Airshow.

This is coolbert:

Here is an excellent photo collection of military aircraft.

Taken at "Edwards AFB Airshow 2005".

Some comments:

"Here's a piece of living history, Chuck Yeager taxiing a P-51D Mustang after landing."

That is Chuck Yeager [name is from the German word "jaeger, meaning HUNTER!!] at the controls of the P-51 "Red Dog XII".

[years ago, I saw a yellow-painted P-51, private version, flying low and fast over Downers Grove, IL. Very impressive sight. The top of engineering as prop planes can go?]

"a Russian-designed MiG-15 jet fighter, whose NATO reporting name was 'Fagot'."

Look at the very rear of the MiG-15 fuselage. What is that object jutting out? A spoiler of some sort?

"This is the only privately owned Phantom in the world."

The F-4 Phantom at the show, that is. Well, that plane must be expensive to fly and maintain. And how to obtain one? With that aircraft, you could exceed an altitude of over 100,000 feet in a zoom climb!

"Almost all Boeing 707s have been retired, movie star John Travolta flies one of the last ones still operating in the United States"

Damn, I must be getting old. Back when I was a kid [18 years old], flying in a 707 was a thrill, the novelty of a JET plane had not worn off at that time. John Travolta owns and flies one. Must cost a mint to operate. Crew, fuel, maintenance. Well, if you get $20 million per film, it must be possible to do so!

"In practice this is a claim forced on the military and its contractors by politicians wanting to make a name for themselves as defenders of the public purse - the Raptor was designed as a pure air-to-air fighter aircraft, and while it is able to carry a small quantity of bombs within these bays"

[making the Raptor a fighter-bomber rather than pure fighter aircraft!!]

This was the same with the F-16. Designed to be a pure air-to-air combat superiority aircraft. NOT intended to be a fighter-bomber. But forced to become so by POLITICIANS!

"ER-2 high-altitude research plane . . . This shot . . . shows off its glider-like wingspan of over 103 feet (33 meters]"

Check out the enormous wing-span on the B-52 in flight and the ER-2 on the ground. Those wings droop when on the ground, they are so long. With airspeed, lift causes the wings to lose the droop and assume a more dihedral position [upright].

Outstanding!!

coolbert.