astraboy

Fastest air breathing military jet in the world.

Nothing more to say really, It was built to be the fastest thing on the planet, plus it looks like it's going mach 3 when it's sat on the ground doing nothing.

I'd love to have been in the meeting where it was decided to paint it black. I'm sure the word "badass" must have been used at one point in the persuading parties' negotiations
astraboy.

shooter007

English electric lightening ho yes

TelBoy

The SR-71 is legendary. Brian Schul's book Sled Driver gives a great insight. I don't have it to hand to quote verbatim, but there's a brilliant passage where a show-off Top Gun in his F-16 Eagle overhears a civilian plane asking ground control for a check on his altitude and ground speed. It goes something like this;

"You're flying at 6,000 feet at an indicated speed of 200mph" came the reply from ground control to the civilan aircraft pilot.

The Top Gun pilot then asked, with a smirk, the same question.

"You're flying at 35,000 feet at a speed of Mach 1.2" they told him. Smugness ensued.

Unknown to him, a Blackbird pilot was eavesdropping, so the SR-71 pilot put him in his place.

"Could you confirm my altitude and ground speed please" he asked ground control.

Small pause.

"You're flying at 83,000 feet at a speed of Mach 3.4" they told him with a chuckle.

"Funny, we're indicating 83,100 feet here" said the pilot.

"Well you'd know better than me" replied ground control, fully aware of what was happening.

"Roger and out, have a great day up there" he signed off.

The F-16 pilot signed out of the open frequency without another word.

Now that's cool



Personally i'd bring back all the aircraft listed. Concorde was a fantastic flying experience. The Vulcan can never be replaced and the Spitfire is the most significant plane in our history. Too difficult to pick just one!

An0n0m0us

Tel! F15 Eagle or F16 Falcon? ( Just being pedantic ) I agree though far too many to choose just one. The only current military aircraft I actually like is the Typhoon simply because of the sheer noise it makes oh and because it can do impressively slow fly-bys at displays before going on full reheat and disappearing rapidly. What my Son calls the real life bat plane.

TelBoy

F-14 Tomcat

Pretty sure it was an Eagle in the script, so yeah, F-15, apologies

An0n0m0us

and F18 Hornet and F22 Raptor... lol was only joshing

The Dutch know how to make their F16's look cool:

BOB.T

I don't think Typhoon is all that noisy? I much prefer the GR4 and I desperately need to have a ride in one...anyone?

An0n0m0us

The noise from the Typhoon is when it's doing it's fly past at practically stall speed and is at a very steep angle to where it almost hovers it's going that slowly, then it goes onto full reheat and just goes into a very steep climb. Loudest thing i've heard since the Vulcan and I would love to go as a passenger in one!

BOB.T

Yeah, I've heard that, just don't think it beats a GR4 on the end of the runway, handbrake on and full reheat

flame_on

iTrader: (2)

Sopwith Camel

Simon C

On that list concorde.

Personally, this, 40 years old and could still teach the F22 Rapor and its bretherin a few things.

scoobyster

DH Mosquito is what I'd most like to see flying again. Fantastic looking and how cool that a bomber could mix it with the fighters. Multiple Merlins sound amazing too.



I'd like a go on an old piston long-haul airliner, Lockheed Constellation probably the favourite, or one of the WW2 heavy bombers converted to airline use.



DC3 is also a favourite but I'm sure it's still in scheduled service somewhere so doesn't count! I won an Airfix competition as a kid and had a great flight over London in a DC3 from Biggin Hill; that aircraft sadly crash landed recently and is a borderline write-off, but the passengers were fine, which says it all.



I'd like to have experienced a DH Comet too since that was the beginning of the jet-age.



New commercial stuff is pretty dull since we don't have the variation of the 70s/80s with alternate configurations like the VC10, Tristar, etc, so it would be nice to see some of that come back (although I guess it's consigned to history for good reason). One notable exception I think is the A340, particularly the -600 as it's just so damn long and looks pretty good for it I think, haven't flown on one though. On passenger comfort the A380 is leagues ahead of the previous generation and hopefully the 787 and XWB will continue that trend, and I still like to go on the latest stuff for that reason. It will be interesting to see if anyone steps up to challenge Airbus and Boeing in future; Embraer and Bombardier have done so well with their regionals I'd be surprised if they don't start on designing some long haul stuff.

