Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!cbnews!military
From: simpkins@manta.nosc.mil (Michael A. Simpkins)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: SeaDart
Message-ID: <1990Aug21.025500.2527@cbnews.att.com>
Date: 21 Aug 90 02:55:00 GMT
References: <1990Aug10.010802.29891@cbnews.att.com> <1990Aug15.032235.26328@cbnews.att.com>
Sender: military@cbnews.att.com (William B. Thacker)
Organization: Naval Ocean Systems Center, San Diego
Lines: 20
Approved: military@att.att.com



From: simpkins@manta.nosc.mil (Michael A. Simpkins)

>The SeaDart (may have been XFY-1... I was eight years old at the time,
>don't remember too well) had delta wings, a pointed nose, twin air intakes
>high on the fuselage aft of the cockpit, and most unusual: retractable
>water skis, on which it took off and landed.  I watched some of those
>flights from my home overlooking San Diego Bay.  As I remember, they built
>two SeaDarts.  One day one of them blew up in flight.  I was sitting in
>third grade class, and heard the explosion.
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They have a Sea Dart on display in front of the Air and Space museum here in 
Balboa Park. This is absolutey the strangest looking plane I have ever seen.
(But it says on the plaque that it did indeed fly a couple of times.) It 
sure doesn't seem that there would be enough room in the bay for that thing to 
be doing flight tests, there must have been a lot less around back then.

				Simpkins