[3.0L]

Originally Posted by Lady Jane

TRIVIA: I believe that it had to be a converted KC-135 with separate fuel tanks for the SR71 since it used JP-7 fuel.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JP-7

https://theaviationgeekclub.com/prod...ray-heres-why/

I don’t recall if he flew on more than one KC-135 or not. I do recall him
mentioning that he would lay next to the boom operator while they were
refueling the SR-71. I think he also mentioned that if the SR had just joined
up after cruising at mach 3, they had ti wait for the airframe to cool down
a bit before pumping the ‘gas.’

[3.0L]

Originally Posted by flybigjet

The "Life-Sucking-Tube-Of-Pain".... or, the "Starlizard" (once they painted the Starlifter European green instead of grey and white).

Fun fact: A C-141A would out climb an F-4 through 10,000'.

When they stretched the A's into the B's (cutting the fuselage in two different places, adding ~23' worth of plugs and adding aerial refueling capability), they didn't even have to re-rate the engines-- it was *that* overpowered.

One of the coolest things I've ever seen was a four-ship of -141A models in diamond formation.

R.

Flew on a C-141A (unstretched) to Vietnam, loaded with 3 trucks and our
GSR system. We departed Tinker AFB with stops at Elmendorf and one in
Japan (Kadena?) with final destination Bien Hoa AFB. I think we were in the
air for about 18 hours total.

[flybigjet]

Originally Posted by Lady Jane

TRIVIA: I believe that it had to be a converted KC-135 with separate fuel tanks for the SR71 since it used JP-7 fuel.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JP-7

https://theaviationgeekclub.com/prod...ray-heres-why/

Yup-- and a special crew qual.

IIRC, they also had some different equipment installed as well that allowed them to roll out in front of the Sled using more than just timing. But, it's been a long time.

R.

[flybigjet]

Originally Posted by 3.0L

Flew on a C-141A (unstretched) to Vietnam, loaded with 3 trucks and our
GSR system. We departed Tinker AFB with stops at Elmendorf and one in
Japan (Kadena?) with final destination Bien Hoa AFB. I think we were in the
air for about 18 hours total.

Could've been my father flying you-- he flew both the A and the B's during his career.

I wanted a C-141 to McChord (near Tacoma, WA), but screwed up somewhere and got assigned into the C-5 instead (it was considered a "big deal" for a lieutenant to get a C-5 at the time, so I guess it was sort of a "well done", even though I didn't think of it like that at the time.) The C-5 was sort of a "grown up" C-141-- a *lot* bigger, *much* more prone to breaking, and didn't go anywhere near the places that the StarLizard crews went to. But, both were built by Lockheed with a lot of similar systems.

The AF (read: Congress) killed the C-141 in order to justify funding and purchasing the C-17. Yes, there were wing cracks, but it was a fixable problem and the airframe had a lot of life left on it (well, other than the SOLL-II birds-- they were rode hard and put away wet).

Basically, McDonnell-Douglas told the AF "Buy the C-17 or we're going to go out of business". Since they were a big manufacturer in CA, steps were taken to make the C-141 look a lot worse that it really was-- (and you could have done a refurb program for a *fraction* of what the C-17 program cost).

What happened? The AF parked the C-141's, started screaming "We don't have the urgently required airlift capability anymore" and Congress gave them C-17's.

And Douglas promptly went out of business and the remains were picked up by Boeing.

(Which may actually have been the start of the downfall of Boeing, but that's another story).

R.

PS: Fun corruption fact: Lockheed proposed a C-5D instead of the C-17 (which had HUGE shenanigans going on to get it across the finish line-- I was there). They were going to pull the aft main gear off, shorten up the fuselage, glass out the cockpit and eliminate the flight engineer, fix the weak (i.e. prone to breaking) systems on the A & B and use about ~60% parts commonality..... AND give the AF a J-Model C-130 for the same unit price of a C-17-- basically you would have gotten two new aircraft for the price of one. But, Lockheed had just gotten the F-22 contract, so that was dead in the water-- Boeing wanted its turn at the trough, so the C-5D went nowhere.

R.

[ezaircon4jc]

Originally Posted by flybigjet

The "Life-Sucking-Tube-Of-Pain".... or, the "Starlizard" (once they painted the Starlifter European green instead of grey and white).

Fun fact: A C-141A would out climb an F-4 through 10,000'.

When they stretched the A's into the B's (cutting the fuselage in two different places, adding ~23' worth of plugs and adding aerial refueling capability), they didn't even have to re-rate the engines-- it was *that* overpowered.

One of the coolest things I've ever seen was a four-ship of -141A models in diamond formation.

R.

It was fun watching a 141 2-ship taking off of SLC MITO. The back guy always flew in the wake turbulence of the first guy; looked like the back guy was just waving his wings. They also never really rotated, they just kind of "jumped" into the air.

[ezaircon4jc]

Originally Posted by flybigjet

LAX-DEN last night.

DEN had 50+ knot gusts with sleet and rain, resulting in a full ground stop.

A DAL flight coming in from the NW Gate had severe mountain wave-- -7000 VVI, +30/-20 on airspeed.

We came in from the SW Gate and it was an interesting ride.

Big picture on the chart? Colors are bad.

R.

How do they do the LOOP these days? Off the north complex I could turn you back out of 3000 and out of 3500 off the south complex and you could make 10' at the VOR just fine.

One of my favorite interchanges is a coworker turned a UAL back to the VOR out of 3500 (25R departure) and UAL said he'd never make the VOR at 10. Bobby tells him sure he will, he'd seen it a thousand times. UAL says maybe he would like to come fly the plane. Bobby's response... "No thanks, I couldn't take the pay cut!" It certainly wouldn't have been a pay cut, but it sure was funny. Oh, UAL was almost 11' at the VOR.

