Category: Favourite aeroplane in 200 words
MY FAVOURITE AEROPLANE IN 200 WORDS #19 McDonnell Douglas RF-4C Phantom II by Gareth Stringer
I grew up in Hertfordshire, an area that sees very little active military traffic, which meant that
family holidays to the likes of East Anglia, and of course the airshow season, were the main means
by which my desire to see fast jets in the flesh, were satisfied.
Sometimes however, my Dad could be persuaded to take me on a day trip so we could hang out by
a perimeter fence somewhere and see what came our way, camera at the ready. By far the easiest
place for such a visit was RAF Alconbury, near Huntingdon, home to USAFE RF-4Cs, as well as
TR-1s and F-5Es.
The first time we visited, the resident ‘Rhinos’ had some friends visiting, more RF-4Cs, from Shaw
AFB in the USA, an incredible piece of good fortune. Those smoky, reconnaissance Phantoms were
in the circuit all day and we got the lot – run and breaks, burner overshoots, singletons, pairs and
four-ships. I’ll never forget it.
I love the Phantom, full-stop, but the RF-4C will always occupy a special place in my heart.
The Alconbury-based jets, along with their colleagues from the 26TRW at Zweibrücken AFB in
Germany were regular sights in the UK – how I miss them!
Gareth Stringer, Editor of www.globalaviationresource.com
MY FAVOURITE AEROPLANE IN 200 WORDS #18 Fairey Barracuda by Matt Willis
The Fairey Barracuda. Unloved – derided even. Unattractive, certainly. Subject of more derogatory songs than any other aircraft. “You must remember this… A Barra’s poor as piss…”
But the Barracuda doesn’t need your sympathy. It may have looked like an accident that had just happened… early on, too many accidents did happen… but the Barracuda hit the enemy like few other types.
Historian Norman Polmar called the Barracuda ‘almost useless as an attack aircraft’. Yet this ‘almost useless’ aircraft sunk 40,000 tons of shipping in 10 months, crippled Germany’s most powerful battleship, and equipped 26 front-line squadrons over a 10-year career.
The Albacore and Swordfish were obsolete as strike aircraft by 1943, so the Barracuda became available none too soon. The Mediterranean war ended as the Barra arrived, but in Northern latitudes it was just the aircraft needed. Barracudas carried out devastating attacks on German convoys and put the Tirpitz out of the war for months by pinpoint dive bombing. In the Far East it was almost the right aircraft… asthmatic in the hot climate, it still achieved success against targets in the East Indies. It then served quietly, but well into the 1950s. The Barracuda deserves your respect.
Matt Willis, @navalairhistory
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MY FAVOURITE AEROPLANE IN 200 WORDS #17 Panavia Tornado ADV by Gary Burton
It’s normal to go for someone who is the opposite of your last lover. The RAF certainly did when they put the Tornado ADV into service. It was very much an anti-Lightning. The Lightning was fast-climbing, agile (for its time) and happy up high. It was also poorly armed (a mere two, completely geriatric, missiles), had a radar little better than the naked eye and had enough range to scare the birds away, so the Phantoms could be scrambled. The Tornado ADV was the complete opposite, a tough bomber crammed inelegantly into the high-heels of a fighter.
It was a swiz from the start. The British had to deliberately mislead the other partners (West Germany and Italy), telling them it would involve tiny alterations to the baseline IDS, to get it accepted. It was very different, but suffered for its bomber lineage. The engines were optimised for low-level fight and were terrible for the interception mission. We were told its lack of agility was not an issue as it would be picking off bombers at beyond-visual ranges (tell that to the ‘Flanker’ escorts).
But, just look at it, a very British Tomcat: a noble, towering fighter- what a beauty!
Gary Burton is a musician and a lover of loud things
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MY FAVOURITE AEROPLANE IN 200 WORDS #12 Gloster VI by Andrew Brady
The RAF High Speed Flight was the original ‘Team GB’, winning the Schneider Trophy seaplane racing contest outright for Great Britain in 1931 with three successive victories – overcoming the bulbous red Macchi’s of Mussolini’s Italy twice, and finally only needing to compete against itself due to everyone else running out of money.
The triumphant Supermarine S6b became the iconic aircraft of the competition, the embodiment of aerodynamic and engine advances that later haunted the skies over Europe in the new form of the Spitfire and the Rolls Royce Merlin – but the international rivalry around the Trophy spawned many more remarkable planes.
