Camden Town Station 17/10/2019 10h41

Andy (and I) going down in Camden Town Station to take the Northern Line to Stockwell. Just to see what's there.

 

London Underground

The London Underground (also known simply as the Underground, or by its nickname the Tube) is a public rapid transit system serving Greater London and some parts of the adjacent counties of Buckinghamshire, Essex and Hertfordshire in the United Kingdom.

The world's first underground railway, the Metropolitan Railway, which opened in 1863, is now part of the Circle, Hammersmith & City and Metropolitan lines; the first line to operate underground electric traction trains, the City & South London Railway in 1890, is now part of the Northern line. The network has expanded to 11 lines, and in 2015–16 carried 1.34 billion passengers, making it the world's 11th busiest metro system. The 11 lines collectively handle approximately 4.8 million passengers a day.

 

Number of lines: 11

Number of stations: 270

Daily ridership: 4.8 million

System length: 402 km

Average speed: 33 km/h

[ Source and more Info: Wikipedia - London Underground ]

 

Northern Line

The Northern line is a London Underground line, coloured black on the Tube map. The section between Stockwell and Borough opened in 1890, and is the oldest section of deep-level tube line on the network.

For most of its length it is a deep-level tube line. There were about 252,310,000 passenger journeys in 2011/12 on the Northern line, making it the second-busiest line on the Underground. (It was the busiest from 2003 to 2010.) It is unique in having two different routes through central London – the Charing Cross or West End branch, serving the central part of zone 1, and the Bank or City branch, serving the eastern part of that zone. Despite its name, it does not serve the northernmost stations on the network, though it does serve the southernmost station (Morden), as well as 16 of the system's 29 stations south of the River Thames. There are 50 stations on the line, of which 36 have platforms below ground.

 

Opened: 1890

Number of stations: 58

Lenght: 58 km

Rolling Stock: 1995 Tube Stock - 6 cars per train set

Color on Map: Black

[ Source and more: Wikipedia - Northern Line ]

  

Before dawn at Shotton Colliery County Durham with the system's Andrew Barclay 0-6-0ST of 1904 driven by W. H. Delicate. 06.30 on Thursday 16th December 1971

A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket with Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner spacecraft aboard is seen on the launch pad at Space Launch Complex 41 ahead of the Orbital Flight Test-2 mission, Wednesday, May 18, 2022 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. Boeing’s Orbital Flight Test-2 will be Starliner’s second uncrewed flight test and will dock to the International Space Station as part of NASA's Commercial Crew Program. The mission, currently targeted for launch on 6:54 p.m. ET on May 19, will serve as an end-to-end test of the system's capabilities. Photo Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky)

My trio of Olympus Zuiko OM system’s 50mm lens collection. L to R: f/1.8, f/1.2, and f/1.4.

—

Fujinon XF 16mm f/1.4 + Fujifilm X-T2.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with the company's Crew Dragon spacecraft onboard is seen on the launch pad at Launch Complex 39A as preparations continue for the Demo-1 mission, Friday, March 1, 2019 at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The Demo-1 mission launched at 2:49am ET on Saturday, March 2 and was the first launch of a commercially built and operated American spacecraft and space system designed for humans as part of NASA's Commercial Crew Program. The mission will serve as an end-to-end test of the system's capabilities. (Photo credit: NASA/Joel Kowsky)

 

NASA image use policy.

Rainy skies over the city this afternoon as a low pressure system slowly departs our area. This same system had brought convective thunderstorms to the region this week. Pic taken from around San Jose, CA.

 

Weather update:

Thunderstorms have erupted throughout the state this week, courtesy of a very slow moving low pressure system. This system's eastward movement was very slow and the counter clockwise flow around the low had kept us in a rainy, unsettled weather pattern the past couple days or so. However, things were to start to dry out. By Monday of the following week, high pressure was forecast to be back along the coast...

 

(Saturday afternoon, May 7, 2016; 2:56 p.m.)

A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket with Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner spacecraft aboard is seen as it is rolled out of the Vertical Integration Facility to the launch pad at Space Launch Complex 41 ahead of the Orbital Flight Test-2 (OFT-2) mission, Wednesday, May 18, 2022 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. Boeing’s Orbital Flight Test-2 will be Starliner’s second uncrewed flight test and will dock to the International Space Station as part of NASA's Commercial Crew Program. The mission, currently targeted for launch at 6:54 p.m. ET on May 19, will serve as an end-to-end test of the system's capabilities. Photo Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky)

SN11BVC Alexander-Dennis Enviro 200 Hybrid New July 2011 Colchri. Using BAE Systems's HybriDrive series drive system with Cummins ISBe 4-cylinder engine fitted for power generation. purchased with Grant assistance from Scottish Governments Green Bus Fund

A line up of metre gauge DMUs on the Linha do Vouga system's main station, Sernada do Vouga. Photo taken on 10 November 1993.

A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket with Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner spacecraft aboard is seen as it is rolled out of the Vertical Integration Facility to the launch pad at Space Launch Complex 41 ahead of the Orbital Flight Test-2 (OFT-2) mission, Monday, Aug. 2, 2021 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. Boeing’s Orbital Flight Test-2 will be Starliner’s second uncrewed flight test and will dock to the International Space Station as part of NASA's Commercial Crew Program. The mission, currently targeted for launch at 1:20 p.m. EDT Tuesday, Aug. 3, will serve as an end-to-end test of the system's capabilities. Photo Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky)

The remains of a Dudley, Stourbridge & District electric tramcar at the Black Country Living Museum. It is thought to be that system's no. 36, but this is unconfirmed. 8th October 2016.

Newcastle-built Robert Stephenson & Hawthorns 0-6-0 tank 'No.40' (W/No.7765 built in 1954) at rest between duties at Ashington colliery in the late-1960s. This loco, fitted with headlights, had been used on the system's passenger services.

 

© Gordon Edgar collection - All rights reserved. Please do not use my images without my explicit permission

A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket with Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner spacecraft onboard is seen inside the Vertical Integration Facility before being rolled out to the launch pad at Space Launch Complex 41 ahead of the Orbital Flight Test mission, Wednesday, Dec. 18, 2019 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The Orbital Flight Test with be Starliner’s maiden mission to the International Space Station for NASA's Commercial Crew Program. The mission, currently targeted for a 6:36 a.m. EST launch on Dec. 20, will serve as an end-to-end test of the system's capabilities. Photo Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky)

Planet Earth's horizon stretches across this recent Solar System group portrait, seen from the southern hemisphere's Las Campanas Observatory. Taken before dawn it traces the ecliptic with a line-up familiar to November's early morning risers. Toward the east are bright planets Venus, Mars, and Jupiter as well as Regulus, alpha star of the constellation Leo. Of course the planets are immersed in the faint glow of zodiacal light, visible from the dark site rising at an angle from the horizon. Sometimes known as the false dawn, it's no accident the zodiacal light and planets both lie along the ecliptic. Formed in the flattened protoplanetary disk, the Solar System's planet's all orbit near the ecliptic plane, while dust near the plane scatters sunlight, the source of the faint zodiacal glow. via NASA ift.tt/1NvB8f9

see it in motion at: n-e-r-v-o-u-s.com/projects/sets/zoetropes/

 

nylon 3D printed by Selective Laser Sintering, MDF, electronics, LEDs

 

A tree-like form with two leaves grows as the disc spins. The zoetrope illustrates Nervous System’s leaf venation inspired algorithm, hyphae, as it grows across 3D surfaces.

 

30.5 x 30.5 x 21 inches

A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket with Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner spacecraft onboard is seen as it is rollout out of the Vertical Integration Facility to the launch pad at Space Launch Complex 41 ahead of the Orbital Flight Test mission, Wednesday, Dec. 18, 2019 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The Orbital Flight Test with be Starliner’s maiden mission to the International Space Station for NASA's Commercial Crew Program. The mission, currently targeted for a 6:36 a.m. EST launch on Dec. 20, will serve as an end-to-end test of the system's capabilities. Photo Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky)

Gare de Lyon 14/02/2019 12h16

Like if we were back in the 1980's and 1990's when the TGV colors were orange like here.

Set TGV 01, named ‘Patrick’, retires after 41 years of service. For this occasion, both power cars got back their original orange livery. Intermediate cars got back SNCF older blue-silver paint scheme, so TGV 01 now sports all three liveries it has had during its active career.

TGV fans are awaiting the departure of the 01 to Comflans (depot near Gare de Lyon).

 

TGV 01 "Patrick"

An explosion of colors to say farewell to the first TGV Sud-Est high-speed train. Set TGV 01, named ‘Patrick’, retires after 41 years of service. For this occasion, both power cars got back their original orange livery. Intermediate cars got back SNCF older blue-silver paint scheme, so TGV 01 now sports all three liveries it has had during its active career.

 

The SNCF TGV Sud-Est or TGV-PSE was a French high speed TGV train built by Alstom and operated by SNCF, the French national railway company. It is a semi-permanently coupled electric multiple unit and was built for operation between Paris and the south-east of France.

The TGV Sud-Est fleet was built between 1978 and 1988 and operated the first TGV service from Paris to Lyon in 1981.

Originally the sets were built to run at 270 km/h (168 mph) but most were upgraded to 300 km/h (186 mph) during their mid-life refurbishment in preparation for the opening of the LGV Méditerranée. The few sets which still have a maximum speed of 270 km/h (168 mph) operate on routes which have a comparatively short distance on the lignes à grande vitesse, such as those to Switzerland via Dijon. SNCF did not consider it financially worthwhile to upgrade their speed for a marginal reduction in journey time.

In December 2019, all TGV Sud-Est sets were retired from service. In early 2020, a farewell service which included TGV01 (Nicknamed Patrick), the very first TGV train ever build. This train included all 3 liveries that were worn during it's service.

 

FACTS & FIGURES (SNCF TGV "Sud-Est")

In service: 1981-December 2019

Manufacturer: GEC-Alsthom

Number built: 111

Numbers preserved / scrapped: 7 / 107

Formation: 10 cars (2 power cars, 8 passenger cars)

Capacity: 350

Length: 200 meters

Speed: 300 km/h

Electric system(s): 25 kV 50 Hz AC 1500 V DC

Safety system(s): TVM 300/TVM 430

[ Source & More: Wikipedia - SNCF TGV Sud-Est ]

NASA and Boeing teams prepare for the landing of Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner spacecraft at White Sands Missile Range’s Space Harbor, Wednesday, May 25, 2022, in New Mexico. Boeing’s Orbital Flight Test-2 (OFT-2) is Starliner’s second uncrewed flight test to the International Space Station as part of NASA's Commercial Crew Program. OFT-2 serves as an end-to-end test of the system's capabilities. Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls)

Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner spacecraft lands at White Sands Missile Range’s Space Harbor, Wednesday, May 25, 2022, in New Mexico. Boeing’s Orbital Flight Test-2 (OFT-2) is Starliner’s second uncrewed flight test to the International Space Station as part of NASA's Commercial Crew Program. OFT-2 serves as an end-to-end test of the system's capabilities. Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls)

Some of the Solar System's largest moons rose together on February 23. On that night, a twilight pairing of a waning gibbous Moon and Jupiter was captured in this sharp telescopic field of view. The composite of short and long exposures reveals the familiar face of our fair planet's own large natural satellite, along with a line up of the ruling gas giant's four Galilean moons. Left to right, the tiny pinpricks of light are Callisto, Io, Ganymede, [Jupiter], and Europa. Closer and brighter, our own natural satellite appears to loom large. But Callisto, Io, and Ganymede are actually larger than Earth's Moon, while water world Europa is only slightly smaller. In fact, of the Solar System's six largest planetary satellites, only Saturn's moon Titan is missing from the scene. via NASA ift.tt/1Y57jDq

Central hall of metro station Admiralteyskaya on the Frunzensko-Primorskaya Line (Line 5), Kirchpichnyy Pereulok, Saint Petersburg, Russia

 

Some background information:

 

The Saint Petersburg Metro is the underground railway system of the city of Saint Petersburg. It has been open since 15th November 1955. Formerly known as the V.I. Lenin Order of Lenin Leningrad Metropoliten, the system exhibits many typical Soviet designs and features exquisite decorations and artwork making it one of the most attractive and elegant metros in the world, maybe only excelled by the Moscow Metro. Due to the city's unique geology, the Saint Petersburg Metro is also one of the deepest metro systems in the world and the deepest by the average depth of all the stations. The system's deepest station, Admiralteyskaya, is located 86 metres below ground. Serving 2.1 million passengers daily (resp. 763.1 million passengers per year), the Saint Petersburg Metro is the 19th busiest metro system in the world.

 

Opened on 28th December 2011, Admiralteyskaya metro station was designed to relieve congestion at the Nevsky Prospekt and Gostiny Dvor stations, as well as to provide a more direct link to the Hermitage and other notable museums. The station’s name originates from the Admiralty building, which is located nearby. Originally, Admiralteyskaya was going to be built on the Nevsko-Vasileostrovskaya Line, however the construction didn't go underway. Although the need for the station was apparent to the Metro planners for over three decades, the actual construction proved to be a difficult process, as the planners feared that the nearby museums and historical buildings would be adversely affected by construction. Determining the location of the exit proved to be a difficult task too. Finally, it was decided that the exit had to be built on the site of an apartment building on Kirpichnyy Pereulok (in English "Kirpichnyy Alley").

