"The price of peace is eternal vigilance"

You enjoy the freedoms you have today because of the awesome sacrifices made by your fellow countrymen before you were born. Likely long before you were born.

Grow up.

Yeah, 'cos

Under a Nazi German government we would have all of our information recorded on a central database, be under almost constant surveillance, be unable to take photographs in public places and be subjected to invasive searches because we wanted to fly anywhere.

...

Hang on...

Swoon, an fae-mouse..

Haven't we seen you before, with the "Armchair Generals" and "Animal Fannies" tags, on ifyoulikeitsomuchwhydontyougolivethere?

AC@15:29

You forgot to include the right to make *any* kind of protest and the right to change the government by something as simple as an actual *vote*.

But we'd miss all those cheesy "war machine backing tracks"

For instance, this one sounds a bit like a remix of an instrumental version of "Two Tribes Go to War" ... Which I suppose it is...

Let's call it "One Tribe Goes to War, but Everyone Still Gets Bombed".

@nazi government

Aren't you forgetting that other chestnut, that without US intervention all of western europe would be learning to speak german now (totally unlike now, when they're of course learning english)?

Hmm

The F-22 (also saw it at Fairford) is a monster. The article's a bit of a Page classic, though. They're different things for different jobs. It's the ultimate air-superiority fighter; I don't think we'll see the likes of one ever again. The Typhoon is popular with those that use it.

TVC isn't unique to the Raptor though. The MiG-29 OVT in 2006 did a similarly exciting display, and that's basically a MiG-29M with fly-by-wire and TVC engines.

And also stopped

because the Yanks made it difficult to fly over their land- and this being a plane most suited for transatlantic flights that was a bit of a problem.

This may have been because of some safety concern, or it may have been because they never managed to build a supersonic passenger plane.

'course, this is a Lewis Page article. So the lack of an American one proves their technical superiority and the value for money of their tech or something.

Bitter much?

The Concorde was fantastically expensive to build, maintain, and operate which necessitated high ticket prices. The rich were the only ones to ever really use it.

Plus you may recall that one of them exploded in Paris several years back. Quite dramatic. Made the news and everything.

Slight correction...

Expensive to build, yes, but it was actually making an operating profit for most of its operational life (with BA at least).

AC@13:23

Just to stoke your annoyance a little higher..

Most of the public protests were over *noise*. A mixture of takeoff noise (only civilian aircraft fitted with afterburner) and the probable "Boom carpet" laid down over various parts of the US.

It was an early successful NIMBY *green* protest. NB it was comparable to the the noise levels of the turbojet airliners flying at the time of its *design*, but not the levels of the turbofans in service when it started flying into New York. A fact *any* new supersonic aircraft would have to address. It's *extremely* doubtful that supersonic turbofans are a reasonable option for supersonic cruise. BTW the 17th Concorde would have designed out the afterburner and given enough fuel to go to New York from Germany, upping the range of potential customers.

The Americans design competition (between Lockheed and Boeing as they then were) was won by Boeing with a variable geometry wing design (Would have been the first civilian swing wing. The subtlety of Concorde's wing design to eliminate *neding* this is *rarely* commented on). Both teams went with Titanium to get M3 but only Lockheed had actually *built* an aircraft (the SR71) with it before.

@Mike richards

"They got a plywood model and a huge chip on their shoulder."

But it was a *really* nice plywood model.

"It must have been even more embarrassing when they realized the Soviet Union had also got a working SST and they didn't."

They went the traditional Russian way of getting the KGB to steal the design. Sadly even *they* did not get the full trickiness of the wing shape, hence the canards. Lockheed did and used chines on their SST design but I suspect they could not really explain *why* as it would have meant a *lot* of questions on the detail design of the SR71.

"Does anyone think over-land supersonic flight would have been banned if the US had an SST of their own?"

Probably not. Amaziningly enough their has been *some* work done (in the context of bullet design) on shapes which don't create a sonic boom (strictly its a double bang due to leading and trailing edge effects). *If* it works that would change *everything* but fuel economy is *critical*. The pre 1973 oil price was $3 a barrel. No that is *not* a typo.

"And I'm not sure how many passengers would have wanted to get on an all titanium Mach 3 jet - the Blackbird's tanks only seal when the airframe gets hot."

Not sure how to say this but the last book B Beaumont (Concorde test pilot) wrote before he died has some pictures of the area under the wings and fuselage. That pool of liquid is not the overflow from the in flight lavatory.

Note the speed difference between M2.3 and M3+ is *very* important. M2.3 is roughly the upper limit for high temperature use aluminium alloys (the specific one used in Concord was developed for piston heads on Rolls Royce internal combustion aero engines in the late 1930's, so it had substantial pedigree). I suspect that Concorde being an open programme in a way the SR71 was not they had staff they could devote to the tank sealing problem.

In contrast Kelly Johnson (head of Lockheed Special Projects who designed and built the SR71) was a pragmatist who went with a more stable fuel instead to get it flying sooner rather than later.

