Ultimate piece of gear - possible Lockheed Blackbird sighting or help me ID it!!
- Thread starter Paul_B
- Start date
Here you go chap, I guess you've seen this already
Waddington Vulcan site
Simply the most beautiful aircraft ever made(with compressors for engines
)
Waddington Vulcan site
Simply the most beautiful aircraft ever made(with compressors for engines
)
They're called "canards." But like others have said the Concordes are all grounded. Also it doesn't have canards.
Here you go chap, I guess you've seen this already
Waddington Vulcan site
Simply the most beautiful aircraft ever made(with compressors for engines
Beatiful airplane. Like a flying Manta Ray.
For anyone interested, there is a static display Vulcan at East Fortune air museum - it's the one that did the drop at Stanley airfield in '82 if I recall correctly. Amazing bit of kit and if you try out the bomb aimer's position you will be amazed (no ordnance supplied however!)
(no ordnance supplied however!)
Yes, just one left flying, XH558, and not for much longer as the airframe and engines are down to less than 200 hours service life left now I think. After that it's a museum piece, it would be prohibitively expensive to keep it flying. Some might say it is already, but it's a mighty impressive piece of kit and I've always had a soft spot for it, even if it is really just a nuclear bomber. I was very pleased to see it get back in the air, they used to fly over our house with monotonous regularity when I was a kid and we always used to dash out to catch a glimpse of them. Even my mum did!
Here's a shot the wife took at Waddington in 2008:
http://www.jubileegroup.co.uk/JOS/misc/XH558.jpg
They have their own Website of course:
http://www.vulcantothesky.org/
Nope no concordes flying , At the moment !!
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2010-06/4/concorde-may-fly-again-for-2012-olympics
but then again don't hold your breath !
Craig...........
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2010-06/4/concorde-may-fly-again-for-2012-olympics
but then again don't hold your breath !
Craig...........
Paul it might help if you nip onto paint and trace what you remember of the out line, pick out the main bits and fill in the rest, also when you say dangling beneath itwhat do you mean, aircraft other than helicopters rarely have things dangling, could it have been a sentinel EW aircraft?
Also some chaps have some very strange private jets lately, could be worth widening you search,
Thats my brothers ride
Well looking at the vulcan photograph I can say it can't be that so if not the concorde or the blackbird then I for one am stumped.
Trust me if I went on paint and drew an outline even a 4 year kid would be embarassed at it. I can't draw AT ALL!!
It has a longish, clean fuselage for most of its length (at least 3/4 I think) with slight flattening near the cockpit on the sides like someone with gient hands had pinched it a little like it was made of clay. It has small delta wings, almost like they are not really delta wings but broader normal wings, sort of like someone couldn't decide on a delta. The engines were in the wings. You could see them but the trail of black smoke coming from the middle of the wings also gave them away. When I said you could see the engines they didn't look too much like engines in the sense of civilian jet engines (a kind of cylinder shape out of the wing/body) more part of the wing.
It is not the saab draken - two engines in the wing not one in the fuselage and the wings don't extend as far up the fuselage neither.
The vulcan is not right neither. It had two engines in the wings. The best way to describe the wings (for me anyway) is kind of a smaller vulcan wing stuck at the back. Not quite accurate but a good start. Engines are out of the wings more.
I suspect time is making the memory of the sighing seep out with every day. So far the closest is the front half has the fuselage of the blackbird but the engines aren't right, most other details were.
I think I will forget trying to get this one identified and join a UFO society. I think my witness reliability is about as good as most UFO watchers. Wish I hadn't started the thread but I was hyper at seeing something interesting and wanted to know more so couldn't stop myself.
Trust me if I went on paint and drew an outline even a 4 year kid would be embarassed at it. I can't draw AT ALL!!
It has a longish, clean fuselage for most of its length (at least 3/4 I think) with slight flattening near the cockpit on the sides like someone with gient hands had pinched it a little like it was made of clay. It has small delta wings, almost like they are not really delta wings but broader normal wings, sort of like someone couldn't decide on a delta. The engines were in the wings. You could see them but the trail of black smoke coming from the middle of the wings also gave them away. When I said you could see the engines they didn't look too much like engines in the sense of civilian jet engines (a kind of cylinder shape out of the wing/body) more part of the wing.
It is not the saab draken - two engines in the wing not one in the fuselage and the wings don't extend as far up the fuselage neither.
The vulcan is not right neither. It had two engines in the wings. The best way to describe the wings (for me anyway) is kind of a smaller vulcan wing stuck at the back. Not quite accurate but a good start. Engines are out of the wings more.
I suspect time is making the memory of the sighing seep out with every day. So far the closest is the front half has the fuselage of the blackbird but the engines aren't right, most other details were.
I think I will forget trying to get this one identified and join a UFO society. I think my witness reliability is about as good as most UFO watchers. Wish I hadn't started the thread but I was hyper at seeing something interesting and wanted to know more so couldn't stop myself.
On a side issue, wasn't there some sightings of strange aircraft around Manchester airport that hit the news once or twice. They were dismissed by the authorities as being mis-identifications. Then later on after several reliable sightings (pilots) and near miss by a civilian jet got admissions that something was being tested in the area. Something to do with one of the more stealthy new generation of military aircraft?? Its like that US base which had sightings and eventually the first stealth bomber was what came out of these sightings and developments. "Flying wing". This was not one of those of course.
Planes are a minor fascination of mine ever since as an impressionable 16 year old I worked at BAe Salmesbury and got to see some of the parts being made for the eurofighter prototypes (or the EOP as I remember it from the progress dept paperwork I dealt with day in day out). There was this whole delta wing in carbon fibre that had one minor defect in it so was scrap. It was sat in the general workshop while they thought about what to do with it. Impressively large piece of carbon fibre (or whatever the exact material was CF plus whatever incorporated I reckon). The most interesting parts I got my hands on were some tornado hatches. I had to take them from process to process as they were being fabricated. Interesting seeing the chem etching on it. Also the Titanium powder presses. I only really learnt about them in my post grad course later on. Amazing parts came out of that process. There is a lot that goes into even the structure of the planes before you even get to avionics and the like.
Planes are a minor fascination of mine ever since as an impressionable 16 year old I worked at BAe Salmesbury and got to see some of the parts being made for the eurofighter prototypes (or the EOP as I remember it from the progress dept paperwork I dealt with day in day out). There was this whole delta wing in carbon fibre that had one minor defect in it so was scrap. It was sat in the general workshop while they thought about what to do with it. Impressively large piece of carbon fibre (or whatever the exact material was CF plus whatever incorporated I reckon). The most interesting parts I got my hands on were some tornado hatches. I had to take them from process to process as they were being fabricated. Interesting seeing the chem etching on it. Also the Titanium powder presses. I only really learnt about them in my post grad course later on. Amazing parts came out of that process. There is a lot that goes into even the structure of the planes before you even get to avionics and the like.
Not a Saab of any kind. They have always had their own style of planes and ever since I used to drool over the pictures of the Viggen in my observer book of fighter aircraft and top trumps too as a kid, I kind of would recognise pretty much anything out of the Saab school of aircraft design. Nice interesting planes though.
How about a lockheed Martin x-35? Replacement for the harrier if I remember correctly.
http://www.aerospaceweb.org/aircraft/research/x35/x35_schem_01.jpg
May have been something on the wings causing the trails
http://www.aerospaceweb.org/aircraft/research/x35/x35_schem_01.jpg
May have been something on the wings causing the trails
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