Aircraft in service ranged between decent and hopeless. Doctrine, C&C were hopeless. I'm afraid France still looses.
Top Airplanes Never built..
- Thread starter Tales Weaver
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Aircraft in service ranged between decent and hopeless. Doctrine, C&C were hopeless. I'm afraid France still looses.
yep. Especially the expresso machine. For starters it would keep that Italian exchange project pilot from killing his crew and then hijacking the machine like he did in 'Thunderball'
I nearly forgot...
...The Fairey Rotodyne. A bit more work and it would have been a winner !
...The Fairey Rotodyne. A bit more work and it would have been a winner !
Fairly simple, Ramontxo...
...Narrow fuselage. An Airbus-based derivative would be slower but could launch ALCM or Skybolt and heft a lot of iron bombs with guidance packages. Better to have a supersonic Vulcan or Victor, although Washington and Moscow would howl.
...Narrow fuselage. An Airbus-based derivative would be slower but could launch ALCM or Skybolt and heft a lot of iron bombs with guidance packages. Better to have a supersonic Vulcan or Victor, although Washington and Moscow would howl.
DougM
Donor
I have often wondered if it would be feasible to using either a blank sheet design and building it in or using an existing design to take a passenger jet and build a “bomb truck” out of it. The way we have been using the B-52 a lot recently it is not penetrating enemy air space it is just acting as a truck. You wouldn’t get great big bomb bays but if you are just dropping small conventional bombs you should be able to figure something out.
I am thinking cheep and dirty and keep the expensive stealthy true bombers for the more contested missions. Because the high priced aircraft we have been buying are great but if we ever get in a major war lack of aircraft is going to become an issue.
I am thinking cheep and dirty and keep the expensive stealthy true bombers for the more contested missions. Because the high priced aircraft we have been buying are great but if we ever get in a major war lack of aircraft is going to become an issue.
It's possible, but you'd want to build in the capacity from the start if you could.
Reason: you want the payload to be around the center of gravity/center of lift, so you don't become mistrimmed (or uncontrollable) when you start dropping it. Most large passenger aircraft, however, have wings mounted at the bottom of the fuselage, and so the main wing spars tend to run through that exact spot. You can't just cut a hole in the spars to let ordnance through, so you have to get creative with how the ordnance leaves the aircraft. Take a look at the Boeing P-8 Poseidon, for example - you'll note that it carries its ordnance in panniers below and beside the fuselage proper. It can get away with this because as a maritime patrol aircraft it doesn't need to carry much, but the same trick wouldn't work for something intended to carry lots of bombs.
Ideally you'd want something with a high-mounted wing and nothing else important around the CoG, so you've got space for bomb bays etc. Then again there was also a proposal to turn 747s into cruise missile carriers by dropping them out a side-mounted door, so what would I know?
But a much better and more flexible aircraft for it. I doubt that the TSR.2 would have stayed in service anything like as long as the Tornado has.
The Miles M.52. Cancelled in 1946 as an example of the stupefyingly short sighted and ignorant government mismanagement of the post war British aircraft industry. Would very likely have given the British the title of being first to break the sound barrier among other advances.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miles_M.52
The Tornado fleet only spent the first decade of its life at low level, by 1992 it was PGMs from 15,000', which does wonders for fatigue life. The TRS2 would be at 200' from 1970 until the Cold War ends, although that would end sooner if the Soviets have to counter 193 TSR2 as well as 2 USAFE F111 wings from 1970.
The Miles M.52. Cancelled in 1946 as an example of the stupefyingly short sighted and ignorant government mismanagement of the post war British aircraft industry. Would very likely have given the British the title of being first to break the sound barrier among other advances.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miles_M.52
Possibly the most impactful loss, it could have changed the shape of postwar aviation.
Making the French air arm competitive with the German Luftwaffe would require a point of departure on January 31, 1933. Not because of a new German Chancellor taking office, but actually by preventing a change in French government on the same day- Edouard Deladier's left wing "Radical Party" (truth in advertising for change) took power and began "Nationalizing" industry. Not a true Sovietization, since 1/3 of corporate stock was allowed to remain in private hands although profit was no longer an objective. Nationalizing of French aviation manufacturing was complete by mid 1936, with powerful unions installing work-rules insuring worker contentment. Unfortunately engineering and management, in the absence of state 'gulags', were free to leave and did nearly en mass (the story of Marcel (Bloch) D'assult covers this in some detail.
The first aviation commissar, Pierre Cox was replaced with Guy LeChambre by the "Popular Front" government in 1938. Sadly, the bureaucracy was still in place and did no better until the panic of early 1939 demanded some return to reality. By the spring of 1940, with a shocking disregard for worker feelings, French aircraft production briefly equaled Germany.
Dynasoar.
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SsgtC
Banned
The Boeing 747X family. The aircraft was offered for sale in 1996, but never produced. Some of it features however eventually made their way into the 747-400ER and 747-8. I'd also have liked to seen the 2707 enter service. IMO, it was a better overall concept than the Concorde, being able to carry more passengers farther.
For military aircraft, I'd much rather the Super Tomcat than the Super Hornet. The Super Tom would have been, even today, one of the finest fighters in the world, vulnerable only to the F-22. In that regard, if also have preferred the F-23 over the F-22.
For military aircraft, I'd much rather the Super Tomcat than the Super Hornet. The Super Tom would have been, even today, one of the finest fighters in the world, vulnerable only to the F-22. In that regard, if also have preferred the F-23 over the F-22.