Two aircraft, designed by Henry Folland and his team at Gloster for the 1929 race, were unable to compete due to engine issues. The day after, one was flown to a world record speed – which it only held for two days. It was painted “old-gold”, a dark brass-like colour – and nicknamed the “Golden Arrow”.
There is no trace of what happened to the Gloster VI’s after 1931, and there are no colour photographs of them – but there is something about the dark, smooth shine of the Golden Arrow that gets me every time.
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MY FAVOURITE AEROPLANE in 200 WORDS #16 C-130 HERCULES by Eamon Hamilton
The mother of the last C-130 Hercules pilot hasn’t been born yet.
Dwell on that thought. The prototype C-130 flew in 1954, the same year that Monroe married DiMaggio, and Murrow unravelled McCarthy. Competitors have come and gone, and yet the Hercules will fly on its centenary.
More startling is how little it has changed since Lockheed’s Willis Hawkins drafted it in 1951 – and it was hardly a revolution then.
Germany coined the modern airlifter layout with the Ar-232 in 1941. America followed with the C-123 in 1949, and Britain with the Beverley in 1950.
The famous Kelly Johnson warned Lockheed that the C-130 would ruin the company. Instead, its had the longest running military aircraft production in history.
That history is filled with stunning highs and lows. The thrilling success of Entebbe. The bitter disappointment of Desert One. Saving Batman in The Dark Knight.
Ignore anyone who tells you the insides are a failure of 1954 ergonomics. The thrum of turboprops has either lullabied me to sleep when I needed it, or been the soundtrack to some of the best flights of my life.
So be nice to the pregnant lady on the street. Her future grandkids might be Herky drivers.
Eamon Hamilton, Public Affairs, Royal Australian Air Force. Follow on Twitter @eamonhamilton
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MY FAVOURITE AEROPLANE IN 200 WORDS #15 Boeing 777 by Sotirios Bahtsetzis
She accused me of being unromantic and I knew sooner or later, my boring ways would leave her cold.
Not on my watch.
After checking in depth to find the best price, I planned an irresistible display of the piratically exciting nature of my love for her. She was curating a show in New York (I live in London) and would not be expecting a visit. I would cruise unbidden to Newark, and in the snow of Central Park present her with the ring. Engraved with our favourite line from our favourite song. We would be engaged and take the city in before we flew back together.
In theory.
Two hours after we met in New York, I was single. I sat stunned at Newark, trying to summon up the will to eat what was optimistically described as a sandwich. Flight delayed. Singled out at security. Board. Sleep. I woke up high above the Atlantic. Felt calm. Knowing no-one knew where I was, high above the Atlantic at night. Above the bottomless dark of the water. Cradled in the belly of a 777. I didn’t want to feel anything, just the perfection of the 777 carrying me away from the pain.
Sotirios Bahtsetzis is heart-broken
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MY FAVOURITE AEROPLANE IN 200 WORDS #14 Dassault Mirage III by HP Morvan
Marcel Bloch was imprisoned in Buchenwald concentration camp for eight months. The aircraft industrialist had refused to collaborate with the nazis, even when threatened with hanging. He survived and was reborn as Marcel Dassault, a surname derived from the French for ‘battle-tank’. Following her liberation, France would never again undervalue the fighter plane. Accordingly the air force released a fighter specification in 1953, demanding unprecedented levels of performance. Dassault responded with the futuristic Mirage I. A modestly updated ‘II’ was considered, before Dassault leapt to the bigger, faster and better-armed Mirage III.
The delta-wing is a symbol of this era of speed- an arrow pointing to the future. By 1958 the Mirage III had comfortably exceeded Mach 2, the first European aeroplane to do so.
Dassault stated that for an airplane to fly well, first it must look good. The Mirage is certainly gorgeous, but it is far more and proved itself innumerable times in combat.
Its polished aluminium body and red-painted air intakes are the epitome of an era of excess, daring technology and (popular) achievements in aerospace. Elegance is key. It is a glorious symbol of France’s renewed independence.
For me it conjures up memories of watching my uncle’s childhood TV series, The Aeronauts, and reading the Adventures of Tanguy & Laverdure. A la chasse…
by HP Morvan, reader in applied fluid mechanics, research engineer & aero-fan.
