Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!att!pacbell!amdahl!amdcad!military From: miket@brspyr1.brs.com (Mike Trout) Newsgroups: sci.military Subject: F-111s, long-winged Canberras, and World War II Message-ID: <27046@amdcad.AMD.COM> Date: 31 Aug 89 09:39:16 GMT Sender: cdr@amdcad.AMD.COM Organization: BRS Information Technologies Lines: 63 Approved: military@amdcad.amd.com From: miket@brspyr1.brs.com (Mike Trout) In sci.military Digest Wednesday, 05 July, 1989 Volume 2 : Issue 37 henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes: > F-111 wing pivots too far outboard; Tornado pivots are in fuselage. Okay, I'll bite. Why does this cause a problem? It seems that most Soviet swing-wing planes (Tu-26, Tu-160, MiG-23/27, Su-17/20/22) have configurations that swing a rather small percentage of the wing, far further outboard than on most western aircraft (one exception may be the Su-24). Do the Soviets have problems with this? Also, of course, the USAF has the B-1B, which seems to follow the "Soviet" style of swing-wings. -------------------------- And unocss!mlewis@uunet.UU.NET (Marcus S. Lewis) writes: > I remember seeing a Canberra recce (looooong wings) bird on the flight line > [at Ramstein in the late 60s] and being told not to talk about it. Also > can't rememer markings on it. I used to see a lot of these at Davis-Monthan AFB (Tucson, Ariz.) in the early 1970s. I think the designation was RB-57H (could be wrong on that final letter). Most were in bare aluminum with pretty much standard USAF markings with squadron markings and whatnot. Nobody made much of a fuss about them, but I think by then they were slowly starting to be scrapped; there was also a U-2 squadron at Davis-Monthan then and everybody DID make a big fuss about that. The RB-57H takeoff was one of the strangest things I've ever seen. Level attitude, lots of noise, with low forward speed but high vertical speed, with the plane staying basically nose level throughout. Years later we would call this a "Harrier-style" takeoff. The RB-57H would stay in sight for an amazingly long time, seemingly hardly moving forward at all but rising into the sky like it was on an elevator. You could still feel the engine roar after the plane was a mere dot in the sky, by which time it hardly seemed to be outside the base boundary fence. Eventually it would disappear into the typical cloudless Arizona sky, but you could still hear the engines for quite a while. ----------------------- The "50 Years Ago" project is an excellent idea, and I hope that I'll see some of it. But I'm a little leery of the source, and therefore of the emphasis. Will this actually be "50 Years Ago As Viewed From the USA"? Will there be enough Russian Front emphasis? Will a 100-man skirmish between Germans and Americans get more play than a 100,000-man battle between Germans and Soviets? What about the gargantuan (and still virtually unknown) Chinese Front? Admittedly, producing a proper mix for a perspective-oriented view of WWII is a major task for anybody, and I give our moderater a lot of credit for being willing to take on this job. It's still a great idea, even with a USA slant. [I'm sure Bill Thacker would welcome non-US oriented suggestions. Send mail to military@cbnews.att.com. --CDR] Replies to e-mail, as I still can't get sci.military, either over the net or via the mailing list. -- NSA food: Iran sells Nicaraguan drugs to White House through CIA, SOD & NRO. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Michael Trout (miket@brspyr1)~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ BRS Information Technologies, 1200 Rt. 7, Latham, N.Y. 12110 (518) 783-1161 "God forbid we should ever be 20 years without...a rebellion." Thomas Jefferson