[flybigjet]

Originally Posted by ezaircon4jc

How do they do the LOOP these days? Off the north complex I could turn you back out of 3000 and out of 3500 off the south complex and you could make 10' at the VOR just fine.

One of my favorite interchanges is a coworker turned a UAL back to the VOR out of 3500 (25R departure) and UAL said he'd never make the VOR at 10. Bobby tells him sure he will, he'd seen it a thousand times. UAL says maybe he would like to come fly the plane. Bobby's response... "No thanks, I couldn't take the pay cut!" It certainly wouldn't have been a pay cut, but it sure was funny. Oh, UAL was almost 11' at the VOR.

What's a VOR?

We're dinosaurs-- pretty much everything is RNAV nowadays-- departures, arrivals and even approaches. It all links up in the magic box and you're a dog watching tv.

The Loop still works fine-- IF you know how to make a Guppy climb. The old -300's were probably a bit more thrust to weight, but the -900ER I was in last night did well..... as long as you got on speed fast and went to max continuous thrust as soon as you cleaned up the jet.

We crossed the VOR with a ton of room to spare.

R.

[3.0L]

Originally Posted by flybigjet

Could've been my father flying you-- he flew both the A and the B's during his career.

R.

It required 3 crews to get us there, so a fair possibility. ��

Our load consisted of a jeep, 3/4 ton truck, duece & a half and a trailer with
our AN/TPS-25 radar system. Impressive load, I thought. I recall the chains
that secured the load. I imagine we flew just east of the Russian coast while
on the Elmendorf to Kadena leg, although we had no clue at the time.

An interesting factoid is 13 radar teams departed Tinker AFB in rapid sucession,
all bound for Vietnam. All 13 teams trained together at Ft. Sill for 6 weeks
prior to deployment. Six troops to each team - 5 enlisted plus 1 officer
(a 2LT or 1LT). We drew a brand new butter bar who ended up not knowing
his ear from his elbow once we were in the field. He was replaced shortly
thereafter by a street-wise 1LT. I’ve long wondered how the 2LT made it
through OCS.

[asianF22]

This gem stopped by for a quick visit, apparently 1 of 2 left in the world…Ventura

[ezaircon4jc]

Originally Posted by flybigjet

What's a VOR?

We're dinosaurs-- pretty much everything is RNAV nowadays-- departures, arrivals and even approaches. It all links up in the magic box and you're a dog watching tv.

The Loop still works fine-- IF you know how to make a Guppy climb. The old -300's were probably a bit more thrust to weight, but the -900ER I was in last night did well..... as long as you got on speed fast and went to max continuous thrust as soon as you cleaned up the jet.

We crossed the VOR with a ton of room to spare.

R.

The Clipper's (I know you know; PanAm) 74 going to London would do the same. They didn't climb so well until they got their speed up, but we could turn them out of 2000 and they would make it just fine. We did have to (obviously) stop the south-bounders below them.

[Llarry]

For Phantom Phriday, let's take a quick look at the other F-4G. No, not the famous USAF Wild Weasel air defense suppression aircraft of the Vietnam War and after, but a dozen Navy F-4Bs that were fitted with a data link from 1963. These airplanes were assigned first to the Pacific Fleet F-4 training unit, VF-121, and then the whole batch were turned over to VF-116, which was redesignated VF-213. In addition to their equipment differences, the F-4Gs were painted in Southeast Asia camouflage colors. (This reminds me of the U.S. Navy's adoption of camouflage colors for Navy working uniforms in recent years... huh? )

After VF-213 made a Vietnam deployment with their F-4Gs in 1966 the aircraft (less one that had been lost in combat) were returned to F-4B configuration. By the book, the F-4G designation was no longer available, but the Air Force wanted their modified Wild Weasel F-4Es to use the G designation, so they fudged a little.

[Llarry]

Sharing some design features and engines with the uber-bomber Mach 3 North American B-70 was an advanced Mach 3 interceptor concept designated the F-108.

The F-108 had a similar wing to the bomber and was powered by two GE J93 engines rather than the six of the bomber. It would likely have been an excellent performer, but at eye-watering cost. President Eisenhower pulled the plug on the F-108 project in 1959.

The Mach 3 interceptor project was revived a few years later as the YF-12 version of the Lockheed A-12 and used the radar than had been planned for the F-108. But all of these triple-sonic aircraft were too expensive; none were brought to production status.

[Lady Jane]

In the news:

Delta, JetZero partner on futuristic widebody passenger jet JetZero aims to introduce commercial service by 2030.

[Llarry]

Originally Posted by Lady Jane

In the news:

Delta, JetZero partner on futuristic widebody passenger jet JetZero aims to introduce commercial service by 2030.

That second picture begs to be called the "Flying Penguin."

[Llarry]

In the late 1960s, when the U.S. Navy's new F-111B fighter got into trouble (too big, too heavy, etc.) Grumman had the inside track on an alternative, as they had been a General Dynamics partner on the F-111 project. The took the F-111B's engines, radar and variable-geometry wings and repackaged them in a form more palatable to the Navy.

But what if...

Here's an illustration of the Vought V-507 replacement for the F-4 Phantom on carrier decks, all painted up in Jolly Rogers colors. This was never much more than a Vought dream, but of course the aircraft companies are always thinking about the current competition and the next one as well. The V-507 appears to lack one important feature that the F-111B and F-14 had: The large Hughes AIM-54 Phoenix air-to-air missile that the Navy wanted in order to have the capability to break up and destroy massed Soviet attacks on carrier task forces at sea.