What prototype or mockup plane would you have loved to see fly in your lifetime? Your favorite prototype/mockup planes designs ?

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Ok_Reception_5262@reddit

The IAR 95 Spey

Sad that there was no money at that time

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Sacharon123@reddit

Su-47 of course. Love the negative sweep. Extremly elegant.

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LeafOnWind@reddit

🎶I'm negative sweep when I'm stoned 🎶

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ELEGANTFOXYT@reddit

Whenever i hear su47 i remember there is one just rotting away in graveyard.

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Youngstown_WuTang@reddit (OP)

Disclaimer OP does not support invasions, I just love planes no matter the country. Planes don't have any opinion

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OKAutomator@reddit

Is this AI? A mockup. Last time I was at Udvar-Hazy the 229 was still in pieces.

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Texas_Kimchi@reddit

YF-23 was one of the biggest bungles in US military decision making. Truly, why have the best plane every built, when this one will do, and its cheaper.

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Hermitcraft7@reddit

I got a book on Corvair unbuilt projects, and I think the 1956 Convair Combat Seaplane proposal was pretty neat looking.

Apart from that, XF-107, IL-102, the Advanced Vertical Strike Fighter US/FRG proposal, XF2Y-1 Sea Dart, AH-56... A lot of stuff, really.

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it’s just insanely cool. its the biggest aircraft to top mach 3. they planned to add saucer-shaped air2air missiles that could be launched and maneuver while supersonic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pye_Wacket

also it’s just so pretty 😍

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Youngstown_WuTang@reddit (OP)

Beautiful 😍

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WardogBlaze14@reddit

Built a model of her a long time ago, sadly got busted in a move.

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Youngstown_WuTang@reddit (OP)

That's a perfect excuse to build a new one !

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WardogBlaze14@reddit

True, need to get the kit again, working on a Tomcat at the moment.

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Youngstown_WuTang@reddit (OP)

😍🥰😍🥰

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WardogBlaze14@reddit

Beautiful bird, got retired way too soon! 😍😍

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Bosswashington@reddit

Nah. The Phoenix was obsolete 10 years before the Tomcat was decommed. The over the horizon targeting radar and air to air capabilities were of no use any longer. 1960’s electronics (I know there were upgrades, but still archaic by 2000’s standards) had been eclipsed by 2006. The 14 was a maintenance hog. The maintenance hours vs. flight hours was ridiculous. The airframe served its purpose. Technology retired the Tomcat.

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WardogBlaze14@reddit

The phoenix may have been obsolete but the airframe still had life left, yes she was a maint. hog but they were working on that, they had upgrades planned that would have drastically reduced maint. time, the Navy still does not have a plane that can -rot etc the fleet and take the fight to the enemy the way the Tomcat could.

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Bosswashington@reddit

The AWG-9 and AIM-54 were basically made obsolete when JSTARS became a thing. They tried to get their money’s worth by upgrading a few to Link-16, but they just weren’t successful. Go-fast is a good attribute, until you have a Rivet Joint, or E-2D working for you. You don’t need to be Mach 2.2 if your target has been constantly monitored while you’re 400 miles away. The reconnaissance we are capable of now is astonishing.

The Tomcat was 2 huge engines that accommodated a targeting radar that was good for one type of missile. They tried multi mission capabilities, but that’s not what it was designed to do. It’s a dogfighter when there aren’t any more dogfights.

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WardogBlaze14@reddit

The Tomcat was a fantastic attack aircraft as well when they put bombs on her, in fact, the Tomcat was the preferred attack platform during operation Iraqi freedom, she was more than just a dog fighter and was retired way too soon.

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Bosswashington@reddit

Ok, if that’s the case, why was it retired 19 years ago? The B-52 & C-130 have been flying for seven decades. The B-52 does one thing, and it does that one thing perfectly. The C-130 does a shit ton of things. The Herc about as multi mission as gets. Both of those aircraft are still useful.

I get that you are nostalgic, and that is awesome. But, the fact of the matter is, that it was no longer beneficial to keep that airframe. What other reason could it have been retired for? What role could it have been serving for the better part of two decades? The military still has contracts with Northrop Grumman, so I don’t see it as being an issue that the government has with the company.

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WardogBlaze14@reddit

Dick Cheney

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Bosswashington@reddit

The “Long Island Business News” is butthurt that Long Island lost some juicy defense contracts. You gotta come with something better than that. A business newspaper that has a vested interest in the keeping of huge a defense contractor and the spoils that are brought with it. Jobs, high paying jobs. Lots of them. What do a lot of high paying jobs typically do to an area? Commerce, real estate growth, more money in taxes…etc. With more money in taxes, there are better education systems. Lots of people are affected when a big business like this leaves. Therefore the newspaper is going to a bit of a bias towards their businesses.

A high up politician is easy to blame. I highly doubt that Dick Cheney woke up on a Tuesday and said, “You know what? Fuck the F-14. Fuck Grumman, and while I’m at it, fuck the A-6 too.” And if he did it for his own financial interests, good. We aren’t talking “ol’ mom and pop Grumman”. They are a defense contractor. Defense contractors are not exactly the most ethical businesses on the planet. Just think of a defense contractor, type their name in google, then the word “scandal”, or “illegal” after it. I’m slightly tongue in cheek…slightly. We are not talking about babes in the woods here.

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WardogBlaze14@reddit

Nah, no matter what I put you’ll come up with some other reason as to why it’s not valid enough, we will just part with our own opinions and leave it at that, no reason to become embroiled in a pissing contest over it.

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Bosswashington@reddit

Yeah. It’s like trying to convince someone to switch religions. I’m an old stubborn fool. Good debating with you. I hope you have a Happy Thanksgiving.