 

The station is connected to the ground with two consecutive escalators. Since it is very difficult to build escalators longer than 125 metres (410 feet), it was determined to build one long escalator with a length of 125 metres to the intermediate level. From this level a shorter escalator of 25 metres (82 feet) leads to the station. The total depth of the station is 86 metres (282 feet) which makes it the deepest metro station in Saint Petersburg.

 

In Saint Petersburg’s history, the question of building an underground transport system arose several times, the first time in 1820, when the idea was hatched to build an underground road in a tunnel. By the end of the 19th century, certain interested parties began discussing the possibility of opening the Russian Empire's first metropolitan railway system. Almost all pre-revolutionary designs featured the concept of an elevated metro system, similar to the Paris or Vienna metros. However, as was later discovered through the experience of operating open (ground-level) metro lines in the city, such schemes would likely have resulted in a poor metro service. Unfortunately, at the time, Russian engineers did not have sufficient expertise or technical resources for the construction of deep underground tunnels through the bedrock located far beneath St Petersburg. Hence, it was finally Moscow that got the first underground railway system in the Soviet Union in 1935.

 

In 1938 the question of building a metro for Saint Petersburg (by then renamed to Leningrad), resurfaced again. The initial project was designed by the Moscow institute 'Metrogiprotrans', but on 21st January 1941, "Construction Directorate № 5 of the People's Commissariat" was founded as a body to specifically oversee the design and construction of the Leningrad Metro. By April 1941, 34 shafts for the initial phase of construction had been finished. During the Second World War construction works were frozen due to severe lack of available funding, manpower and equipment. At this time, many of the metro construction workers were employed in the construction and repair of railheads and other objects vital to the besieged city.

 

In 1946 Lenmetroproyekt was created, to finish the construction of the metro first phase. A new version of the metro project, devised by specialists, identified two new solutions to the problems to be encountered during the metro construction. Firstly, stations were to be built at a level slightly raised above that of normal track so as to prevent drainage directly into them, whilst the average tunnel width was to be reduced from the 6 metres (20 feet) standard of the Moscow Metro to 5.5 metres (18 feet).

 

On 3rd September 1947, construction in the Leningrad subway began again and eight years later, on 7 October 1955, the electricity was turned on in the metro l. On 15th November 1955, the subway grand opening was held, with the first seven stations being put into public use. These stations later became part of the Kirovsko-Vyborgskaya Line, connecting the Moscow Rail Terminal in the city centre with the Kirovsky industrial zone in the southwest. Subsequent development included lines under the Neva River in 1958, and the construction of the Vyborgsky Radius in the mid-1970s to reach the new housing developments in the north. In 1978, the line was extended past the city limits into the Leningrad Oblast.

 

By the time of the USSR's collapse, the Leningrad Metro comprised 54 stations and 94.2 kilometres (58.5 miles) of track. But development even continued in the modern, post-Soviet period. Today, the Saint Petersburg metro comprises five lines with altogether 69 stations and 118,6 kilometres (74 miles) of track. However, the present state is not meant to be the end of the story. Plans have been made to extend the Saint Petersburg Metro to nine lines with altogether 126 stations and 190 kilometres (118 miles) of track. But delays due to the difficult geology of the city's underground and to the insufficient funding have cut down these plans to 17 new stations and one new depot until 2025. At the same time, there are several short and mid-term projects on station upgrades, including escalator replacements and lighting upgrades.

 

On 3rd April 2017, a terrorist bombing caused an explosion on a train between Sennaya Ploshchad and Tekhnologicheski Institut stations, on the Line 2. 14 people died and over 50 sustained injuries, while Russian president Vladimir Putin was in the city, when the attack happened. On the same day, Russia's National anti-terrorist unit defused another explosive device at Ploshchad Vosstaniya station (which you can see on this picture).

 

Saint Petersburg (in Russian: Санкт-Петербу́рг) is Russia's second-largest city after Moscow, with currently 5.3 million inhabitants, part of the Saint Petersburg agglomeration with a population of 6.2 million (2015). An important Russian port on the Baltic Sea, it has a status of a federal city. Saint Petersburg is also the fourth-largest city in Europe, only excelled by Istanbul, London and Moscow. Other famous European cities like Paris, Berlin, Rome and Madrid are smaller. Furthermore, Saint Petersburg is the world’s northernmost megapolis and called "The Venice of the North", due to its many channels that traverse the city.

 

Situated on the Neva River, at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea, it was founded by Tsar Peter the Great on 27th May 1703. On 1st September 1914, the name was changed from Saint Petersburg to Petrograd, on 26 January 1924 to Leningrad, and on 7 September 1991 back to Saint Petersburg. Between 1713 and 1728 and again between 1732 and 1918, Saint Petersburg was the capital of Imperial Russia. In 1918, the central government bodies moved to Moscow, which is located about 625 kilometres (388 miles) to the south-east.

 

Saint Petersburg is also the cultural capital of Russia. "The Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments" constitute a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Saint Petersburg is home to the Hermitage, one of the largest art museums in the world. Many foreign consulates, international corporations, banks and businesses have offices in Saint Petersburg. The multinational Gazprom company has its headquarters in the newly erected Lakhta Center.

The cockpit of Pan Am Airways System's Dakota, photographed at Prestwick as part of Daks Over Normandy event

French frigate Chevalier Paul

   

France

 

NameChevalier Paul

 

NamesakeChevalier Paul

 

Ordered27 October 2000

 

BuilderDCNS and Thales Group. Lorient shipyard

 

Laid down13 January 2005

 

Launched12 July 2006

 

CommissionedJune 2009

 

HomeportToulon

 

Identification

 

Pennant number: D 621

 

MMSI number: 228722000

 

StatusActive

 

General characteristics

 

Class and typeHorizon-class frigate

 

Displacement7,050 tonnes[1]

 

Length152.87 m (501 ft 7 in)

 

Beam20.3 m (66 ft 7 in)

 

Draught5.4 m (17 ft 9 in)

 

Propulsion

 

2 × 31280 HP GE/Avio LM2500 gas turbines

 

2 × 5875 HP SEMT Pielstick 12 PA6 STC diesels

 

1 × beam propeller

 

2 × 4-blade propellers

 

Speed29 knots (54 km/h; 33 mph) (18 on diesel)

 

Range7,000 nmi (13,000 km; 8,100 mi) at 18 knots (33 km/h; 21 mph)s, 3500 nmi at 25 knots

 

Boats & landing

 

craft carriedEDO, 20-seat EFRC, Hurricane 733

 

Capacity32 passengers or admiral staff

 

Complement

 

26 officers

 

110 petty officers

 

38 sailors

 

Sensors and

 

processing systems

 

S-1850 LRR tri-dimensional sentry radar with IFF

 

ABF TUS 4110 CL hull sonar

 

Tugged linear antenna with Alto torpedo detector

 

Electronic warfare

 

& decoys

 

Radar jammer

 

Communication jammer

 

NGDS system (2 decoy launchers, REM, RIR, LAD)

 

Contralto system (2 acoustic decoy launchers).

 

Armament

 

Anti-air;

 

1 × PAAMS (48 × Aster 15 or 30 anti-air missiles in SYLVER A50 VLS.)

 

For but not with: [1 × Sadral launcher with 6 Mistral missiles] [2] space on starboard roof of hangar

 

Anti-ship;

 

8 × Exocet MM40 Block 3 anti-ship missiles (Block 3c variant entering service with the French Navy from December 2022)[3]

 

Anti-submarine;

 

2 × MU90 torpedo tubes

 

Guns;

 

2 × Otobreda 76 mm super rapid guns

 

3 × Narwhal 20 mm remote-controlled naval gun

 

Aircraft carried1 × NH90 helicopter

 

Chevalier Paul is a Horizon-class frigate of the French Marine Nationale commissioned in June 2009, the third vessel of the French Navy named after the 17th century admiral Chevalier Paul. The main mission of this type of ship is the escort and protection of a carrier strike group formed around an aircraft carrier, usually Charles de Gaulle or one of the aircraft carriers of the US Navy,[4] or an amphibious operation carried out by amphibious helicopter carriers. The ship's specialty is air traffic control in a war zone, but it can be employed in a wide variety of missions, such as intelligence-gathering, special forces operations, or in protecting less well-armed vessels. Horizon-class frigates such as Chevalier Paul are the most powerful surface combatants that France has ever built. In service since the end of 2011, it bears the pennant number D621. Its namesake is Jean-Paul de Saumeur, better known as Chevalier Paul, a French naval officer born in Marseille in 1598.

   

Nantes is the godmother city of Chevalier Paul since 17 March 2012.[5]

   

Design and description

 

Aster missile

 

Aster missiles are the main weapon system of Chevalier Paul. The ship is equipped with 32 Aster 30 missiles and 16 Aster 15 missiles, housed in vertical silos of the Sylver A50 type, located on the foredeck. A main anti-air missile system (PAAMS), combined with an EMPAR multifunction radar operating in C-band, controls launch and target tracking.

   

The first launch of an Aster 30 against a target from sister ship Forbin took place in November 2008 at Toulon.[6] It was the first fire of this machine since a frigate. The previous Aster 30 launches from the sea were carried out from a British barge and the Italian test ship Carabiniere. The missile was fired at an aerial target from the evolving building off the DGA's Le Levant test and launch center . The Aster 30 missiles of the air defense frigate are the second bulwark of protection of the carrier strike group, after the Rafale fighters, and provide 360° protection at a distance of 100 kilometers against aircraft and 30 kilometers against grazing and maneuvering anti-ship anti-ship missiles in service or in development. The French Navy has shown with the frigate Forbin its capacity to destroy a supersonic missile ( 3,000 km / h ) maneuvering ( SS-N-22, AS-17, BrahMos ) and at an altitude of less than 5 meters above water by shooting down a GQM-163 Coyote.[7][8]

   

Exocet MM40 Block 3C

 

Chevalier Paul embarks eight sea-sea Exocet missiles installed on the upper deck amidships. The most recent version MM40 Block 3C of the Exocet missile was selected. It can operate at a distance of more than 180 kilometers from its objective.[9]

   

Others

   

Twin OTO Melara 76 mm turrets on Chevalier Paul

 

Two turrets with fully automated OTO-Melara 76 mm cannon, controlled from Central Operations, with a rate of fire of 60 to 120 rounds per minute. Each turret, weighing 5.5 tonnes, is gyro-stabilized, in order to maintain the point-of-aim, despite the movements of the ship. It has a magazine containing 60 shells which can be refilled in real time by crew members moving ammunition from the main ammunition compartment via an elevator. More than 1,000 shells of different types (land, surface, or anti-aircraft) are stored, with a maximum range of 13 kilometers against surface targets,[10] and 2 manual guns of 20 mm mod. replaced in 2018 by 3 Narwhal 20 mm automatic cannons.[11]

Dorst | NS Sprinter Lighttrain 11/09/2016 16h37

A Sprinter Lighttrain (SLT) with fleetnumber 2635 in between Breda and Gilze-Rijen on its way from Breda via Tilburg, Den Bosch, Geldermalsen to Utrecht. Seen from a secret (!) spotterspoint along the Boslaan in the municipality Dorst (Noord-Brabant).

 

Sprinter Lighttrain

The Sprinter Lighttrain or SLT is an Electric Multiple Unit (EMU) train type operated by the Nederlandse Spoorwegen in the Netherlands. They were built from 2007 to 2012 by Bombardier (2400) and Siemens (2600). It is the successor of the Sprinter train type.

The SLT is designed to replace the Mat '64 trains from the 1960s and 1970s. The first 35 sets were ordered in 2005 and the first set, 2402 arrived in January 2008. The second set, 2602 arrived in February 2008 and both were used on test runs. In September 2007 NS ordered a further 64 sets, and these started arriving in the Netherlands in mid-2009. In 2009 a further 32 were ordered. The trains use regenarative braking, which can feed braking energy back into the contact wire when they brake.

The SLT is primarily for the Randstad area, around the four main cities (Amsterdam, Utrecht, The Hague and Rotterdam). They are used on stopping services, designed for routes where stations are close together and for this they feature many wide doors and fast acceleration.

 

FACTS & FIGURES

Manufacturer: Bombardier (2400) [69 trains], Siemens (2600) [62 trains]

Fleet numbers: 2401-2469, 2601-2662

Constructed: 2007-2012

Entered service: 2009

Capacity: 40 1st class, 176 2nd class (2400) / 56 1st class, 266 2nd class (2600)

Train length: 69.36 m (2400), 100,54 (2600)

Width: 2.84 m

Height: 4.21 m

Doors: 12 (2400), 20 (2600)

Weight: 129 t (2400), 176 t (2600)

Electric system(s): 1.5 kV DC Catenary

[ Source and more Information: Wikipedia - NS Sprinter Lighttrain ]

 

Boeing Recovery Operations Leader Jeffery Davis, left, and Boeing Recovery Director Bryan Gartner, talk to NASA and Boeing teams as they prepare for the landing of Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner spacecraft at White Sands Missile Range’s Space Harbor, Wednesday, May 25, 2022, in New Mexico. Boeing’s Orbital Flight Test-2 (OFT-2) is Starliner’s second uncrewed flight test to the International Space Station as part of NASA's Commercial Crew Program. OFT-2 serves as an end-to-end test of the system's capabilities. Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls)

Thought to be snapped around early 2003, preserved WCT 1964 British United Traction trolleybus No. 83 with UK Metropolitan-Cammell Carriage Works (MCCW) / Metro-Cammell Weyman 'Mark II' B42D bodywork viewed laying over in Wharf St. against the backdrop of the one of the township's premier tourist attraction, the DeMolen windmill, just prior to its completion that year and now a feature of the Te Awahou Riverside Cultural Park along with the Te Awahou Nieuwe Stroom cultural centre.

