Aviation shite

[Wilko220]

Inspired by Jack Harper's great "marine shite" thread, how about one for the aviation equivalent?

 

May I kick things off with the Buccaneer Service Station, just down the road from RAF Lossiemouth, in Elgin...

 

 

 

[Wilko220]

And then, of course, there was the English Electric Lightning which languished at the side of the A1 in Nottinghamshire until recently...

 

 

 

Was sad to see that landmark disappear

[Negative Creep]

 

PZL Zubr - quite possibly the ugliest warplane ever built, and had a habit of breaking up in mid air

 

 

 

Blackburn Roc - slower than almost every German bomber, scored a total of one kill in the entire war

[M'coli]

It's been put out of it's misery at last, has it? It was awful, the wings and tail had been cut off to allow it to be moved to the site and then re-attached using angle iron and screws, it was resting on a box-section frame that crushed its belly. I took a look round it in 2002 when on the way south to see the missus and phoned my dad from it - he loved fast jets. When he answered the phone I proudly declared that I was phoning with my head up a Lightning's jet pipe!

[Polystratus]

And then, of course, there was the English Electric Lightning which languished at the side of the A1 in Nottinghamshire until recently...

 

Was sad to see that landmark disappear

 

Noticed that had gone the other week when going down the A1, did it get finally scrapped? Apparently it was a rare variant too.

[Wilko220]

And then, of course, there was the English Electric Lightning which languished at the side of the A1 in Nottinghamshire until recently...

 

Was sad to see that landmark disappear

 

Noticed that had gone the other week when going down the A1, did it get finally scrapped? Apparently it was a rare variant too.

 

Apparently it's been gone since last year. More info here: http://www.urbanghostsmedia.com/2011/09 ... -scrapped/ and here: http://www.stormclimb.com/2011/09/16/no ... -scrapped/

[Ross_K]

Ekranoplan. End of discussion.

 

[Wilko220]

That's amazing!

[trigger]

WTF IS THAT?! Does it even fly?

[M'coli]

Sort-of. They are wing-in-ground-effectcraft, designed to "fly" a few meters off of the water surface. That one^^^ I believe was a missile launching variant of the original Caspian Sea Monster.

This is a picture of a later type in flight, the Orlyonok.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsflgNPxz_0

[Wilko220]

Here's perhaps the closest to a British equivalent - a Sunderland (pictured in the RAF Museum)

 

 

and in action (sort of)

 

[Negative Creep]

Sunderlands aren't shite, they're awesome

[Ross_K]

WTF IS THAT?! Does it even fly?

 

They were designed to fly something like 10 feet off the water.

 

The angled tubes on the top are for launching cruise missiles by the way...

 

Here's one in action: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVTbi8kWovI&t=28s

[HillmanImp]

Ekranoplan. End of discussion.

 

I remember watching a documentary about that. IIRC the U2 planes had spotted something that looked like fucking HUGE plane that had tiny wings in a dock. They had no idea what it was but kept an eye on it. At the end of the cold war videos turned up with it flying above the water at 400mph!

 

I dont know the ins and outs of it but am unsure why they never took off. Maybe they cant handle waves or something stupid like that.

[dieselnutjob]

I used to love flying to Belfast in these on business

 

helicopter engines, fumes that would fill the cabin and knock out the pilot, and a really slow landing speed. My favourite thing was to get a seat just behind the wing. The way the flaps would make the wing about twice as large was just amazing.

 

My late uncle owned one of these when I was a kid. I think I only went in it once but I still remember it.

I still have the owners handbook somewhere.

[CreepingJesus]

It doesn't fly as such, it uses ground effect to scoot along over water, about 4m up! I spent most of the night ogling the pics of it, from its' dock in Russia after it was posted up on the marine shite thread. Pity the blog's in Russian, or it would've been a much longer night... Apparently, the one and only one's to be recomissioned (bet it needs a bit more than brake pads and a new battery), and a few more may be built.

I spotted the Buc earlier in the year, when I was up in Elgin. I didn't manage to take my own pics, but those ones don't do justice to just how bizarre a sight it is. I mentioned it to my mum recently, and she quite casually assured me that there must be a few kicking about in sheds up that way!