@Tim #3

You sick puppy. Funny, but sick.

Genuinely giggled out loud at that...

...then felt a bit bad about it. Poor princess of hearts...

Naughty Tim. Naughty, funny Tim.

Paris... You know why...

Correction

Kelly Johnson's primary skill was taking credit for other people's work. He was a manager. The only real engineering he did was some wind-tunnel work on the Hudson prior to WWII. He never actually designed a single plane for Lockheed. Thanks to his endless self-promotion, no one remembers, for example that B.T. Salmon actually designed the P-38. Similarly, the real designers of the F-104, SR-71, etc are all forgotten now.

additional to the above

or for that matter, that P.T. Barnum designed the Liberator

Count me out.

I don't think I'd want to be flying either. Pretty sure it'd be terminally exciting...

Mine's the flightsuit with "Ditch" on the pocket, thanks...

Russian Radar Control Tower

<russian sigint operator>Sir, we have a track!

<russian sigint leader>vhat is it!

<russian sigint operator>it appears to be an airborne steel marble!

<russian sigint leader>have you not read the latest El Reg Article by zat US loving writer Lewis Carrol? It's obviously an F22!

Missing the point...

Read what is written and engage your brain rather than your patriotism to analyse it.

In summary Mr Page says:

(i) the F-22 is an amazingly impressive if pointless and extortionately expensive bit of kit that even the Pentagon has decided it cannot afford;

(ii) the Eurofighter is, in comparison, an unimpressive if pointless and extortionately expensive bit of kit that most of Europe is now deciding it cannot afford.

Oh well, look on the bright side

In thirty years time, there'll be collection plates, out, to keep the last surviving examples of them, both, flying... After all, they were both iconic planes, in the unfolding events, of wars that never happened - so hang the expense.

Who needs Catholicism, when you have obsolete military hardware?

Probably already done and you can guess the result

Training exercises have certainly already been done by the US to plan against the UK's, Europe's and Saudi Arabia's Eurofighter contingencies and any future tranches (i.e. the kind that might be deployed if war with the US were to come about and an advantage was needed to counter the F35). The reason I think we don't know the (likely confidential) results is probably down to the fact that it's too close to call or embarrassing (i.e. you don't want other countries to know that their jets can best your latest and greatest), otherwise we'd have "league" tables showing kill ratios like they do for (e.g.) US vs Russian vs old jets.

Quote Correctly

"If stealth is not required, additional missiles can also be carried externally on underwing pylons. The F-22 can be equipped with four external pylons, two beneath each wing. These extra hardpoints are intended primarily for ferry missions, but each can be configured to carry two AIM-120 or AIM-9 missiles on a LAU-128/A launcher. This extra carriage capacity provides room for an additional eight air-to-air missiles, allowing a maximum of 16 between the internal and external loadouts."

Note the "These extra hardpoints are intended primarily for ferry missions".

What this means is that these hardpoints can be installed, but this takes time and is probably one of the exotic features everybody hates because it has never been properly developed. Like the C-17 landing on a grass field. Theoretically possible, practically to be avoided at great cost.

All the stealthiness goes away if you mount (unstealthy) big missiles and bombs externally. If the whole system (plane and weapons) had been designed for stealthy external-carriage, they might have reached the objective off high load and stealthiness.

They never tried and now it is way too late to do that. So the F-22 is definitely just a air-dominance weapon and only a minor ground-attack plane, if stealthiness is required.

Definitely what Lewis needs when he is stuck in the mud Trying To Enlighten People At Gunpoint.

They are still there!

From what I understand Hats were put in the panels on the last flights they are still there!

@Dave 126

"was designed to scrub heat into the fuel, reaching about 80 deg centigrade, so I was told by an old boy engineer in a pub in the West Country.

Also, a pilot once stowed his hat in a gap between two bulkheads in the cabin... the gap was designed to allow for thermal expansion. Upon landing, it was a very flat hat!"

The parallels with the SR71 are quite striking. both used fuel cooling, both had substantial thermal growth at operating speed and both have *very* complex inlet and exhaust systems. Apparently it also *leaks* like the SR71 until it gets to operating temperature. AFAIK concorde does not use the fuel to move the hydraulic actuators and runs on standard civilian jet aircraft fuel grades rather than the specialist JP7 grade.

Could we do better now? Duplicating the payload with better fuel economy (no afterburner) almost certainly. But it was *never* commercially viable if you factored in the true purchase costs. "Concorde II" "would *have* to be at least 300 seats (which is a real problem, the wing rides *inside* the "Mach cone," which depends on maximum speed, either it becomes a *lot* longer or the wing has go partly supersonic).

As for raising the money for the development programme......

That is correct....

...but those hats belonged to the Flight Engineers, without whom a Concorde flight would have been impossible as it was their job to manage the engines, monitor the inlets (which at Mach 2 provide ten times the thrust of the engines) and move the fuel around to keep the C of G in the right place.

The panel gap that opens up is at the rear of the FE's panel in the cockpit.