 

Operation of preserved trolleybuses in Foxton has ceased being a Foxton visitor drawcard for some 6 years now, although the museum system's overhead is now the only trolleybus overhead to be seen on public roads in NZ's North Island.

 

WCT 83 EV6758 / 1964 Leyland (BUT) RETB1/1 / 509927 / Metro-Cammell Weyman B42/21D body and seating codes.

 

Metro-Cammell, fully the Metropolitan Cammell Carriage and Wagon Company (MCCW) was an English manufacturer of railway carriages and wagons, based in Saltley and subsequently Washwood Heath in Birmingham. Bought by GEC Alstom in May 1989, the company was closed in 2005.

 

The company made trains for railways in the UK and overseas, including the Mass Transit Railway of Hong Kong, Kowloon-Canton Railway (now East Rail Line), the Channel Tunnel, the Tyne and Wear Metro and locomotives for Malaysia's Keretapi Tanah Melayu. Diesel and electric locomotives were manufactured for South African Railways, Nyasaland Railways, Malawi, Nigeria, Trans-Zambezi Railway and Pakistan; DMUs for Jamaica Railway Corporation; and DMUs for National Railways of Mexico. The vast majority of London Underground rolling stock manufactured in mid 20th century was produced by the company. It also designed and built the Blue Pullman for British Railways.

 

By 1926, they had changed their name again to Metropolitan Carriage, Wagon and Finance Company Ltd.

 

In 1929, the railway rolling stock business of Cammell Laird and Company was merged as Metropolitan-Cammell Carriage and Wagon Company Ltd, the resulting company being part owned by Vickers and the Cammell Laird group.

 

MCCW also built bus bodies. In 1932, Metro Cammell Weymann was formed by the MCCW's bus bodybuilding business and Weymann Motor Bodies.

 

In the Second World War, Metro built tanks again, including the Valentine tank and Light Tank Mk VIII.

 

Saltley works was closed in 1962 and group administration concentrated at Washwood Heath in 1967.

 

In May 1989 the railway business was sold to GEC Alsthom (now Alstom) Group. The last trains to be built at the Washwood Heath plant before its closure in 2005 were the Class 390 "Pendolino" tilting trains for the West Coast Main Line modernisation.

 

Ex Wellington No. 83 is seen here at Foxton Beach. A weekly shoppers service was for a time run from the town to the local beach using a trolleybus from the Foxton Trolleybus Museum towing a trailer on which was mounted a diesel bus engine which drove a trolleybus motor which generated power to drive the actual trolleybus which in turn could then tow the trailer. Photo by Graeme Bennett.

www.sfu.ca/person/dearmond/set/Trans_Web/M3/Wellington/We...

  

A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket with Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner spacecraft aboard is seen on the launch pad at Space Launch Complex 41 ahead of the Orbital Flight Test-2 mission, Wednesday, May 18, 2022 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. Boeing’s Orbital Flight Test-2 will be Starliner’s second uncrewed flight test and will dock to the International Space Station as part of NASA's Commercial Crew Program. The mission, currently targeted for launch on 6:54 p.m. ET on May 19, will serve as an end-to-end test of the system's capabilities. Photo Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky)

NASA astronaut Butch Wilmore, and Boeing Starliner Launch Conductor Louis Atchison, right, watch as Boeing and NASA teams work around Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner spacecraft after it landed at White Sands Missile Range’s Space Harbor, Wednesday, May 25, 2022, in New Mexico. Boeing’s Orbital Flight Test-2 (OFT-2) is Starliner’s second uncrewed flight test to the International Space Station as part of NASA's Commercial Crew Program. OFT-2 serves as an end-to-end test of the system's capabilities. Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls)

Edited Hubble Space Telescope image of the group of three galaxies known by NGC 7764A.

 

Original caption: The subject of this image is a group of three galaxies, collectively known as NGC 7764A. They were imaged by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, using both its Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) and Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3). The two galaxies in the upper right of the image appear to be interacting with one another — indeed, the long trails of stars and gas extending from them both give the impression that they have both just been struck at great speed, thrown into disarray by the bowling-ball-shaped galaxy to the lower left of the image. In reality, however, interactions between galaxies happen over very long time periods, and galaxies rarely collide head-on with one another. It is also unclear whether the galaxy to the lower left is actually interacting with the other two, although they are so relatively close in space that it seems possible that they are. By happy coincidence, the collective interaction between these galaxies have caused the two on the upper right to form a shape, which from our Solar System's perspective, ressembles the starship known as the USS Enterprise from Star Trek! NGC 7764A, which lies about 425 million light years from Earth in the constellation Phoenix, is a fascinating example of just how awkward astronomical nomenclature can be. The three galaxies are individually referred to as NGC 7764A1, NGC 7764A2 and NGC 7764A3, and just to be really difficult, an entirely separate galaxy, named NGC 7764, sits in the skies about a Moon’s distance (as seen from Earth) away. This rather haphazard naming makes more sense when we consider that many of the catalogues for keeping track of celestial bodies were compiled well over 100 years ago, long before modern technology made standardising scientific terminology much easier. As it is, many astronomical objects have several different names, or might have names that are so similar to other objects’ names that they cause confusion.

Several Steam Locomotives can be found in the collection of the Gold Coast Railroad Museum. One of these is Florida East Coast #113, a 4-6-2 Pacific built by the American Locomotive Company in 1913. Its career on the Florida East Coast lasted until 1938 when it was sold off to U.S. Sugar. On the USSC it hauled Cane Trains to and from the company's mill at Clewiston for another 30 years until being retired in the mid 1960s. In 1969 it was donated to the Museum which was based out of Fort Lauderdale not far from Port Everglades at the time. Here she reunited with fellow 4-6-2 #153 which was donated 12 years prior. For another two decades the 113 hauled the Museum's weekend excursion Trains in Lauderdale and later Miami. In he early 1980s she was even given an extensive overhaul. In 1986 she was chosen to lead a one time roundtrip passenger excursion over the Seaboard System's Homestead Branch between the Museum Grounds at Richmond and Homestead Proper for the City's Rodeo Days Celebration. In 1992 her fire was dropped for the final time on account of her deteriorating boiler and damage suffered from Hurricane Andrew. While she remains a static display piece, she was given a cosmetic restoration in 2008. In 2019 she was one of over 40 pieces of equipment put up for sale on Ozark Mountain Railcar by the Museum as part of their effort to transition into a mixed-use events venue. Video from my visit: www.youtube.com/watch?v=VisfxPXJtO4

Soon after the Grouse II was put into service, the URE began developing a heavy munitions variant (GII-HMV) of the system to deal with the Greco-Roman Federation's Gladius system. The result is a much more heavily armed Grouse, equipped with an anti-material energy beam launcher, small rocket pod, close-range pistol, and combat vibro-knife. To aid with the massive recoil and energy drain of the beam launcher, the system's "backpack" unfolds into a bracing structure.

 

Unfortunately, due to the HMV's increased arsenal, it is considerably slower at moving than the normal Grouse II. For this reason they are often accompanied by a squad of no less than two light systems.

 

So yeah, this is the first variant of the Grouse II. Fun fact: I actually built this before the basic Grouse II, then I just copied this without all the extra bells and whistles to get the normal model.

Metrocars 4006 and 4059 approach Percy Main, working 09.25 St. James - Pelaw (train 127).

 

Between 12th September and 3rd December 2022 (inclusive) no trains were running between Pelaw and South Shields, while "Metro Flow" work was being undertaken to double the system's remaining single track sections by taking over the adjacent Network Rail freight line to Jarrow Oil Terminal. In addition, on this day no trains were running between Pelaw and South Hylton as a result of industrial action by the RMT union, which meant the relevant workstation at Tyneside signalling centre was not staffed.

 

When the Tyne and Wear Metro first opened, yellow was a very dominant colour. While most metalwork and woodwork at stations was painted dark brown, wall panels were off-white (pale cream) with a yellow band, and doors and other fancy bits were yellow. Station signs were also yellow (with black lettering). Other colours subsequently replaced the dark brown at many locations, although the Sunderland extension abandoned the use of yellow and off-white, opting for pastel and brighter versions of a number of different colours for the panelling.

 

Almost thirty years after the first section opened, new station colours began to appear at refurbished stations (so none on the Sunderland line), still using off-white (pale cream) for panels but now painting things black and using black station signs (with white lettering, albeit with the addition of the Metro logo as a yellow square). Percy Main station gained new shelters as part of its refurbishment, and illustrates very well how the black and off-white scheme was applied to the modern stations. Yellow is still Nexus's "Metro" colour, however (red is used for buses, blue for the Shields Ferry, and lilac for National Rail). The railway here is situated on an embankment, and when this section of line was converted to Metro operation (between August 1980 and November 1982) the original station buildings were demolished and basic replacement shelters (and steps and ramps as necessary) were built - unlike most on the north side of the North Tyne Loop, which retained their buildings.

 

This was a weekend visit to the north-east for a family get-together for a significant birthday. Unbroken sunshine was forecast for the Saturday morning (when I had nothing planned), but the RMT strike meant very few mainline trains were running - so again I turned my attention to the Metro, where the first of the replacement trains for the original units is now on test at the manufacturer's test facility.

 

To see my non-transport pictures, visit www.flickr.com/photos/137275498@N03/.

CSX GE B30-7 5541 was presenting itself as the Pride of the Fleet as it worked Baltimore's Bayview yard on a dingy day in 1992.

 

Built for Chessie System's Chesapeake & Ohio 8259 in 1979, chances are that it never saw another paint booth after it emerged from Erie during the Carter Administration.

 

It eventually did receive CSX's "Bright Future" YN2 paint, which it carried to the scrapyard.

Oranjello loves shoes. Oranjello loved Andrea's shoes, too. Thus, Andrea began singing Elvis's "Blue Suede Shoes", but as "Cat Cum Shoes". It was awesome. Glimmering moments of awesomeness amongst a bunch of unnecessary drama.

 

laying.

Oranjello the cat, shoes.

 

upstairs, Clint and Carolyn's house, Alexandria, Virginia.

 

June 17, 2016.

  

... Read my blog at ClintJCL at wordpress.com

... Read Carolyn's blog at CarolynCASL at wordpress.com

  

BACKSTORY: We let Andrea move back in, a second time, after she left alcohol rehab on 6/14. On 6/15, we printed out resumes for her, and she passed out 10 minutes after getting home. On 6/16, she didn't come home. Today, 6/17, she came home, so that we could move her stuff, and get her mattress, which she claimed was worth $2,000. (It was actually worthless.)

 

I paid Evan to help us. Once we got there, it was a bait-and-switch to move a bunch of other unannounced stuff, almost more than could fit both in Evan's truck and my Chrysler. The mattress had been left in an outdoor stairwell, which is where the person Andrea had lived at *two* places before (who we also know) had dumped it. It had literally been skunked. Like, literal skunk smell was in the mattress. It took us 24hrs to catch on to this fact, and the next day, at our Red Party, we had to have our party guests remove it from our house the next day. That night's sleep was quite unpleasant.

 

So anyway, as we were there, picking up her matterss, her friend MM (who later was arrested at my house for trespassing and drunk in public), leaves me a voice mail, stating that sheis walking around my property and not understanding why I am not there. We are all at Andrea's previous place, and I had never heard of MM at this time. She ended up not helping with the picking up of Andrea's stuff, but hanging out at our hosue that night.

 

Come to think of it -- Except for the night Andrea moved in the first time, this was literally the only night she ever actually hung out with us all night, without either passing out, or retreating into her phone and ignoring everything. She still spent most of it talking about religion with her friend MM, having conversations that I later declared were the worst and most annoying conversations to ever be uttered inside my house in 17 years of us living there.

 

Still though, despite all the obvious red flags, the closeness we felt that night filled us with with a naive hope for a better future.

 

The following day (6/18), her friend MM, who also helped move her stuff, literally put a drink in her hand and said something to the effect of "just put it in your mouth and taste it a bit". This is NOT what you do to someone coming out of alcohol rehab. This is NOT how a good friend acts.

 

Her friend MM then passed out and did something unspeakable. On 6/19 or 6/20 we informed her friend MM that she is banned from our house.