Gordo

Still flying - tune into 'Ice Pilots' on the Discovery channel:

http://buffaloairways.com/fleet/douglas-dc-3

I love their Curtiss C46

Gordo

vindaloo

"Full service", nothing. Anything I can think of is superseded or irrelevent in the modern world.

Though Concorde is the closest I can think of... Unfortunately, I feel transatlantic business travel is somewhat reduced by electronic conferencing systems and t'internet.

For my heart, not head.

DH Mosquito - I don't think there's one currently flying.
Sunderland Flying Boat.
Westland Whirlwind (the plane).
Arodo AR234
Dornier DO335

Mostly, I think I'd like to see easment of the complex jets rules in the UK to allow ex-military stuff to be used more widely.

J.

dan.evans

Any good reads out there on the sr71, fancy having a read about it now..

astraboy

this is quite good.
http://www.sr-71.org/blackbird/
astraboy.

classicgc8

iTrader: (4)

dont know about books but video part 1 ,http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ev8Lqm5Ngi8

ronjeramy

iTrader: (1)

Rockwell X15, technically faster than the blackbird

Mrfastbaz

agree with the scoobyster de havilland mosquito fighter bomber variant with 4 303 machine guns, 4 hispano 20 mm cannon and rockets what aplane 400 plus miles and hour and made out of wood...cool

albob

agree ! -- hope you saw this program recently

(all about the Amien prison raid ----- "we would rather die by British bombs than German bullets")

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00l8m9g

Moley

iTrader: (9)

Brilliant series that.

dan.evans

Intresting video thanks, and 2070mph, thats insane.

Leslie

I agree with that. I was working on some of its flight systems while it was being developed and we got the information on how it was performing during its flight testing from the test flying net.

It was performing over the requirements and had Wilson not cancelled it under orders fron Lyndon Johnson who knew that it was a far more effective aircraft than the F111 at the time, it would have been oustanding at the job and our aircraft industry would be streets ahead of where it is now. We would have sold it to the world too.

I wrote my name on the wing of the first one to fly when we had a comms visit to Vickers and were shown around the construction hangar. They were all working flat out to get it into the air since that was just before the general election which was won by Wilson and they were hoping that if it was flying it would have been more difficult to cancel.

I was so disappointed when Wilson knuckled under to LBJ at the time! He also cancelled the Hawker VSTOL transport aircraft which was well on the way too. He effectively threw our aircraft industry away! Yet another weak and inneffective leader for this country!

Les

RA Dunk

IMO the nicest aeroplane ever built!

Tidgy

sr71, no rpelacement
concorde, no replacement

so techinicly looking forward there the only option,,,, lol


on a more serious note, rumour has it the sr71 was replaced by aroura, however, like the sr71 you wont hear much about it untill its a decade old and less classified.

Also should add the sr71 traded on its ability to outrun everythign that could be fired at it, problem is its no longer the case

An0n0m0us

Interesting point, so does anyone know the speed of surface to air missiles and air to air missiles? Catching something doing in excess of 2000mph at over 80000 feet would take some catching!

Tidgy

the sa21 growler 40n6 (nato name) clicks along at about mach 12 (9000mph ish) and range of about 450km.

Its pretty rare, due to cheaper missiles doing the job well enough in all other cases bar sr71. If a high speed recon plane came out they would prob be more common.

Tidgy

after doing a bit more digging, the growler (s-400 in russia)is being upgraded and is currently being devloped, the s-500, but thats more aimed at ballistic missiles rather than planes, range of 400-500miles latteraly and intercept targets going around mach 20 or 15,000mph.

vindaloo

Growler? <snigger> does it have an ablative rug?

Jaybird-UK

what a stunning looking plane