The sight of contrails above us in the skies is a common one, especially in the developed world since the advent of the jet engine and at around same time we have had a much less prevalent but equally potent kind of exhaust from rocket engines but just how dangerous …
What happened to the Ekranoplan? – The Caspian Sea Monster
In 1967, whilst the U.S’s first spy satellite ‘Corona’ was busy photographing the Soviet Union, something unusual was spotted. It looked like a massive plane, but its wings were too short, it also sported the Soviet Navy Flag on it fuselage, so what was it? Maybe an unfinished aircraft or …
TSR.2 – The Plane Shot Down by its Own Government
Its said that Modern aircraft have four dimensions – span, length, height, and politics. The TSR.2 was a world-beating jet bomber, which “got the first three right”, but ultimately fell foul of the last one. In 1957 British aviation was flying high, it was producing the most advanced jets in …
V Bombers – Vulcan, Victor & Valiant – The Last British Bombers
It took just 11 years to go from the first flight of the Lancaster Bomber in 1941 to the first flight of the VX770, the prototype Vulcan bomber in 1952. Yet the difference between them could hardly be greater, the Vulcan along with the Victor and Valiant was a new …
Eclipse – Chasing the Shadow at 50,000 ft | 2017 – 1973
On August 21st 2017, what being dubbed as the “Great American Eclipse” will take place on a path 2680 miles long that goes from the Oregon on the west coast to South Carolina on the east coast and will be the first total eclipse in the US to go coast …
XB-70 Valkyrie – The Worlds Fastest Bomber
“That’s not a plane, it’s a 3 plane formation” that’s what General Curtis LeMay said of the plans for the WS-110 supersonic replacement for the B-52 back in 1954. Back in the early 1950s, the B-52 was USAF’s main nuclear delivery platform but with the increasing sophistication of the Soviet …
X-15 The Ultimate Flying Machine
“It was the ultimate flying machine, No aeroplane can live up to what the X-15 did.” That’s what retired test pilot and astronaut Joe Engle said of the first real space plane and 50 years after its record-breaking flight of 3rd October 1967 when USAF test pilot William J. Knight …
Nuclear powered trains, planes and automobiles
To quote L.P Hartleys 1953 book “The GoBetween”, “The past is a different country, they do things differently there”. That’s definitely something that could be applied our attitude to the newly discovered atomic power in the late 1940’s and 50s. Within just a few years after the first atomic bombs …
Why can’t we fly a plane into space ?
Why can’t we fly a plane into space, what stops it from just flying higher and higher until we are in space? Well, there a several issues but assuming we are in something like a normal jet airliner, then one of the main problems is the air or lack of …
Rolls-Royce ~ What else do they make other than luxury cars?
Mention the name Rolls-Royce and probably the first thing you think of is the quintessentially British luxury cars, the brand that says “look at me, I’ve made it”, beloved by rappers, pop stars, entrepreneurs and royalty. But the cars are only a small part of a much bigger business that …