 

On 6/22, her friend MM comes back, angry, banging on our door, screaming in our yard so loud we can hear her over our music, trespassing, and ultimately getting 911 called on her. Of course everyone's night was completely ruined in the process, Carolyn had to wait up past her bedtime for work to talk to the police with me, and the actual people who caused it all -- Andrea and her friend MM -- weren't even there. Andrea finally came back later. Andrea's friend MM's trespassing was the deciding catalyst causing us to asking Andrea to leave a 2nd time on 6/25. She slept at our place on 6/26 and 6/28, then moved out on 6/30.

 

R.I.P. Andrea. Sorry your shitty friends got in the way, but I doubt we actually could have changed your life trajectory. You let too many people into your life--including us. We had no clue what we'd gotten ourselves into. No clue that in just 5 days after these happy pictures, we'd be calling the police for physical protection for the first time in our lives. We still don't feel as safe in our house, to this day. She came back yet again months later, and we had her arrested, and took her to court, getting a no contact order. Hopefully that is the only measures that will have to be taken. We have taken additional undisclosed legal steps to further ensure our safety, as well as further upgraded our security system(s).

On Saturday, October 7, more than 1,700 of Rochester Regional Health’s friends and employees gathered at the Joseph A. Floreano Rochester Riverside Convention Center for the system’s signature celebration.

Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner spacecraft lands at White Sands Missile Range’s Space Harbor, Wednesday, May 25, 2022, in New Mexico. Boeing’s Orbital Flight Test-2 (OFT-2) is Starliner’s second uncrewed flight test to the International Space Station as part of NASA's Commercial Crew Program. OFT-2 serves as an end-to-end test of the system's capabilities. Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls)

I am with a party of British transport enthusiasts visiting Lille. We were given a tour of the city’s tramway that connects Lille with Roubaix and Tourcoing. Nicknamed ‘Le Mongy’ after the engineer Alfred Mongy who promoted the interurban system’s opening in 1909, our tour was on board this DüWag GT6 articulated tram that was newly into service with the operator TCC (Transports en Commun de la Communauté (urbaine de Lille)). It had seen previous service in Herten, Germany.

 

April 1983

Yashica FR-1 camera

Agfa CT18 film.

Day 26. TARDIS in orbit.

 

Picked up a mixed bag of marbles at the dollar store this afternoon.

 

This image is a composite of 6 different marbles and my TARDIS. I then popped them onto a black background that I digitally painted with a star field.

 

I think it works.

 

Enjoy the rest of your weekend.

  

Seeing as an over zealous group mod can't read, I'll put the info IN ALL CAPS.

  

STROBIST: YN-460II at 1/4 power WAY camera right BARE to mimic the system's sun. Strato II's.

Brussels National Zaventem airport 04 May 1992.First flight 18/06//1990.On Sunday 17 November 2013 with Tatarstan Airlines livery and registration VQ-BBN tha airplane was destroyed in an accident at Kazan Airport (KZN), Russia. All 44 passengers and six crew members were killed.

Flight 363 departed from Moscow's Domodedovo Airport (DME) at 18:20 local time on a scheduled service to Kazan (KZN).

En route the crew noted that their navigation system's map was displaced. During the descent towards Kazan did not ask for vectors from air traffic control and continued their approach, which was flown 4 km to the north of the published approach procedure due to the map displacement issue.

After turning to final for runway 29 the aircraft was not able to capture the localizer. The flight crew programmed a heading of 250° in the HDG SEL (Heading Select mode) of the autopilot and hurriedly configured the aircraft for landing. The approach was unstabilized and as the aircraft turned towards runway heading the copilot noticed the PAPI lights and saw they were too high. He initiated a go around. At that time the aircraft was at 270m (900 ft) and configured for landing with gear down, 30° flaps. The autopilot was in ALT HOLD mode with altitude programmed at 270 m.

The use of the TO/GA switch caused the autopilot to be switched off. The flaps were raised to 15°, but no manual control inputs were made. The increase in engine power and retracting the flaps caused a pitch-up of the airplane with the pitch angle reaching a value of about to 25°. Indicated airspeed began to decrease, the stabilizer automatically trimmed nose down.

All the time the copilot was engaged in radio communications with the Kazan Tower controller. Subsequently the copilot reminded the captain to raise the undercarriage.

With the pitch angle exceeding 25° the crew began using the control column to reduce the pitch angle. At this point, the aircraft was at an altitude of about 600 meters (2,000 feet), and continued to climb with a vertical speed of 20 m/s. Due to nose down input by the captain and trim system, the pitch angle decreased quickly. Vertical loads decreased to 0,5 g as the aircraft had reached the top of climbing at 2300 feet / 700 meters. Indicated airspeed had decreased to its minimum value of 117 knots.

Vertical loads then decreased to about 0 g, with a negative pitch angle reaching 20°. The aircraft descended at a rate of more than 5000 ft/min (25 m/s).

The EGPWS gave "sink rate" and "pull up" warnings as the aircraft pitch angle reached -60° with a load of -0.9 g.

The aircraft collided with the ground at high speed, over 450 km/h, and a large negative pitch angle of about 75°. From the beginning of the missed approach until the collision with terrain, 45 seconds passed.

The aircraft impacted the ground between the runway and the main taxiway about 1850 m past the runway 29 threshold.

 

Investigation revealed that the captain received training to become a Boeing 737 captain after serving as a navigator between 1991 and 2010. The copilot used to be a flight engineer (1989 to 2008) and was also trained to become a Boeing 737 pilot. The captain had a very limited knowledge of English, which was considered insufficient to comprehend English language training documents and manuals. As the oversight of the training facility was poor, shortcomings in training were not noticed. Training and safety management within Tatarstan Airlines was considered equally poor.

Probable Cause:

 

PROBABLE CAUSE (translated from Russian):

The cause of the crash Boeing 737-500 VQ-BBN were systemic deficiencies in the identification of hazards and risk control, as well as a non-functional safety management system in the airline and the lack of control over the level of training of the crew members from the aviation authorities at all levels (Tatar MTU BT, Federal Air Transport Agency), which led to the admission of an unprepared flight crew.

When the missed approach was executed the crew did not recognize the fact that the autopilot was off and the aircraft pitched up to a complex spatial position (Nose up Upset). The PIC's (pilot flying) lack of flying skills in complex spatial positions (Upset Recovery) led to the creation of a large negative overload, loss of spatial orientation and transfer of the aircraft into a steep dive (pitch down to 75°) until the impact with the ground.

The need for a go-around was caused by the position of the aircraft relative to the runway, which was the result of "a map shift" effect (Map shift, an error in the determination of the aircraft position by onboard systems) by about 4 km, the crew's inability in the circumstances to integrated piloting and maintenance of navigation with the required accuracy, and the lack of active assistance of the air traffic control service under the long-term monitoring of significant deviations from the approach procedure.

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based on historical facts. BEWARE!

  

Some background:

The Lockheed XFV (sometimes erroneously referred to as the "Salmon", even though this was actually the name of one of its test pilots and not an official designation) was an American experimental tailsitter prototype aircraft built by Lockheed in the early 1950s to demonstrate the operation of a vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) fighter for protecting convoys.

 

The Lockheed XFV originated as a result of a proposal issued by the U.S. Navy in 1948 for an aircraft capable of vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) aboard platforms mounted on the afterdecks of conventional ships. Both Convair and Lockheed competed for the contract, but in 1950 the requirement was revised with a call for a research aircraft capable of eventually evolving into a VTOL ship-based convoy escort fighter. On 19 April 1951, two prototypes were ordered from Lockheed under the designation XFO-1 (company designation was Model 081-40-01). Soon after the contract was awarded, the project designation changed to XFV-1 when the Navy's code for Lockheed was changed from O to V.

 

The XFV was powered by a 5,332 hp (3,976 kW) Allison YT40-A-6 turboprop engine, composed of two Allison T38 power sections driving three-bladed contra-rotating propellers via a common gearbox. The aircraft had no landing gear, just small castoring wheels at the tips of the tail surfaces which were a reflected cruciform v-tail (forming an x) that extended above and below the fuselage. The wings were diamond-shaped and relatively thin, with straight and sharp leading edges – somewhat foretelling the design of Lockheed’s Mach-2-capable F-104 Starfighter.

 

To begin flight testing, a temporary non-retractable undercarriage with long braced V-legs was attached to the fuselage, and fixed tail wheels attached to the lower pair of fins. In this form, the aircraft was trucked to Edwards AFB in November 1953 for ground testing and taxiing trials. During one of these tests, at a time when the aft section of the large spinner had not yet been fitted, Lockheed chief test pilot Herman "Fish" Salmon managed to taxi the aircraft past the liftoff speed, and the aircraft made a brief hop on 22 December 1953. The official first flight took place on 16 June 1954.

Full VTOL testing at Edwards AFB was delayed pending the availability of the 7,100 shp Allison T54, which was earmarked to replace the T40 and power eventual serial production aircraft. But the T54 faced severe development delays, esp. its gearbox. Another problem that arose with the new engine was that the propeller blade tips would reach supersonic speed and therefore compressibility problems.

After the brief unintentional hop, the prototype aircraft made a total of 32 flights. The XFV-1 was able to make a few transitions in flight from the conventional to the vertical flight mode and back, and had briefly held in hover at altitude, but the T40 output was simply not enough to ensure proper and secure VTOL operations. Performance remained limited by the confines of the flight test regime. Another issue that arose through the advancements of jet engine designs was the realization that the XFV's top speed would be eclipsed by contemporary fighters. Additionally, the purely manual handling of the aircraft esp. during landing was very demanding - the XFV could only be controlled by highly experienced pilots.

 

Both Navy and the Marines Corps were still interested in the concept, though, so that, in early 1955, the decision was made to build a limited pre-production series of the aircraft, the FV-2, for operational field tests and evaluation. The FV-2 was the proposed production version (Model 181-43-02), primarily conceived and optimized as a night/all-weather interceptor for point defense, and officially baptized “Solstice”. The FV-2 was powered by the T54-A-16 turboprop, which had eventually overcome its teething troubles and offered a combined power output equivalent of 7,500 shp (5,600 kW) from the propellers and the twin-engines’ residual thrust. Outwardly the different engine was recognizable through two separate circular exhausts which were introduced instead of the XFV’s single shallow ventral opening. The gearbox had been beefed up, too, with additional oil coolers in small ventral fairings behind the contraprops and the propeller blades were aerodynamically improved to better cope with the higher power output and rotation speed. Additionally, an automatic pitch control system was introduced to alleviate the pilot from the delicate control burdens during hover and flight mode transition.

 

Compared with the XFV, the FV-2 incorporated 150 lb (68 kg) of cockpit armor, along with a 1.5 in (38 mm) bullet-proof windscreen. A Sperry Corporation AN/APS-19 type radar was added in the fixed forward part of the nose spinner under an opaque perspex radome. The AN/APS-19 was primarily a target detection radar with only a limited tracking capability, and it had been introduced with the McDonnell F2H-2N. The radar had a theoretical maximum detection range of 60 km, but in real life air targets could only be detected at much shorter distances. At long ranges the radar was mainly used for navigation and to detect land masses or large ships.

Like the older AN/APS-6, the AN/APS-19 operated in a "Spiral Scan" search pattern. In a spiral scan the radar dish spins rapidly, scanning the area in front of the aircraft following a spiral path. As a result, however targets were not updated on every pass as the radar was pointing at a different angle on each pass. This also made the radar prone to ground clutter effects, which created "pulses" on the radar display. The AN/APS-19 was able to lock onto and track targets within a narrow cone, out to a maximum range of about 1 mile (1.5 km), but to do so the radar had to cease scanning.

 

The FV-2’s standard armament consisted of four Mk. 11 20 mm cannon fitted in pairs in the two detachable wingtip pods, with 250 rounds each, which fired outside of the wide propeller disc. Alternatively, forty-eight 2¾ in (70 mm) folding-fin rockets could be fitted in similar pods, which could be fired in salvoes against both air and ground targets. Instead of offensive armament, 200 US gal. (165 imp. gal./750 l) auxiliary tanks for ferry flights could be mounted onto the wing tips.

 

Until June 1956 a total of eleven FV-2s were built and delivered. With US Navy Air Development Squadron 8 (also known as VX-8) at NAS Atlantic City, a dedicated evaluation and maintenance unit for the FV-2 and the operations of VTOL aircraft in general was formed. VX-2 operated closely with its sister unit VX-3 (located at the same base) and operated the FV-2s alongside contemporary types like the Grumman F9F-8 Cougar, which at that time went through carrier-qualification aboard the USS Midway. The Cougars were soon joined by the new, supersonic F-8U-1 Crusaders, which arrived in December 1956. The advent of this supersonic navy jet type rendered the FV-2’s archaic technology and its performance more and more questionable, even though the VTOL concept’s potential and the institutions’ interest in it kept the test unit alive.

 

The FV-2s were in the following years put through a series of thorough field tests and frequently deployed to land bases all across the USA and abroad. Additionally, operational tests were also conducted on board of various ship types, ranging from carriers with wide flight decks to modified merchant ships with improvised landing platforms. The FV-2s also took part in US Navy and USMC maneuvers, and when not deployed elsewhere the training with new pilots at NAS Atlantic City continued.

 

During these tests, the demanding handling characteristics of the tailsitter concept in general and the FV-2 in specific were frequently confirmed. Once in flight, however, the FV-2 handled well and was a serious and agile dogfighter – but jet aircraft could easily avoid and outrun it.

