Planes!

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Five Navy E-2D Advanced Hawkeyes at Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni, Japan, Feb. 2, 2017

[besilarius]

77 years ago today...

Dave McCampbell (diving) and Roy Rushing run across 40+ Japanese fighters and proceed to shoot down 15 of them (9 for McCambell and 6 for wingman Rushing) - the US record.

Dashing Dave saw the fighters, turned off his oxygen, and lit a cigarette before making his gun run.
Might have gotten a bigger score, but realised he had been launched without a full fuel load and had to make an emergency landing on Langley.

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F-104 Starfighters of the German Luftwaffe

[GDS_Starfury]

those were the only ones that didnt crash.

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Using a supersonic, high altitude interceptor in the low-level, ground-attack role may not have been a great choice.

[BanzaiCat]

That thing always made me think that it has a Blackbird in the woodpile somewhere. It's basically all rocket with wings strapped on as an afterthought.

[Barthheart]

Using a supersonic, high altitude interceptor in the low-level, ground-attack role may not have been a great choice.

It was more than that. Like BC said it was basically a rocket engine with wings and a pilot strapped on.... it was really unstable and difficult to fly... which is why many of them became lawn darts...

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Using a supersonic, high altitude interceptor in the low-level, ground-attack role may not have been a great choice.

It was more than that. Like BC said it was basically a rocket engine with wings and a pilot strapped on.... it was really unstable and difficult to fly... which is why many of them became lawn darts...

Very true, but it was never intended for low-level missions and that's how the Germans ended up using their 104s. Lots of "controlled flight into terrain".

[Staggerwing]

That's because Lockheed bribed certain W. German officials to the tune of $10 million into approving the sale of the Starfighters even though they were not what the Luftwaffe needed. After that the Luftwaffe were stuck with them and still had to fulfill their full mission requirements.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_bribery_scandals

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Whoops.

[BanzaiCat]

Whoa, a glitch in the Matrix!

IIRC the engines on the F-104 were fucking awful and would conk out for very little reason. Like something that aerodynamically 'sound' needed any encouragement to not be airworthy.

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A British Hawker Hurricane Mk IIB of No. 134 Squadron, British Royal Air Force, warms up the engine next to Soviet Army sentries at the Vaenga (Vayenga) airfield, about 10 km (6.2 mi) north-east from Murmansk. October, 1941.

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[bayonetbrant]

what kind of plane is this?