During all of the manned Apollo moon missions just one engine was classed as so critical even the most insignificant or minor alterations had to be signed off by the very highest management in NASA. That engine was the lunar ascent engine that lifted the ascent module from the lunar …
F-14 The Last Analogue Fighter – The Deadly Tomcat
The F-14 fighter, one of the most well known fighter aircraft of the 1970s and 80s Cold War period, was also the last major analogue fighter to be made by the US and building upon the experience gained in Vietnam from the use of F4 phantoms and its direct predecessor …
The End of the ISS is Coming but Why and What Will Replace it?
So now we know what the fate of the International Space Station will be, around the 2030 mark, SpaceX will de-orbit the ISS and it will burn up in the atmosphere creating the most expensive man-made fireball in history, as about 150 billion dollars of hardware will light up the …
The Rise & Fall of the Harrier Jump Jet
In December 2010, The British Royal Air Force and Royal Navy announced they would retire their Harrier jump jets from operational flights before 2011, in what had been two-month rush job to meet the demands of government cuts due to the aftermath of the financial crash of 2008. This marked …
Why Does SpaceX Use 33 Engines While NASA Used Just 5?
If you have seen any of the Apollo launch videos or even the new Artemis launch videos you will no doubt be familiar with the shot of the massive five F1 engine’s at launch on the Saturn 5 or the four RS-25 engines and boosters on the SLS rocket as …
Why Aren’t Swing Wing Aircraft Made Any More?
From around the mid 1960s, a new type of aircraft led the way in introducing new multi role fighters and bombers both in the United States and in the Soviet Union and then Europe. This hybrid style of aircraft looked to combine the low-speed flexibility and efficient cruise of straight-wing …
F-111 Aardvark, The Aircraft that Defined an Era
During the Vietnam war, one aircraft suffered the least amount of damage, even though it had been on some 4000 combat sorties, only six of them were lost to enemy action. That aircraft was the F-111 aardvark, a swing wing, medium range multi role combat aircraft which started in service …
Zoom Climbs – The Highest Life and Death Jet Flights to the Edge of Space.
On the 31st of August 1977, Aleksandr Fedotov, flying a modified MiG-25RB with the more powerful Tumansky R-15BF2-300 engine’s, reached the record height of 123,523 feet or 37,649m and that record still stands today. This marked the end Of the Super high altitude zoom climbs, a golden age of altitude …
B-58 Hustler – Was it Really That Bad?
During the early days of the Cold War the U.S needed bombers that would be capable of flying from the US mainland all the way to the Soviet Union, quickly and avoiding enemy air defences by flying higher than the Soviet fighters or missiles could reach. Two bombers emerged that …
Why is it Still So Hard to Land on the Moon?
How hard can it be to safely land on the moon? after all, it’s not like we haven’t done it before. Since 2013 there have been at least nine attempts at a soft landing on the moon by China, India, Japan, Israel as well as the US and Russia, if …