Other operational problems soon became apparent, too: while the idea of a VTOL aircraft that was independent from runways or flight bases was highly attractive, the FV-2’s tailsitter concept required a complex and bulky maintenance infrastructure, with many ladders, working platforms and cranes. On the ground, the FV-2 could not move on its own and had to be pushed or towed. However, due to the aircraft’s high center of gravity it had to be handled with great care – two FV-2s were seriously damaged after they toppled over, one at NAS Atlantic City on the ground (it could be repaired and brought back into service), the other aboard a ship at heavy sea, where the aircraft totally got out of control on deck and fell into the sea as a total loss.

To make matters even worse, fundamental operational tasks like refueling, re-arming the aircraft between sorties or even just boarding it were a complicated and slow task, so that the aircraft’s theoretical conceptual benefits were countered by its cumbersome handling.

 

FV-2 operations furthermore revealed, despite the considerably increased power output of the T54 twin engine that more than compensated for the aircraft’s raised weight, only a marginal improvement of the aircraft’s performance; the FV-2 had simply reached the limits of propeller-driven aircraft. Just the rate of climb was markedly improved, and the extra power made the FV-2’s handling safer than the XFV’s, even though this advancement was only relative because the aircraft’s hazardous handling during transition and landing as well as other conceptual problems prevailed and could not be overcome. The FV-2’s range was also very limited, esp. when it did not carry the fuel tanks on the wing tips, so that the aircraft’s potential service spectrum remained very limited.

 

Six of the eleven FV-2s that were produced were lost in various accidents within only three years, five pilots were killed. The T54 engine remained unreliable, and the propeller control system which used 25 vacuum tubes was far from reliable, too. Due to the many problems, the FV-2s were grounded in 1959, and when VX-8 was disestablished on 1 March 1960, the whole project was cancelled and all remaining aircraft except for one airframe were scrapped. As of today, Bu.No. 53-3537 resides disassembled in storage at the National Museum of the United States Navy in the former Breech Mechanism Shop of the old Naval Gun Factory on the grounds of the Washington Navy Yard in Washington, D.C., United States, where it waits for restoration and eventual public presentation.

 

As a historic side note, the FV-2’s detachable wing tip gun pods had a longer and more successful service life: they were the basis for the Mk.4 HIPEG (High Performance External Gun) gun pods. This weapon system’s main purpose became strafing ground targets, and it received a different attachment system for underwing hardpoints and a bigger ammunition supply (750 RPG instead of just 250 on the FV-2). Approximately 1.200 Mk. 4 twin gun pods were manufactured by Hughes Tool Company, later Hughes Helicopter, in Culver City, California. While the system was tested and certified for use on the A-4, the A-6, the A-7, the F-4, and the OV-10, it only saw extended use on the A-4, the F-4, and the OV-10, esp. in Vietnam where the Mk. 4 pod was used extensively for close air support missions.

  

General characteristics:

Crew: 1

Length/Height: 36 ft 10.25 in (11.23 m)

Wingspan: 30 ft 10.1 in (9.4 m)

Wing area: 246 sq ft (22.85 m²)

Empty weight: 12,388 lb (5,624 kg)

Gross weight: 17,533 lb (7,960 kg)

Max. takeoff weight: 18,159 lb (8,244 kg)

 

Powerplant:

1× Allison T54-A-16 turboprop with 7,500 shp (5,600 kW) output equivalent,

driving a 6 blade contra-rotating propeller

 

Performance:

Maximum speed: 585 mph (941 km/h, 509 kn

Cruise speed: 410 mph (660 km/h, 360 kn)

Range: 500 mi (800 km, 430 nmi) with internal fuel

800 mi (1,300 km, 700 nmi) with ferry wing tip tanks

Service ceiling: 46,800 ft (14,300 m)

Rate of climb: 12,750 ft/min (75.0 m/s)

Wing loading: 73.7 lb/sq ft (360 kg/m²)

 

Armament:

4× 20 mm (.79 in) Mk. 11 machine cannon with a total of 1.000 rounds, or

48× 2.75 in (70 mm) rockets in wingtip pods, or

a pair of 200 US gal. (165 imp. gal./750 l) auxiliary tanks on the wing tips

  

The kit and its assembly:

Another submission to the “Fifties” group build at whatifmodellers-com, and a really nice what-if aircraft that perfectly fits into the time frame. I had this Pegasus kit in The Stash™ for quite a while and the plan to build an operational USN or USMC aircraft from it in the typical all-dark-blue livery from the early Fifties, and the group build was a good occasion to realize it.

 

The Pegasus kit was released in 1992, the only other option to build the XFV in 1:72 is a Valom kit which, as a bonus, features the aircraft’s fixed landing gear that was used during flight trials. The Pegasus offering is technically simple and robust, but it is nothing for those who are faint at heart. The warning that the kit requires an experienced builder is not to be underestimated, because the IP kit from the UK comes with white metal parts and no visual instructions, just a verbal description of the building steps. The IP parts (including the canopy, which is one piece, quite thick but also clear) and the decals look good, though.

 

The IP parts feature flash and uneven seam lines, sprue attachment points are quite thick. The grey IP material had on my specimen different grades of hard-/brittleness, the white metal parts (some of the propeller blades) were bent and had to be re-aligned. No IP parts would fit well (there are no locator pins or other physical aids), the cockpit tub was a mess to assemble and fit into the fuselage. PSR on any seam all around the hull. But even though this sound horrible, the kit goes together relatively easy – thanks to its simplicity.

 

I made some mods and upgrades, though. One of them was an internal axis construction made from styrene tubes that allow the two propeller discs to move separately (OOB, you just stack and glue the discs onto each other into a rigid nose cone), while the propeller tip with its radome remained fixed – just as in real life. However, due to the parts’ size and resistance against each other, the props could not move as freely as originally intended.

Separate parts for the air intakes as well as the wings and tail surfaces could be mounted with less problems than expected, even though - again – PSR was necessary to hide the seams.

  

Painting and markings:

As already mentioned, the livery would be rather conservative, because I wanted the aircraft to carry the uniform USN scheme in all-over FS 35042 with white markings, which was dropped in 1955, though. The XFV or a potential serial production derivative would just fit into this time frame, and might have carried the classic all-blue livery for a couple of years more, especially when operated by an evaluation unit. Its unit, VX-8, is totally fictional, though.

 

The cockpit interior was painted in Humbrol 80 (simulating bright zinc chromate primer), and to have some contrasts I added small red highlights on the fin pod tips and the gun pods' anti-flutter winglets. For some more variety the radome became earth brown with some good weathering, simulating an opaque perspex hood, and I added white (actually a very light gray) checkerboard markings on the "propeller rings", a bit inspired by the spinner markings on German WWII fighters. Subtle, but it looks good and breaks the otherwise very simple livery.

Some post-panel-shading with a lighter blue was done all over the hull, the exhaust area and the gun ports were painted with iron (Revell 91) and treated with graphite for a more metallic shine.

Silver decal stripe material was used to create the CoroGuard leading edges and the fine lines at the flaps on wings and fins - much easier than trying to solve this with paint and brush...

 

The decals were puzzled together from various dark blue USN aircraft, including a F8F, F9F and F4U sheet. The "XH" code was created with single 1cm hwite letters, the different font is not obvious, thanks to the letter combination.

Finally, the model was sealed with semi-gloss acrylic varnish (still shiny, but not too bright), the radome and the exhaust area were painted with matt varnsh, though.

  

A cool result, despite the rather dubious kit base. The Pegasus kit is seriously something for experienced builders, but the result looks convincing. The blue USN livery suits the XFV/FV-2 very well, it looks much more elegant than in the original NMF - even though it would, in real life, probably have received the new Gull Gray/White scheme (introduced in late 1955, IIRC, my FV-2 might have been one of the last aircraft to be painted blue). However, the blue scheme IMHO points out the aircraft's highly aerodynamic teardrop shape, esp. the flight pics make the aircraft almost look elegant!

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based on historical facts. BEWARE!

  

Some background:

The Lockheed XFV (sometimes erroneously referred to as the "Salmon", even though this was actually the name of one of its test pilots and not an official designation) was an American experimental tailsitter prototype aircraft built by Lockheed in the early 1950s to demonstrate the operation of a vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) fighter for protecting convoys.

 

The Lockheed XFV originated as a result of a proposal issued by the U.S. Navy in 1948 for an aircraft capable of vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) aboard platforms mounted on the afterdecks of conventional ships. Both Convair and Lockheed competed for the contract, but in 1950 the requirement was revised with a call for a research aircraft capable of eventually evolving into a VTOL ship-based convoy escort fighter. On 19 April 1951, two prototypes were ordered from Lockheed under the designation XFO-1 (company designation was Model 081-40-01). Soon after the contract was awarded, the project designation changed to XFV-1 when the Navy's code for Lockheed was changed from O to V.

 

The XFV was powered by a 5,332 hp (3,976 kW) Allison YT40-A-6 turboprop engine, composed of two Allison T38 power sections driving three-bladed contra-rotating propellers via a common gearbox. The aircraft had no landing gear, just small castoring wheels at the tips of the tail surfaces which were a reflected cruciform v-tail (forming an x) that extended above and below the fuselage. The wings were diamond-shaped and relatively thin, with straight and sharp leading edges – somewhat foretelling the design of Lockheed’s Mach-2-capable F-104 Starfighter.

 

To begin flight testing, a temporary non-retractable undercarriage with long braced V-legs was attached to the fuselage, and fixed tail wheels attached to the lower pair of fins. In this form, the aircraft was trucked to Edwards AFB in November 1953 for ground testing and taxiing trials. During one of these tests, at a time when the aft section of the large spinner had not yet been fitted, Lockheed chief test pilot Herman "Fish" Salmon managed to taxi the aircraft past the liftoff speed, and the aircraft made a brief hop on 22 December 1953. The official first flight took place on 16 June 1954.

Full VTOL testing at Edwards AFB was delayed pending the availability of the 7,100 shp Allison T54, which was earmarked to replace the T40 and power eventual serial production aircraft. But the T54 faced severe development delays, esp. its gearbox. Another problem that arose with the new engine was that the propeller blade tips would reach supersonic speed and therefore compressibility problems.

After the brief unintentional hop, the prototype aircraft made a total of 32 flights. The XFV-1 was able to make a few transitions in flight from the conventional to the vertical flight mode and back, and had briefly held in hover at altitude, but the T40 output was simply not enough to ensure proper and secure VTOL operations. Performance remained limited by the confines of the flight test regime. Another issue that arose through the advancements of jet engine designs was the realization that the XFV's top speed would be eclipsed by contemporary fighters. Additionally, the purely manual handling of the aircraft esp. during landing was very demanding - the XFV could only be controlled by highly experienced pilots.

 

Both Navy and the Marines Corps were still interested in the concept, though, so that, in early 1955, the decision was made to build a limited pre-production series of the aircraft, the FV-2, for operational field tests and evaluation. The FV-2 was the proposed production version (Model 181-43-02), primarily conceived and optimized as a night/all-weather interceptor for point defense, and officially baptized “Solstice”. The FV-2 was powered by the T54-A-16 turboprop, which had eventually overcome its teething troubles and offered a combined power output equivalent of 7,500 shp (5,600 kW) from the propellers and the twin-engines’ residual thrust. Outwardly the different engine was recognizable through two separate circular exhausts which were introduced instead of the XFV’s single shallow ventral opening. The gearbox had been beefed up, too, with additional oil coolers in small ventral fairings behind the contraprops and the propeller blades were aerodynamically improved to better cope with the higher power output and rotation speed. Additionally, an automatic pitch control system was introduced to alleviate the pilot from the delicate control burdens during hover and flight mode transition.

 

Compared with the XFV, the FV-2 incorporated 150 lb (68 kg) of cockpit armor, along with a 1.5 in (38 mm) bullet-proof windscreen. A Sperry Corporation AN/APS-19 type radar was added in the fixed forward part of the nose spinner under an opaque perspex radome. The AN/APS-19 was primarily a target detection radar with only a limited tracking capability, and it had been introduced with the McDonnell F2H-2N. The radar had a theoretical maximum detection range of 60 km, but in real life air targets could only be detected at much shorter distances. At long ranges the radar was mainly used for navigation and to detect land masses or large ships.

Like the older AN/APS-6, the AN/APS-19 operated in a "Spiral Scan" search pattern. In a spiral scan the radar dish spins rapidly, scanning the area in front of the aircraft following a spiral path. As a result, however targets were not updated on every pass as the radar was pointing at a different angle on each pass. This also made the radar prone to ground clutter effects, which created "pulses" on the radar display. The AN/APS-19 was able to lock onto and track targets within a narrow cone, out to a maximum range of about 1 mile (1.5 km), but to do so the radar had to cease scanning.

 

The FV-2’s standard armament consisted of four Mk. 11 20 mm cannon fitted in pairs in the two detachable wingtip pods, with 250 rounds each, which fired outside of the wide propeller disc. Alternatively, forty-eight 2¾ in (70 mm) folding-fin rockets could be fitted in similar pods, which could be fired in salvoes against both air and ground targets. Instead of offensive armament, 200 US gal. (165 imp. gal./750 l) auxiliary tanks for ferry flights could be mounted onto the wing tips.

