dhermann1
I'll Lock Up
- Messages
- 9,154
- Location
- Da Bronx, NY, USA
Diamondback said:Gotta say this on the Sunderland, anything that can fight off three Ju88's with gunship-packages has to be doin' something right...
Aside from the weird double-hinge nose, though, we gotta disagree on SST's: maybe it's a "Home Team" thing since the intended plant for 'em is practically in my back yard, but my money's with the stillborn Boeing 2707, particularly the swing-wing -200 model (which was quickly discarded, the version finally selected for sales offering was the 2707-300, which had 125 on the order books before the EPA killed it). It would've been a widebody with 2-3-2 seating for 30 first- and 247 tourist-class; if my eye for scale is correct those seats would have been more like a regular airliner than Concorde. (When they did a "members' preview" on exhibiting the Concorde up here, I was two seats wide and I'm only 5'4"! )
Perhaps, if Concorde had been allowed to evolve to a second generation, it would've seen 2707 interior features on a slightly upscaled version of its basic planform; either way, we are all the poorer for the fact that these two magnificent speedbirds never had a chance to compete and evolve to their fullest potentials... and we will probably never see the likes of them again.
Concept art of a 2707-200 demonstrator:
Model of "final" -300 design:
The Royal Aircraft Factory S.E.5a - simply gorgeous. Robust, powerful, still beautiful.
Well, I like this one too! It's a PV-2D, yup, 8 50's pointing forward, mean machine!
Scott
Hawker Hunter
Berlin, ever seen the F-16XL prototypes? Another bird that triggers thoughts of "what might have been"... especially if you combined the XL's "cranked arrow" delta wing with the Israeli "Viper" variant's dorsal fuel-tank and stuffed a bigger engine into it.