Skunk Works: 70 years of cutting-edge aircraft

[Tig]

http://news.cnet.com/8301-11386_3-57590604-76/skunk-works-70-years-of-cutting-edge-aircraft/

Cutting-edge aircraft that have emerged from the hush-hush environs of the Skunk Works include the U-2, the A-12 (which became the SR-71 Blackbird), the F-117, and the F-22.

 

[Stratguy]

I've always liked the the SR-71 Blackbird. I was visiting my sister, who liked in Palmdale, CA, and we went over to where they had one on display. What a thrill it was to see such an amazing plane in person.

 

[dmn23]

These were taken at the Air Force Armament Museum at Eglin AFB, Ft. Walton Beach, FL. It's amazing to see in person and it's considerably smaller than photos and video would lead you to believe.

 

[tiger roach]

 

[dmn23]

I'll grudgingly add a photo of my ex for scale. She's maybe 5'2".

 

[Tiltsta]

Really cool planes. I saw an SR71 at the Boeing museum in Seattle. It was a mean looking machine, even if it was just for photography.

 

[Tig]

SR-71's will always be cool!

We see one of NASA's converted U-2's fly overhead quite a bit here.

 

[aliensporebomb]

You gotta wonder what they have under wraps today. If the SR was retired they had to have replaced it with something real interesting.

The word is that three guys who were camping on the overlook near Area 51 saw this at 6 in the morning on a saturday. I've heard the radio transmissions from the thing they made and said it was louder than anything they'd ever heard.

 

[bsman]

I'm betting it's been replaced by something that flies really high, really fast, and is really small (i.e. a drone). The era of manned military aircraft is rapidly coming to a close. There are very few missions for which they make sense any more. i just hope that this becomes acknowledged soon enough to stop us spending trillions on the boondoggle F35...

 

[Tig]

The Keyhole phased array radar and imaging satellites (and no telling about any others up there) have replaced photo surveillance.

 

[OGG]

Kelly Johnson was the Chuck Norris of the aviation world.

And I mean that in good way...

Sent from my Transformer TF101 using Tapatalk 4 Beta

 

[parrotheada1a]

Read all about it dept: http://www.amazon.com/Skunk-Works-P...F8&qid=1372110647&sr=1-1&keywords=skunk+works

I read this book a good while ago. Lots of neat stuff in it. The chapters on the Blackbird & the Nighthawk are really well told without divulging any secrets.

 

[mikesr1963]

When I was stationed at Ellsworth AFB, they had one do several fly-bys during one of the annual Air Shows. It was awesome.

 

[Acadiafall]

Isnt that first plane a Transformer?