 

Until June 1956 a total of eleven FV-2s were built and delivered. With US Navy Air Development Squadron 8 (also known as VX-8) at NAS Atlantic City, a dedicated evaluation and maintenance unit for the FV-2 and the operations of VTOL aircraft in general was formed. VX-2 operated closely with its sister unit VX-3 (located at the same base) and operated the FV-2s alongside contemporary types like the Grumman F9F-8 Cougar, which at that time went through carrier-qualification aboard the USS Midway. The Cougars were soon joined by the new, supersonic F-8U-1 Crusaders, which arrived in December 1956. The advent of this supersonic navy jet type rendered the FV-2’s archaic technology and its performance more and more questionable, even though the VTOL concept’s potential and the institutions’ interest in it kept the test unit alive.

 

The FV-2s were in the following years put through a series of thorough field tests and frequently deployed to land bases all across the USA and abroad. Additionally, operational tests were also conducted on board of various ship types, ranging from carriers with wide flight decks to modified merchant ships with improvised landing platforms. The FV-2s also took part in US Navy and USMC maneuvers, and when not deployed elsewhere the training with new pilots at NAS Atlantic City continued.

 

During these tests, the demanding handling characteristics of the tailsitter concept in general and the FV-2 in specific were frequently confirmed. Once in flight, however, the FV-2 handled well and was a serious and agile dogfighter – but jet aircraft could easily avoid and outrun it.

Other operational problems soon became apparent, too: while the idea of a VTOL aircraft that was independent from runways or flight bases was highly attractive, the FV-2’s tailsitter concept required a complex and bulky maintenance infrastructure, with many ladders, working platforms and cranes. On the ground, the FV-2 could not move on its own and had to be pushed or towed. However, due to the aircraft’s high center of gravity it had to be handled with great care – two FV-2s were seriously damaged after they toppled over, one at NAS Atlantic City on the ground (it could be repaired and brought back into service), the other aboard a ship at heavy sea, where the aircraft totally got out of control on deck and fell into the sea as a total loss.

To make matters even worse, fundamental operational tasks like refueling, re-arming the aircraft between sorties or even just boarding it were a complicated and slow task, so that the aircraft’s theoretical conceptual benefits were countered by its cumbersome handling.

 

FV-2 operations furthermore revealed, despite the considerably increased power output of the T54 twin engine that more than compensated for the aircraft’s raised weight, only a marginal improvement of the aircraft’s performance; the FV-2 had simply reached the limits of propeller-driven aircraft. Just the rate of climb was markedly improved, and the extra power made the FV-2’s handling safer than the XFV’s, even though this advancement was only relative because the aircraft’s hazardous handling during transition and landing as well as other conceptual problems prevailed and could not be overcome. The FV-2’s range was also very limited, esp. when it did not carry the fuel tanks on the wing tips, so that the aircraft’s potential service spectrum remained very limited.

 

Six of the eleven FV-2s that were produced were lost in various accidents within only three years, five pilots were killed. The T54 engine remained unreliable, and the propeller control system which used 25 vacuum tubes was far from reliable, too. Due to the many problems, the FV-2s were grounded in 1959, and when VX-8 was disestablished on 1 March 1960, the whole project was cancelled and all remaining aircraft except for one airframe were scrapped. As of today, Bu.No. 53-3537 resides disassembled in storage at the National Museum of the United States Navy in the former Breech Mechanism Shop of the old Naval Gun Factory on the grounds of the Washington Navy Yard in Washington, D.C., United States, where it waits for restoration and eventual public presentation.

 

As a historic side note, the FV-2’s detachable wing tip gun pods had a longer and more successful service life: they were the basis for the Mk.4 HIPEG (High Performance External Gun) gun pods. This weapon system’s main purpose became strafing ground targets, and it received a different attachment system for underwing hardpoints and a bigger ammunition supply (750 RPG instead of just 250 on the FV-2). Approximately 1.200 Mk. 4 twin gun pods were manufactured by Hughes Tool Company, later Hughes Helicopter, in Culver City, California. While the system was tested and certified for use on the A-4, the A-6, the A-7, the F-4, and the OV-10, it only saw extended use on the A-4, the F-4, and the OV-10, esp. in Vietnam where the Mk. 4 pod was used extensively for close air support missions.

  

General characteristics:

Crew: 1

Length/Height: 36 ft 10.25 in (11.23 m)

Wingspan: 30 ft 10.1 in (9.4 m)

Wing area: 246 sq ft (22.85 m²)

Empty weight: 12,388 lb (5,624 kg)

Gross weight: 17,533 lb (7,960 kg)

Max. takeoff weight: 18,159 lb (8,244 kg)

 

Powerplant:

1× Allison T54-A-16 turboprop with 7,500 shp (5,600 kW) output equivalent,

driving a 6 blade contra-rotating propeller

 

Performance:

Maximum speed: 585 mph (941 km/h, 509 kn

Cruise speed: 410 mph (660 km/h, 360 kn)

Range: 500 mi (800 km, 430 nmi) with internal fuel

800 mi (1,300 km, 700 nmi) with ferry wing tip tanks

Service ceiling: 46,800 ft (14,300 m)

Rate of climb: 12,750 ft/min (75.0 m/s)

Wing loading: 73.7 lb/sq ft (360 kg/m²)

 

Armament:

4× 20 mm (.79 in) Mk. 11 machine cannon with a total of 1.000 rounds, or

48× 2.75 in (70 mm) rockets in wingtip pods, or

a pair of 200 US gal. (165 imp. gal./750 l) auxiliary tanks on the wing tips

  

The kit and its assembly:

Another submission to the “Fifties” group build at whatifmodellers-com, and a really nice what-if aircraft that perfectly fits into the time frame. I had this Pegasus kit in The Stash™ for quite a while and the plan to build an operational USN or USMC aircraft from it in the typical all-dark-blue livery from the early Fifties, and the group build was a good occasion to realize it.

 

The Pegasus kit was released in 1992, the only other option to build the XFV in 1:72 is a Valom kit which, as a bonus, features the aircraft’s fixed landing gear that was used during flight trials. The Pegasus offering is technically simple and robust, but it is nothing for those who are faint at heart. The warning that the kit requires an experienced builder is not to be underestimated, because the IP kit from the UK comes with white metal parts and no visual instructions, just a verbal description of the building steps. The IP parts (including the canopy, which is one piece, quite thick but also clear) and the decals look good, though.

 

The IP parts feature flash and uneven seam lines, sprue attachment points are quite thick. The grey IP material had on my specimen different grades of hard-/brittleness, the white metal parts (some of the propeller blades) were bent and had to be re-aligned. No IP parts would fit well (there are no locator pins or other physical aids), the cockpit tub was a mess to assemble and fit into the fuselage. PSR on any seam all around the hull. But even though this sound horrible, the kit goes together relatively easy – thanks to its simplicity.

 

I made some mods and upgrades, though. One of them was an internal axis construction made from styrene tubes that allow the two propeller discs to move separately (OOB, you just stack and glue the discs onto each other into a rigid nose cone), while the propeller tip with its radome remained fixed – just as in real life. However, due to the parts’ size and resistance against each other, the props could not move as freely as originally intended.

Separate parts for the air intakes as well as the wings and tail surfaces could be mounted with less problems than expected, even though - again – PSR was necessary to hide the seams.

  

Painting and markings:

As already mentioned, the livery would be rather conservative, because I wanted the aircraft to carry the uniform USN scheme in all-over FS 35042 with white markings, which was dropped in 1955, though. The XFV or a potential serial production derivative would just fit into this time frame, and might have carried the classic all-blue livery for a couple of years more, especially when operated by an evaluation unit. Its unit, VX-8, is totally fictional, though.

 

The cockpit interior was painted in Humbrol 80 (simulating bright zinc chromate primer), and to have some contrasts I added small red highlights on the fin pod tips and the gun pods' anti-flutter winglets. For some more variety the radome became earth brown with some good weathering, simulating an opaque perspex hood, and I added white (actually a very light gray) checkerboard markings on the "propeller rings", a bit inspired by the spinner markings on German WWII fighters. Subtle, but it looks good and breaks the otherwise very simple livery.

Some post-panel-shading with a lighter blue was done all over the hull, the exhaust area and the gun ports were painted with iron (Revell 91) and treated with graphite for a more metallic shine.

Silver decal stripe material was used to create the CoroGuard leading edges and the fine lines at the flaps on wings and fins - much easier than trying to solve this with paint and brush...

 

The decals were puzzled together from various dark blue USN aircraft, including a F8F, F9F and F4U sheet. The "XH" code was created with single 1cm hwite letters, the different font is not obvious, thanks to the letter combination.

Finally, the model was sealed with semi-gloss acrylic varnish (still shiny, but not too bright), the radome and the exhaust area were painted with matt varnsh, though.

  

A cool result, despite the rather dubious kit base. The Pegasus kit is seriously something for experienced builders, but the result looks convincing. The blue USN livery suits the XFV/FV-2 very well, it looks much more elegant than in the original NMF - even though it would, in real life, probably have received the new Gull Gray/White scheme (introduced in late 1955, IIRC, my FV-2 might have been one of the last aircraft to be painted blue). However, the blue scheme IMHO points out the aircraft's highly aerodynamic teardrop shape, esp. the flight pics make the aircraft almost look elegant!

NASA astronauts Eric Boe, Josh Cassada, Suni Williams, Nicole Mann, and Michael Fincke pose for a picture after a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket with Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner spacecraft onboard was rollout out to the launch pad at Space Launch Complex 41 ahead of the Orbital Flight Test mission, Wednesday, Dec. 18, 2019 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. Mann, Fincke, and Boeing Astronaut Chris Ferguson are assigned to fly on Starliner’s Crew Flight test and Williams and Cassada are assigned to the first operational mission of the spacecraft. The Orbital Flight Test with be Starliner’s maiden mission to the International Space Station for NASA's Commercial Crew Program. The mission, currently targeted for a 6:36 a.m. EST launch on Dec. 20, will serve as an end-to-end test of the system's capabilities. Photo Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky)

40 years ago today (3rd October 1970), Walsall's trolleybus system closed and the power was switched off for the last time. The closure left only Teesside and Bradford operating trolleybuses in Britain, although their days were very much numbered.

 

To commemorate Walsall's trolleybuses and commiserate the system's closure, here is my small tribute, a picture of Trolleybus 855 making its way along Bloxwich Road towards Walsall town centre in 1968.

 

If you want to see more Walsall trolleybuses, or trolleybuses in general, then please check out my Trolleybus set.

The new Alexander Dennis 'SuperLo' Enviro500 on display at Union Station Bus Terminal. With a lower height, these buses can fit in more of the system's terminals.

Northwest Africa 3149 is a rare and fresh brecciated Howardite achondrite found in the Sahara Desert in 2004 and is not paired to any other known howardites. This is a highly shocked and very dense meteorite due to the presence of baddeleyite, which forms by thermal decomposition of zircon at very high temperatures. Only rarely will you find it in the HED group whereas it is a frequent minor phase in lunar meteorites and SNCs (along with ilmenite) due to lunar and Martian shock events.

 

It comes from the asteroid 4Vesta that suffered a massive collision in the early days of our Solar System's formation.

 

This is the largest central slice of NWA 3149

HED achondrite (Howardite)

32.5 gm, 4.5" x 4" x 1mm

Found 2004 in Morocco

Here we go again back to Fifty Years ago this week and starting off with a trip to the Isle of Wight and a visit to Bembridge and Britten-Norman's BN-2 Islander production line where a real mixture was found including 4X-AYC

www.flickr.com/photos/29288836@N00/49304884467/in/photoli...

along with numerous primer painted examples with Class B registration marks and some simply with a construction number only.

There also was their BN-3 Nymph G-AXFB, a foray into the single engine monoplane market that came to naught

 

Back to the mainland and at Gatwick a Scottish Aviation Twin Pioneer G-APHX was present (see Keith Harper's photo of her:

www.flickr.com/photos/egbj/8297415247/in/photolist-9xuJ65...)

On the 24th of April 1970, Heathrow produced a West German Luftwaffe Hansa Jet 16+06 - a strange looker with their unique forward swept wings

(see Ken Meegan's shot of her now preserved:

www.flickr.com/photos/namcys11/49516838403/in/photolist-2...)

plus an Aeroflot Tupolev Tu-134 CCCP-65639

 

A day later Pakistan International's Boeing 720 AP-ATQ (recorded incorrectly by me as AP-APQ) - check out Carl Ford's image of her:

(www.flickr.com/photos/53277566@N06/16407342111/in/photoli...) was present along with an Olympic Airways Boeing 707.

Alitalia's DC-8 I-DIWA was also in (see Manuel's vintage photo of her:

www.flickr.com/photos/10264618@N03/2127784514/in/photolis...)

