collectible/valuable clockwork tin plate tank. At the time it was fun, but I now regret the stupidity of it.
 

JS Films from New Delhi again .....see these people living on the street and then reflect on the fact that India spends more on it`s nuclear weapons programme each year than does the UK ......( Pakistan about the same as the UK ) ......
 
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rocketonarail said:
Shame the way Concorde left service after the crash in France which was caused , by some accounts , by a strip of metal on the runway that had fallen from a DC-10 on take off , which then punctured the left hand tyres of Concorde , rupturing a fuel tank and causing the fire which brought the plane down just after take off .

There was also the " Konkordski " , the Tupolev TU-144 , which beat Concorde into the air , and was also the first commercial airliner to exceed Mach 2 , but this came down during a demonstration flight at the Paris Airshow in 1973....some reckon this was down to the Russian pilot " showboating " in an attempt to demonstrate what the `plane could do.......

Apparently the TU-144 was noisier inside the passenger cabin space than Concorde , and people had to shout at the top of their voices to be heard : if you were sat at the back the noise was pretty much unbearable ...... .After the Paris crash the TU-144 was restricted to Russian domestic flights , and cargo and freight carrying , and also used as an aid for the Russian space programme and NASA`s commercial transport development programme .

It seems that after the Paris crash , every Russian domestic flight of the TU-144 was preceeded by Aleksey Tupolev himself inspecting the `plane , ....... just the sort of thing needed to calm everyone`s nerves ...... ( there were only about 100 domestic flights , and only 55 of those involved carrying passengers ) .

During trials , and the problems that arose with the TU-144 during this time , the Russians actually contacted the British Aircraft Corporation / Aerospatiale , listing the problems they were encountering , and asking for BAC / Aero`s opinions of how best to resolve them .

Kind of a pity really , as although not as graceful as Concorde , the TU-144 was still an attractive looking `plane .
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It was always my understanding that some of the issues the ruskies suffered were partly due to espionage and duff info deliberately passed to them.
 
Andy J said:
It was always my understanding that some of the issues the ruskies suffered were partly due to espionage and duff info deliberately passed to them.
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Wouldn`t be surprised.....although looking it up again it appears that Russian requests for advice ( to Lucas as well , it seems ) were blocked by the British government at least , as they feared the Russians could apply any help given to their bomber aircraft .

Just read about an early flight of the TU-144 which sounds like comedy hour .....

Assembled foreign TV crews and journalists were due to board the `plane for a demo flight ........... the Russians were concerned about several technical issues , but to avoid embarrassment the flight went ahead anyway with all the journos on board ......

As soon as they were airborne a warning came up that the front and left landing gear ( now closed ) would not operate , meaning that the `plane would have to land using the right hand wheels only at a speed of 190 mph ......as if this wasn`t enough a warning alarm siren started going off inside the `plane about a minute after take off , at deafening volume , the pilots not being able to switch it off .....

This racket continued for the whole 75 minute flight , and was only slightly resolved when one of the crew grabbed a pillow from one of the passengers and stuffed it into the alarm`s speaker in an effort to shut the bloody thing up .......

When it came into land the gear worked ok after all ..... much to everyone`s relief , no doubt .........
 
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Richard 180.S2.81 said:
Yep, fantastic.

If you go back to 2018 there were two TU-144's clearly someone knicked one shortly thereafter...

In June 2020, there was one of their space shuttles.
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That’s Monino military air base near Moscow. I flew there in a boing stearman biplane in 2005 for an air display.
extremely interesting place and some of the experimental aircraft are staggering!! Good and bad.
worth a visit when the political climate allows
jules
 
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