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MY FAVOURITE AEROPLANE IN 200 WORDS #13 Kalinin K-7 By Oleksandra Bondarenko
The Kalinin K-7 was a cathedral, a battleship- all of the brutality and ambition and darkness and hope of the Soviet Union wrought into a vast bomber. Engines were fitted and it was time to test them. The machine began to vibrate wildly, as if each part longed to leave this monster and become autonomous once again. The machine’s wishes were ignored and the mechanical surgeons brought in. At night welders sparked. Crude steel bracing encased the siamese bodies of the booms.
The 11th August 1933 and the population of Kharkov looked up in mutual awe. An uncanny eclipse powered by seven droning engines. Had Kharkov fortress scorned its comrades and become an angel? No, this was man-made.
The uncanny bird flew on. Each flight it moaned and moaned. On the ninth flight it got its wish and its back broke. It shook itself to pieces.
Semerenko survived. “I counted 15-20 major shudders. Suddenly, to the noise of running engines was added the sound of the left tail boom braking apart.. I was waiting for the end. Controls were still locked still dead. Smash…” He was one of 5 survivors. 15 onboard were killed. The designer, Kalakin was later executed.
“Then silence. Only the sound of the sea, chewing away at the edge of the rocky beach, where the bits and pieces of the Iron Man lay scattered far and wide.”
Ted Hughes, The Iron Man
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MY FAVOURITE AEROPLANE IN 200 WORDS #12 McDonnell Douglas/Boeing F-15C Eagle by Scott Bachmeier
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What is wrong with you Europeans? Half of the airplanes written about here as favorites are ‘quirky’ or ‘flawed’? I like things because they’re the best, not because they’re crap.
The F-15 Eagle has been the world’s best fighter since it entered frontline USAF service in 1976… I hear you spitting out your martinis as you read that. You leap to your feet. “RAPTOR!” you scream, the buttons on your cardigan exploding off in fury.
I disagree.
The F-22 is the flash, top-of-the-range guitar hanging on a $900 rack on the wall of a wannabe rockstar. It’s too pricey to be played, what if it was scratched?
The F-15 on the other hand is the battered old Fender that has proved time and time again its power to rock the joint. The F-15 is longer-ranged than the F-22, it has better short-range air-to-air missiles (X-Rays)..more vitally, it has a helmet system that can target designate- an entry-level technology that even F-16s have. It has an unprecedented kill-to-loss ratio of 104/0. Nothing else has anything approaching that.
Viva La Eagle!
PS my wife is European.
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MY FAVOURITE AEROPLANE IN 200 WORDS #11 Bristol 188 by Alexander Shchemelev
“ When I want to stop feeling inadequate, I think of pole vaulters. Most of us don’t want to be found out to be rubbish, so we stick to the things we’re good at. But pole vaulters, whose only job is to vault over a pole, repeatedly don’t…their only job” Armando Iannucci
The 188 was built to fulfil requirement ER.134. This was intended to support a very high-speed bomber, the Avro 730. When the 730 was cancelled in 1957, work on the 188 continued.
I love the incapable and that’s why I love the Bristol 188. Britain’s ‘SR-71’, was a ‘double-barrelled’ monster made to explore prolonged flight at over Mach 2.6. Aluminium cannot tolerate the heats experienced at such high speeds, so what material should be used?
Faced with the same problem, the US chose titanium for the triumphant SR-71 Blackbird.
Britain had better ideas, and built the 188 from far heavier stainless steel. Instead of adapting the powerful Olympus engine, the rather weedy Gyron was selected.
The Bristol 188 was slower than the RAF’s top fighter of the time the EE Lightning (lined up on the ground). If the 188 had been built from titanium and powered by the Olympus or Avon it may have achieved its goals. The US’ SR-71was built to spy on the Soviet Union, ironically the titanium it was built from was secretly-sourced from the very country it was made to spy on!
It didn’t fly until 14 April 1962 (twelve days before the Lockheed A-12, precursor to the SR-71). The 188 proved barely able to get to Mach 2, let alone flying for extended periods at 2.6. Since its commission in 1954 the project had become the most expensive British research aircraft ever made. It failed to carry out its only job.
Alexander Shchemelev is an engineering historian
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