 

A USAF C-47 was seen dropping into Northolt which I found out years later was an HQ USAFE VC-47 0-51116 and apparently 1970 was the last year USAF C-47's were seen in Europe

 

On the 28th April, Belgian Air Force C-119 Flying Boxcar CP-30/OT-CBJ was a nice find while passing through Gatwick and then later, seen passing overhead Heathrow, USAF MAC's Lockheed

C-141A Starlifter 65-9400 routed Clacton-Woodley-Strumble for the USA

Also in at LHR that day were a pair of Scandinavian Airline System's DC-8's LN-MOG and SE-DBB.

 

Czechoslovakian CSA's ILyushin Il-62 OK-ZBC arrived and another aging piston treat was Martinair's lovely old Douglas

DC-6 PH-MAM (see Ken Fielding's great photo of her:

www.flickr.com/photos/kenfielding/17013455367/in/photolis...)

and a Yugoslavian Ilyushin IL-18 YU-AIB

 

A day later Dutch MS.760 Paris PH-MSV arrived from Germany on a medical task carrying a donor kidney, yet another PanAm 747 N733PA arrived and last but not least,

West German Luftwaffe's Lockheed Jetstar 11+01 arrived and parking Northside.

 

The latter I managed to get a reasonable photo of courtesy of some fellow ATC colleagues and a BAA Austin Champ:

www.flickr.com/photos/29288836@N00/15094146398/in/photoli...

 

50Y_015

 

The Foxton trolleybus museum's Bedford tower truck being used in the restoration of a section of overhead of the museum system's spur line that ran to a reversing wye in Purcell St. after a pole that was used as a traction pole for the overhead was struck by lightening in early October 2000, completely shattering the pole, and the 1977 Bedford tower truck - which had only been sourced from Nelson earlier that year - was being put to good use in this work.

 

This spur line has now been consigned to history with the overhead being dismantled in December 2010 and all the traction poles removed in May 2013.

It followed an incident when a vehicle crashed into one of the power poles being also used as a traction pole for the spur line overhead – bringing down the pole and a section of the overhead - and it was decided to completely remove the spur line altogether rather than undertaking the major job of repairing it.

A short section of about 50 metres still remains however but is not used by trolleybuses.

A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket with Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner spacecraft onboard is seen on the launch pad at Space Launch Complex 41 ahead of the Orbital Flight Test-2 (OFT-2) mission, Thursday, July 29, 2021 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. Boeing’s Orbital Flight Test-2 will be Starliner’s second uncrewed flight test and will dock to the International Space Station as part of NASA's Commercial Crew Program. The mission, currently targeted for launch at 2:53 p.m. EDT Friday, July 30, will serve as an end-to-end test of the system's capabilities. Photo Credit: (NASA/Aubrey Gemignani)

A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket with Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner spacecraft onboard is seen on the launch pad at Space Launch Complex 41 ahead of the Orbital Flight Test-2 (OFT-2) mission, Thursday, July 29, 2021 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. Boeing’s Orbital Flight Test-2 will be Starliner’s second uncrewed flight test and will dock to the International Space Station as part of NASA's Commercial Crew Program. The mission, currently targeted for launch at 2:53 p.m. EDT Friday, July 30, will serve as an end-to-end test of the system's capabilities. Photo Credit: (NASA/Aubrey Gemignani)

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based historical facts. BEWARE!

  

Some background:

In the late 1970s the Mikoyan OKB began development of a hypersonic high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft. Designated "Izdeliye 301" (also known as 3.01), the machine had an unusual design, combining a tailless layout with variable geometry wings. The two engines fueled by kerosene were located side by side above the rear fuselage, with the single vertical fin raising above them, not unlike the Tu-22 “Blinder” bomber of that time, but also reminiscent of the US-American SR-71 Mach 3 reconnaissance aircraft.

 

Only few and rather corny information leaked into the West, and the 301 was believed not only to act as a reconnaissance plane , it was also believed to have (nuclear) bombing capabilities. Despite wind tunnel testing with models, no hardware of the 301 was ever produced - aven though the aircraft could have become a basis for a long-range interceptor that would replace by time the PVO's Tupolew Tu-28P (ASCC code "Fiddler"), a large aircraft armed solely with missiles.

 

Despite limitations, the Tu-28P served well in its role, but the concept of a very fast interceptor aircraft, lingered on, since the Soviet Union had large areas to defend against aerial intruders, esp. from the North and the East. High speed, coupled with long range and the ability to intercept an incoming target at long distances independently from ground guidance had high priority for the Soviet Air Defence Forces. Even though no official requirement was issued, the concept of Izdeliye 301 from the Seventies was eventually developed further into the fixed-wing "Izdeliye 701" ultra-long-range high-altitude interceptor in the 1980ies.

 

The impulse for this new approach came when Oleg S. Samoylovich joined the Mikoyan OKB after having worked at Suchoi OKB on the T-60S missile carrier project. Similar in overall design to the former 301, the 701 was primarily intended as a kind of successor for the MiG-31 Foxhound for the 21st century, which just had completed flight tests and was about to enter PVO's front line units.

 

Being based on a long range cruise missile carrier, the 701 would have been a huge plane, featuring a length of 30-31m, a wing span of 19m (featuring a highly swept double delta wing) and having a maximum TOW of 70 tons! Target performance figures included a top speed of 2.500km/h, a cruising speed of 2.100km/h at 17.000m and an effective range of 7.000km in supersonic or 11.000km in subsonic mode. Eventually, the 701 program was mothballed, too, being too ambitious and expensive for a specialized development that could also have been a fighter version of the Tu-22 bomber!

 

Anyway, while the MiG-31 was successfully introduced in 1979 and had evolved in into a capable long-range interceptor with a top speed of more than Mach 3 (limited to Mach 2.8 in order to protect the aircraft's structural integrity), MiG OKB decided in 1984 to take further action and to develop a next-generation technology demonstrator, knowing that even the formidable "Foxhound" was only an interim solution on the way to a true "Four plus" of even a 6th generation fighter. Other new threats like low-flying cruise missiles, the USAF's "Project Pluto" or the assumed SR-71 Mach 5 successor “Aurora” kept Soviet military officials on the edge of their seats, too.

 

Main objective was to expand the Foxhound's state-of the-art performance, and coiple it with modern features like aerodynamic instability, supercruise, stealth features and further development potential.

 

The aircraft's core mission objectives comprised:

- Provide strategic air defense and surveillance in areas not covered by ground-based air defense systems (incl. guidance of other aircraft with less sophisticated avionics)

- Top speed of Mach 3.2 or more in a dash and cruise at Mach 3.0 for prolonged periods

- Long range/high speed interception of airspace intruders of any kind, including low flying cruise missiles, UAVs and helicopters

- Intercept cruise missiles and their launch aircraft from sea level up to 30.000m altitude by reaching missile launch range in the lowest possible time after departing the loiter area

 

Because funding was scarce and no official GOR had been issued, the project was taken on as a private venture. The new project was internally known as "Izdeliye 710" or "71.0". It was based on both 301 and 701 layout ideas and the wind tunnel experiences with their unusual layouts, as well as Oleg Samoylovich's experience with the Suchoi T-4 Mach 3 bomber project and the T-60S.

 

"Izdeliye 710" was from the start intended only as a proof-of-concept prototype, yet fully functional. It would also incorporate new technologies like heat-resistant ceramics against kinetic heating at prolonged high speeds (the airframe had to resist temperatures of 300°C/570°F and more for considerable periods), but with potential for future development into a full-fledged interceptor, penetrator and reconnaissance aircraft.

 

Overall, “Izdeliye 710" looked like a shrinked version of a mix of both former MiG OKB 301 and 701 designs, limited to the MiG-31's weight class of about 40 tons TOW. Compared with the former designs, the airframe received an aerodynamically more refined, partly blended, slender fuselage that also incorporated mild stealth features like a “clean” underside, softened contours and partly shielded air intakes. Structurally, the airframe's speed limit was set at Mach 3.8.

 

From the earlier 301 design,the plane retained the variable geometry wing. Despite the system's complexity and weight, this solution was deemed to be the best approach for a combination of a high continuous top speed, extended loiter time in the mission’s patrol areas and good performance on improvised airfields. Minimum sweep was a mere 10°, while, fully swept at 68°, the wings blended into the LERXes. Additional lift was created through the fuselage shape itself, so that aerodynamic surfaces and therefore drag could be reduced.

 

Pilot and radar operator sat in tandem under a common canopy with rather limited sight. The cockpit was equipped with a modern glass cockpit with LCD screens. The aircraft’s two engines were, again, placed in a large, mutual nacelle on the upper rear fuselage, fed by large air intakes with two-dimensional vertical ramps and a carefully modulated airflow over the aircraft’s dorsal area.

 

Initially, the 71.0 was to be powered by a pair of Soloviev D-30F6 afterburning turbofans with a dry thrust of 93 kN (20,900 lbf) each, and with 152 kN (34,172 lbf) with full afterburner. These were the same engines that powered the MiG-31, but there were high hopes for the Kolesov NK-101 engine: a variable bypass engine with a maximum thrust in the 200kN range, at the time of the 71.0's design undergoing bench tests and originally developed for the advanced Suchoj T-4MS strike aircraft.

With the D-30F6, the 71.0 was expected to reach Mach 3.2 (making the aircraft capable of effectively intercepting the SR-71), but the NK-101 would offer in pure jet mode a top speed in excess of Mach 3.5 and also improve range and especially loiter time when running as a subsonic turbofan engine.

 

A single fin with an all-moving top and an additional deep rudder at its base was placed on top of the engine nacelle. Additional maneuverability at lower speed was achieved by retractable, all-moving foreplanes, stowed in narrow slits under the cockpit. Longitudinal stability at high speed was improved through deflectable stabilizers: these were kept horizontal for take-off and added to the overall lift, but they could be folded down by up to 60° in flight, acting additionally as stabilizer strakes.

 

Due to the aircraft’s slender shape and unique proportions, the 71.0 quickly received the unofficial nickname "жура́вль" (‘Zhurávl' = Crane). The aircaft’s stalky impression was emphasized even more through its unusual landing gear arrangement: Due to the limited internal space for the main landing gear wells between the weapons bay, the wing folding mechanisms and the engine nacelle, MiG OKB decided to incorporate a bicycle landing gear, normally a trademark of Yakovlew OKB designs, but a conventional landing gear could simply not be mounted, or its construction would have become much too heavy and complex.

 

In order to facilitate operations from improvised airfields and on snow the landing gear featured twin front wheels on a conventional strut and a single four wheel bogie as main wheels. Smaller, single stabilizer wheels were mounted on outriggers that retracted into slender fairings at the wings’ fixed section trailing edge, reminiscent of early Tupolev designs.

 

All standard air-to-air weaponry, as well as fuel, was to be carried internally. Main armament would be the K-100 missile (in service eventually designated R-100), stored in a large weapons bay behind the cockpit on a rotary mount. The K-100 had been under development at that time at NPO Novator, internally coded ‘Izdeliye 172’. The K-100 missile was an impressive weapon, and specifically designed to attack vital and heavily defended aerial targets like NATO’s AWACS aircraft at BVR distance.

 

Being 15’ (4.57 m) long and weighing 1.370 lb (620 kg), this huge ultra-long-range weapon had a maximum range of 250 mi (400 km) in a cruise/glide profile and attained a speed of Mach 6 with its solid rocket engine. This range could be boosted even further with a pair of jettisonable ramjets in tubular pods on the missile’s flanks for another 60 mi (100 km). The missile could attack targets ranging in altitude between 15 – 25,000 meters.

 

The weapon would initially be allocated to a specified target through the launch aircraft’s on-board radar and sent via inertial guidance into the target’s direction. Closing in, the K-100’s Agat 9B-1388 active seeker would identify the target, lock on, and independently attack it, also in coordination with other K-100’s shot at the same target, so that the attack would be coordinated in time and approach directions in order to overload defense and ensure a hit.

 

The 71.0’s internal mount could hold four of these large missiles, or, alternatively, the same number of the MiG-31’s R-33 AAMs. The mount also had a slot for the storage of additional mid- and short-range missiles for self-defense, e .g. three R-60 or two R-73 AAMs. An internal gun was not considered to be necessary, since the 71.0 or potential derivatives would fight their targets at very long distances and rather rely on a "hit-and-run" tactic, sacrificing dogfight capabilities for long loitering time in stand-by mode, high approach speed and outstanding acceleration and altitude performance.

 

Anyway, provisions were made to carry a Gsh-301-250 gun pod on a retractable hardpoint in the weapons bay instead of a K-100. Alternatively, such pods could be carried externally on four optional wing root pylons, which were primarily intended for PTB-1500 or PTB-3000 drop tanks, or further missiles - theoretically, a maximum of ten K-100 missiles could be carried, plus a pair of short-range AAMs.

 

Additionally, a "buddy-to-buffy" IFR set with a retractable drogue (probably the same system as used on the Su-24) was tested (71.2 was outfitted with a retractable refuelling probe in front of the cockpit), as well as the carriage of simple iron bombs or nuclear stores, to be delivered from very high altitudes. Several pallets with cameras and sensors (e .g. a high resolution SLAR) were also envisioned, which could easily replace the missile mounts and the folding weapon bay covers for recce missions.

 

Since there had been little official support for the project, work on the 710 up to the hardware stage made only little progress, since the MiG-31 already filled the long-range interceptor role in a sufficient fashion and offered further development potential.