My dad used to be across the way at Kinloss, and apparently the Buc pilots were a 'sporting' bunch. To the extent that they'd buzz the guys at RAF Kinloss on the way in to land. Once or twice they cocked it up, and stuffed it into the beach short of Lossiemouth's runway. In some instances, they didn't bother fixing them, they just dragged them out of the water for scrap. Which is maybe why the one in the Buccaneer garage is such a scabby example.

There's a down-at-heel single engined seaplane in Dundee Airport I've been meaning to get for ages. It would mean buying a parking ticket to get in close to it, so that won't be happening any time soon...

[Wilko220]

Sunderlands aren't shite, they're awesome

 

I meant it affectionately!

[Negative Creep]

If I was an eccentric billionaire I'd restore a Sunderland and fly around the world in it. GR8 4 FIYTING OF JU 88S

[CreepingJesus]

Reckon I've found my ideal shite private jet -

. I can think of one or two amusing uses for its' special talent...

 

EDIT: Failing that I'll have a Vulcan. Not shite in itself, far from it. But just check the vid...1958 FTW.

[trigger]

That Spitfire one's really good Tayne, Do you use a tripod and a slow shutter speed or is it free hand?.

[Lankytim]

I went up to Elgin a couple of years ago to dig up an old quarry that was allegedly full of aircraft parts, dumped there after the war and buried. 2 days of digging with a huge excavator revealed nothing more than a load of broken Lancaster bullet proof windscreens, cockpit canopy framing and about a million Lanc brake shoes- we were expecing complete turrets and maybe the odd engine! I did take home a damaged Elsan toilet seat though.....

 

Did have a rummage around a disused aircraft scrapayrd while I was there..... full of Gannet, Shackleton, Javelin and Buccaneer parts..... The yard wouldn't sell any of them due to health and safety! The locals there usually just help themselves apparently... I *HEART* Elgin!

[HillmanImp]

My old man grew up in Brampton near Carlisle. He used to be able to hear them testing the British Space Rocket project at Spadeadam from his house.

 

It had originally been intended as a nuclear rocket but was then changed to a space Launch Vehicle called the Europa but never actually launched sucessfully into space instead blowing up once and then getting shot down as they thought it was veering off course (when it was not) when launching from Australia. So it was shite.

 

Wikiepedia here:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europa_Rocket

 

 

A lot of it is still there:

http://www.visitcumbria.com/car/gilsland-spadeadam.htm

 

Because of spiralling costs the British pulled out of the Europe project to concentrate on their own Black Arrow rocket which failed 3 times but finally successfully launched a rocket into space but was still total shite. The British are apparently the "only country to have successfully developed and then abandoned a satellite launch capability. All other countries that have developed such a capability have either retained it through their own space programme"

[Ross_K]

It didn't really bode well for the Blue Streak project (or any homegrown nukes for that matter) that they couldn't get the transport mechanism for those nukes off the ground reliably.

 

Probably just as well the Yanks came up with the Thor missile...

[HillmanImp]

It didn't really bode well for the Blue Streak project (or any homegrown nukes for that matter) that they couldn't get the transport mechanism for those nukes off the ground reliably.

 

Probably just as well the Yanks came up with the Thor missile...

 

Good point

[Jack_Harpers_Teeth]

The Black Knight project (which I believe went on to develope the Blue Streak) was tested just around the corner from where I live on the IoW;

 

 

I am told that the local rabbit population around the test site fur would turn white (through fright) after a test firing!!

 

My nomination for flying shite is the TU144 aka Concordski:

 

 

Don't know too much about it other than it crashing.

[RedSparrow]

Ekranoplans were designed for the fast landing of invasion troops and equipment. Problem was they need very calm water to operate efficiently and safely.

[M'coli]

Even in the 90s the transport system could be halted unexplicably, like with the nuclear convoys to Faslane - one such convoy was stopped by a woman walking her dog who used a pelican crossing to cross the road in Cardross. As soon as she got to the other side, she pressed the button for the crossing, waited, and walked back again. And again. And again! The local paper had a field day reporting that story.

[Ross_K]

Ah the '90s. Simpler times when us Paddys were the main concern of the security services.

 

Nowadays that woman would've been tear-gassed, tasered and charged with terrorism offences.

[fiatdaft]

Real aero shite,

 

 

[HillmanImp]

And then, of course, there was the English Electric Lightning which languished at the side of the A1 in Nottinghamshire until recently...

 

 

 

Was sad to see that landmark disappear

 

XN728 seen here in happier times: