Picture of the day

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[Gomig-21]

lol, crazy-looking boat in the first place and the new world of destroyers that I think only 1 country can really build and even that country that wanted to build 32 of them and now has cancelled the program at only 3 destroyers. Understandable considering the Zumwalt cost $4 billion to build. Cannot multiply that by 32 even if the cost was going to receded as more were built, it's still an extraordinarily expensive but phenomenal ship. Can't wait to see it come into Boston Harbor.

And that pic you posted is great, also. Looks like it's in reverse using its propulsion as well as its bow thrusters which makes ships like this (as well as the Mistral with it's 360 degree pods and bow thruster) be able to dock without the assistance of tugboats. Having complete control of ships that size is only something of recent times and truly remarkable. Heck I even have a hell of a hard time backing up my 30-footer into a slip LOL without a bow thruster. Which is why it's on the list of add-ons in the near future.

I think I've seen this bird either 4 or 5 times and it never disappointed in any of those times. I have so man pics of this thing and the first year they allowed the Raptors to fly airshows in the United States, they let them fly from wherever they're stationed (in our case it was Langley Air Force base) and 20 minutes later it flew from Virginia to Massachusetts LOL and performed its routine and then left. Never landing or coming close to the crowd whatsoever. That is how strict they were about keeping it as far as possible from prying eyes and telephoto lenses. The following year they relaxed the rules and actually allowed the 2 aircraft to be present at the show but they parked in the VIP section where they were at least 100 yards away from any people and the fence. And that's how it's been with this aircraft as well as the 2 times I saw the F-35 as well. They were also kept at a distance and the F-35 flight routine was actually surprising in that it performed pretty well considering all the rumors about it not being a good dog-fighter etc. I thought it made some pretty impressive maneuvers like the minimum radius turn which I think it performed it tighter than the F-16 does. But when the Raptor took to the sky, lol, it was like "move over rover, and let Jimmy take over" hahaha.

Even the engines on that thing were probably the loudest I have ever heard. I've been around fighters since I was a little kid as you probably were too and even back in Egypt and listening to the EAF's MiG-21s screaming through the air at low level during their exercises or during the 6th October parade. The MiG-21 was disgustingly loud and for the longest time, I had that bird at the #1 spot until the first time I heard the F-22. And if you listen enough to it flying, you can even hear a certain "crackling" in its engines when the pilot throttles down from full afterburner to regular power. That crackle is very distinctive and only in the Raptor as I have not heard it in any other fighter. The F-16s is the opposite, and while loud at times, it's actually like the sports car of fighter jets as it sometimes has a "whistle" to its engine. If you listen to them enough times, you can hear all these crazy things.

Speaking of F-22s and F-35s, the first US-built fighter jet that actually deployed a weapons bay was the Delta Dart. Imagine a fighter that looks like the Mirage with a weapons bay? Pretty cool.

 

[Gomig-21]

Interesting angle of the B-2.

 

[Gomig-21]

At the height of the Cold War when things were so competitive between (not just the US, but the entire west) and Russia that anything involving the innovation of flight technology was to be one-upped by the other or in most cases, the Soviets were a bit more guilty of that and nothing exemplified that "competition" more so than the race to the moon, but this aircraft here also defined the ridiculousness of that one-upmanship that drove these people almost to the point of insanity and actually, killed quite a few people when this thing just fell apart in the air at the Paris air show only because the Soviets had to be the first to get the Tu-144 or better known as "The Concordski" out there and flying before the Concorde itself. So they rushed it and slapped it together cutting all sorts of corners and adding weird things to it like those eyebrow canards with their own little flaps because the aircraft wasn't very stable at low speeds when landing and had a tendency to roll. So they needed to add those to fix that problem but the Concorde never needed anything like that because it was properly designed from the onset and was not being built to compete with the Soviet alternative. But when this things spectacularly blew apart in the air when it made a sudden maneuver that the body couldn't take and then all the pieces crashed to the earth, that was the end of the Concordski and the beginning of a very successful life of the Concorde.

Still, a remarkable feat of Soviet engineering regardless of its eventual demise.

 

[The SC]

At the height of the Cold War when things were so competitive between (not just the US, but the entire west) and Russia that anything involving the innovation of flight technology was to be one-upped by the other or in most cases, the Soviets were a bit more guilty of that and nothing exemplified that "competition" more so than the race to the moon, but this aircraft here also defined the ridiculousness of that one-upmanship that drove these people almost to the point of insanity and actually, killed quite a few people when this thing just fell apart in the air at the Paris air show only because the Soviets had to be the first to get the Tu-144 or better known as "The Concordski" out there and flying before the Concorde itself. So they rushed it and slapped it together cutting all sorts of corners and adding weird things to it like those eyebrow canards with their own little flaps because the aircraft wasn't very stable at low speeds when landing and had a tendency to roll. So they needed to add those to fix that problem but the Concorde never needed anything like that because it was properly designed from the onset and was not being built to compete with the Soviet alternative. But when this things spectacularly blew apart in the air when it made a sudden maneuver that the body couldn't take and then all the pieces crashed to the earth, that was the end of the Concordski and the beginning of a very successful life of the Concorde.

Still, a remarkable feat of Soviet engineering regardless of its eventual demise.

Mig-31 carrying an anti-satellite missile!

 

[The SC]

2S19 Msta-S/2S19M1, T-90A and BMP-3