A wooden mockup of the cockpit section was presented to PVO and VVS officials in 1989, and airframe work (including tests with composite materials on structural parts, including ceramic tiles for leading edges) were undertaken throughout 1990 and 1991, including test rigs for the engine nacelle and the swing wing mechanism.

 

Eventually, the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 suddenly stopped most of the project work, after two prototype airframes had been completed. Their internal designations were Izdeliye 71.1 and 71.2, respectively. It took a while until the political situation as well as the ex-Soviet Air Force’s status were settled, and work on Izdeliye 710 resumed at a slow pace.

 

After taking two years to be completed, 71.1 eventually made its roll-out and maiden flight in summer 1994, just when MiG-31 production had ended. MiG OKB still had high hopes in this aircraft, since the MiG-31 would have to be replaced in the next couple of years and "Izdeliye 710" was just in time for the potential procurement process. The first prototype wore a striking all-white livery, with dark grey ceramic tiles on the wings’ leading edges standing out prominently – in this guise and with its futuristic lines the slender aircraft reminded a lot of the American Space Shuttle.

 

71.1 was primarily intended for engine and flight tests (esp. for the eagerly awaited NK-101 engines), as well as for the development of the envisioned ramjet propulsion system for full-scale production and further development of Izdeliye 710 into a Mach 3+ interceptor. No mission avionics were initially fitted to this plane, but it carried a comprehensive test equipment suite and ballast.

 

Its sister ship 71.2 flew for the first time in late 1994, wearing a more unpretentious grey/bare metal livery. This plane was earmarked for avionics development and weapons integration, especially as a test bed for the K-100 missile, which shared Izdeliye 710’s fate of being a leftover Soviet project with an uncertain future and an even more corny funding outlook.

 

Anyway, aircraft 71.2 was from the start equipped with a complete RP-31 ('Zaslon-M') weapon control system, which had been under development at that time as an upgrade for the Russian MiG-31 fleet being part of the radar’s development program secured financial support from the government and allowed the flight tests to continue. The RP-31 possessed a maximum detection range of 400 km (250 mi) against airliner-sized targets at high altitude or 200 km against fighter-sized targets; the typical width of detection along the front was given as 225 km. The system could track 24 airborne targets at one time at a range of 120 km, 6 of which could be simultaneously attacked with missiles.

 

With these capabilities the RP-31 suite could, coupled with an appropriate carrier airframe, fulfil the originally intended airspace control function and would render a dedicated and highly vulnerable airspace control aircraft (like the Beriev A-50 derivative of the Il-76 transport) more or less obsolete. A group of four aircraft equipped with the 'Zaslon-M' suite would be able to permanently control an area of airspace across a total length of 800–900 km, while having ultra-long range weapons at hand to counter any intrusion into airspace with a quicker reaction time than any ground-based fighter on QRA duty. The 71.0, outfitted with the RP-31/K-100 system, would have posed a serious threat to any aggressor.

 

In March 1995 both prototypes were eventually transferred to the Kerchenskaya Guards Air Base at Savasleyka in the Oblast Vladimir, 300 km east of Mocsow, where they received tactical codes of '11 Blue' and '12 Blue'. Besides the basic test program and the RP-31/K-100 system tests, both machines were directly evaluated against the MiG-31 and Su-27 fighters by the Air Force's 4th TsBPi PLS, based at the same site.

 

Both aircraft exceeded expectations, but also fell short in certain aspects. The 71.0’s calculated top speed of Mach 3.2 was achieved during the tests with a top speed of 3,394 km/h (2.108 mph) at 21,000 m (69.000 ft). Top speed at sea level was confirmed at 1.200 km/h (745 mph) indicated airspeed.

Combat radius with full weapon load and internal fuel only was limited to 1,450 km (900 mi) at Mach 0.8 and at an altitude of 10,000 m (33,000 ft), though, and it sank to a mere 720 km (450 mi) at Mach 2.35 and at an altitude of 18,000 m (59,000 ft). Combat range with 4x K-100 internally and 2 drop tanks was settled at 3,000 km (1,860 mi), rising to 5,400 km (3,360 mi) with one in-flight refueling, tested with the 71.2. Endurance at altitude was only slightly above 3 hours, though. Service ceiling was 22,800 m (74,680 ft), 2.000 m higher than the MiG-31.

 

While these figures were impressive, Soviet officials were not truly convinced: they did not show a significant improvement over the simpler MiG-31. MiG OKB tried to persuade the government into more flight tests and begged for access to the NK-101, but the Soviet Union's collapse halted this project, too, so that both Izdeliye 710 had to keep the Soloviev D-30F6.

 

Little is known about the Izdeliye 710 project’s progress or further developments. The initial tests lasted until at least 1997, and obviously the updated MiG-31M received official favor instead of a completely new aircraft. The K-100 was also dropped, since the R-33 missile and later its R-37 derivative sufficiently performed in the long-range aerial strike role.

 

Development on the aircraft as such seemed to have stopped with the advent of modernized Su-27 derivatives and the PAK FA project, resulting in the Suchoi T-50 prototype. Unconfirmed reports suggest that one of the prototypes (probably 71.1) was used in the development of the N014 Pulse-Doppler radar with a passive electronically scanned array antenna in the wake of the MFI program. The N014 was designed with a range of 420 km, detection target of 250km to 1m and able to track 40 targets while able to shoot against 20.

 

Most interestingly, Izdeliye 710 was never officially presented to the public, but NATO became aware of its development through satellite pictures in the early Nineties and the aircraft consequently received the ASCC reporting codename "Fastback".

 

Until today, only the two prototypes have been known to exist, and it is assumed – had the type entered service – that the long-range fighter had received the official designation "MiG-41".

  

General characteristics:

Crew: 2 (Pilot, weapon system officer)

Length (incl. pitot): 93 ft 10 in (28.66 m)

Wingspan:

- minimum 10° sweep: 69 ft 4 in (21.16 m)

- maximum 68° sweep: 48 ft 9 in (14,88 m)

Height: 23 ft 1 1/2 in (7,06 m )

Wing area: 1008.9 ft² (90.8 m²)

Weight: 88.151 lbs (39.986 kg)

 

Performance:

Maximum speed:

- Mach 3.2 (2.050 mph (3.300 km/h) at height

- 995 mph (1.600 km/h) supercruise speed at 36,000 ft (11,000 m)

- 915 mph (1.470 km/h) at sea level

Range: 3.705 miles (5.955 km) with internal fuel

Service ceiling: 75.000 ft (22.500 m)

Rate of climb: 31.000 ft/min (155 m/s)

 

Engine:

2x Soloviev D-30F6 afterburning turbofans with a dry thrust of 93 kN (20,900 lbf) each

and with 152 kN (34,172 lbf) with full afterburner.

 

Armament:

Internal weapons bay, main armament comprises a flexible missile load; basic ordnance of 4x K-100 ultra long range AAMs plus 2x R-73 short-range AAMs: other types like the R-27, R-33, R-60 and R-77 have been carried and tested, too, as well as podded guns on internal and external mounts. Alternatively, the weapon bay can hold various sensor pallets.

Four hardpoints under the wing roots, the outer pair “wet” for drop tanks of up to 3.000 l capacity, ECM pods or a buddy-buddy refueling drogue system. Maximum payload mass is 9000 kg.

  

The kit and its assembly

The second entry for the 2017 “Soviet” Group Build at whatifmodelers.com – a true Frankenstein creation, based on the scarce information about the real (but never realized) MiG 301 and 701 projects, the Suchoj T-60S, as well as some vague design sketches you can find online and in literature.

This one had been on my project list for years and I already had donor kits stashed away – but the sheer size (where will I leave it once done…?) and potential complexity kept me from tackling it.

 

The whole thing was an ambitious project and just the unique layout with a massive engine nacelle on top of the slender fuselage instead of an all-in-one design makes these aircraft an interesting topic to build. The GB was a good motivator.

 

“My” fictional interpretation of the MiG concepts is mainly based on a Dragon B-1B in 1:144 scale (fuselage, wings), a PM Model Su-15 two seater (donating the nose section and the cockpit, as well as wing parts for the fin) and a Kangnam MiG-31 (for the engine pod and some small parts). Another major ingredient is a pair of horizontal stabilizers from a 1:72 Hasegawa A-5 Vigilante.

 

Fitting the cockpit section took some major surgery and even more putty to blend the parts smoothly together. Another major surgical area was the tail; the "engine box" came to be rather straightforward, using the complete rear fuselage section from the MiG-31 and adding the intakes form the same kit, but mounted horizontally with a vertical splitter.

 

Blending the thing to the cut-away tail section of the B-1 was quite a task, though, since I not only wanted to add the element to the fuselage, but rather make it look a bit 'organic'. More than putty was necessary, I also had to made some cuts and transplantations. And after six PSR rounds I stopped counting…

 

The landing gear was built from scratch – the front wheel comes mostly from the MiG-31 kit. The central bogie and its massive leg come from a VEB Plasticart 1:100 Tu-20/95 bomber, plus some additional struts. The outriggers are leftover landing gear struts from a Hobby Boss Fw 190, mated with wheels which I believe come from a 1:200 VEB Plasticart kit, an An-24. Not certain, though. The fairings are slender MiG-21 drop tanks blended into the wing training edge. For the whole landing gear, the covers were improvised with styrene sheet, parts from a plastic straw(!) or leftover bits from the B-1B.

 

The main landing gear well was well as the weapons’ bay themselves were cut into the B-1B underside and an interior scratched from sheet and various leftover materials – I tried to maximize their space while still leaving enough room for the B-1B kit’s internal VG mechanism.

The large missiles (two were visible fitted and the rotary launcher just visibly hinted at) are, in fact, AGM-78 ‘Standard’ ARMs in a fantasy guise. They look pretty Soviet, though, like big brothers of the already not small R-33 missiles from the MiG-31.

 

While not in the focus of attention, the cockpit interior is completely new, too – OOB, the Su-15 cockpit only has a floor and rather stubby seats, under a massive single piece canopy. On top of the front wheel well (from a Hasegawa F-4) I added a new floor and added side consoles, scratched from styrene sheet. F-4 dashboards improve the decoration, and I added a pair of Soviet election seats from the scrap box – IIRC left over from two KP MiG-19 kits.

The canopy was taken OOB, I just cut it into five parts for open display. The material’s thickness does not look too bad on this aircraft – after all, it would need a rather sturdy construction when flying at Mach 3+ and withstanding the respective pressures and temperatures.

  

Painting

As a pure whif, I was free to use a weirdo design - but I rejected this idea quickly. I did not want a garish splinter scheme or a bright “Greenbottle Fly” Su-27 finish.

With the strange layout of the aircraft, the prototype idea was soon settled – and Soviet prototypes tend to look very utilitarian and lusterless, might even be left in grey. Consequently, I adapted a kind of bare look for this one, inspired by the rather shaggy Soviet Tu-22 “Blinder” bombers which carried a mix of bare metal and white and grey panels. With additional black leading edges on the aerodynamic surfaces, this would create a special/provisional but still purposeful look.

 

For the painting, I used a mix of several metallizer tones from ModelMaster and Humbrol (including Steel, Magnesium, Titanium, as well as matt and polished aluminum, and some Gun Metal and Exhaust around the engine nozzles, partly mixed with a bit of blue) and opaque tones (Humbrol 147 and 127). The “scheme” evolved panel-wise and step by step. The black leading edges were an interim addition, coming as things evolved, and they were painted first with black acrylic paint as a rough foundation and later trimmed with generic black decal stripes (from TL Modellbau). A very convenient and clean solution!

 

The radomes on nose and tail and other di-electric panels became dark grey (Humbrol 125). The cockpit tub was painted with Soviet Cockpit Teal (from ModelMaster), while the cockpit opening and canopy frames were kept in a more modest medium grey (Revell 57). On the outside of the cabin windows, a fat, deep yellow sealant frame (Humbrol 93, actually “Sand”) was added.

 

The weapon bay was painted in a yellow-ish primer tone (seen on pics of Tu-160 bombers) while the landing gear wells received a mix of gold and sand; the struts were painted in a mixed color, too, made of Humbrol 56 (Aluminum) and 34 (Flat White). The green wheel discs (Humbrol 131), a typical Soviet detail, stand out well from the rather subdued but not boring aircraft, and they make a nice contrast to the red Stars and the blue tactical code – the only major markings, besides a pair of MiG OKB logos under the cockpit.

 

Decals were puzzled together from various sheets, and I also added a lot of stencils for a more technical look. In order to enhance the prototype look further I added some photo calibration markings on the nose and the tail, made from scratch.

  

A massive kitbashing project that I had pushed away for years - but I am happy that I finally tackled it, and the result looks spectacular. The "Firefox" similarity was not intended, but this beast really looks like a movie prop - and who knwos if the Firefox was not inspired by the same projects (the MiG 301 and 701) as my kitbash model?

The background info is a bit lengthy, but there's some good background info concerning the aforementioned projects, and this aircraft - as a weapon system - would have played a very special and complex role, so a lot of explanations are worthwhile - also in order to emphasize that I di not simply try to glue some model parts together, but rather try to spin real world ideas further.

 

Mighty bird!