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WardogBlaze14@reddit

Same to you friend.

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Bosswashington@reddit

Thank you.

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The_Crite_Hunter@reddit

Dat ass

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Youngstown_WuTang@reddit (OP)

Big chonka donka!

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zippy_the_cat@reddit

Coolest thing that’s ever flown.

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Unusual_Cat_7542@reddit

The late model xf-fe with the canard fly by wire system and modernized cockpit.

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part_a_sti@reddit

Rockwell HiMAT

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__Patrick_Basedman_@reddit

You know what, I’m sickened but curious. I would’ve loved to have seen and experienced the Republic XF-84H Thunderscreech

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build319@reddit

Was just about to type that! Lol

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TexasBrett@reddit

I would’ve liked to see the X-31 do a demo flight back in the 90s before thrust vectoring became a thing. Would’ve been mind blowing.

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GITS75@reddit

.... I saw it when it came to Le Bourget (Paris airshow)... Mind blowing is an euphemism. One of the most astonishing flying display I've ever seen...

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Youngstown_WuTang@reddit (OP)

Oh baby I like it raw 🫢😍

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Immediate-Season4544@reddit

The ones you've shared plus the Avro Arrow and the Avrocar. One I wish happened but didn't was the Avro Y2

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Youngstown_WuTang@reddit (OP)

Absolutely beautiful 😍

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Immediate-Season4544@reddit

Yep, would've been better than the interceptor we ended up getting (F101 Voodoo) and cheaper but the Arrow project was a Liberal project and when the Conservatives came to power they eventually killed it. It didn't help that the Canadian Air Force kept changing requirements and wouldn't allow off the shelf solutions for weapons etc.

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LordofSpheres@reddit

The F-101 was faster to altitude and had a better radar, not to mention the rest of the avionics suite. It was also much, much cheaper to build and maintain, didn't rely on the vague promises of an Iroquois that might never materialize, and could serve in other roles.

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Zakluor@reddit

It was also much, much cheaper to build and maintain

We didn't build the Voodoo. We bought used airframes from the US.

We really don't know how much the Arrow would have cost to maintain. We can only speculate. The Voodoos weren't particularly cheap to maintain.

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LordofSpheres@reddit

You still paid for the airframes to be built by buying them off the US.

We also know that the Iroquois, if it ever existed, was going to be very expensive to deal with - not least because of all the fancy metals in its construction. And we know that the Arrow would have been a bigger, heavier, thirstier airframe with fewer parts available and also an absolutely abysmal design for actually being serviced, plus very early and very complicated avionics systems that either didn't work, broke fast, or both.

The Arrow would have been hilariously more expensive to maintain, and that's if they ever built any at all.

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Immediate-Season4544@reddit

The F101 top speed is Mach 1.72 whereas the Avro Arrow top speed without the Iroquois was Mach 1.98. it could perform a 2g turn at supersonic speeds. The radar system. Avionics was going to be the Hughes MX-1179 which was superior to the Hughes MG-13.

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LordofSpheres@reddit

Top speed is just about irrelevant on an intercept profile. The 101 could also pull 2g, but more importantly, it could actually shoot things down on the first pass. Because its radar actually worked reliably by the time the airframe was flying. The MA-1 was barely functional in the F-106s in its first few years and would take nearly a decade to become superior to the MG-13 and its upgrades - and that's ignoring the rework it would have needed to go into the arrow.

But again, the F-101 was cheaper, climbed to altitude faster (good for interceptors, you know), and had much greater operational range, meaning fewer of them could cover more space - another useful feature for an interceptor.

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Immediate-Season4544@reddit

The arrow took 4.1 mins to reach 50000ft at Mach 1.5, the F101 took just under 5 mins to do the same, the Astar radar was more advanced in the Arrow, the Arrows delta wing configuration made it more maneuverable at supersonic speeds, Arrow took 10 min to reduce and rearm, the Arrow could hold 8 AIM4 Falcon air to air missiles vs the F101's 2 missiles, later F101 did get a gun whereas the Arrow didn't have one. The Arrow had superior thrust to weight. The F101 did have more range though.

With the Iroquois engine that was tested at had dry thrust of 19250 lbf vs the Pratt & Whitney J75 with 16500 lbf, the Iroquois has 26000+ lbf with afterburner vs the J75 with 23500 lbf. The Iroquois thrust to weight was around 2 vs the J75 with 3.147. Therefore an Arrow with an Iroquois

Cost wise the Arrow was more expensive because Canada had already sunk lots of money for R&D etc but that money stayed in Canada's economy, the F101 combined with the crappy and never fully implemented Bomark missile system (US cancelled their systems not long after selling it to Canada) was more expensive than the Arrow.

The original specifications required from the RCAF were achieved by the Arrow, whereas the F101 didn't. That was why they started building the Arrow instead of just getting the F101 in the first place.

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LordofSpheres@reddit

The Arrow II with the Iroquois was expected to take 5.13 minutes to reach 50k feet. And that's for a plane that never flew with engines that were never installed in any fighter airframe based on a wildly optimistic installed thrust, for if they figured out how to make it stop shaking itself to pieces. The F-101 did that too, but in actual service, and with weapons installed, and full fuel fraction. Plenty of Voodoo pilots will tell you they were well under the 5 minute mark in actual service. I know a few.

The Astra got cancelled and also wouldn't have been any better than the Hughes systems - which is why it got cancelled. The F-101B could carry six missiles, and carrying them lost the gun. And while the Arrow could have turned better at altitude, it never would have gotten the chance, because it would have been bingo fuel within 300 nmi - while the F-101 was still cruising at half fuel. That's a lot of refueling and a lot more Arrows to cover the same ground as the F-101.

The J-75 was actually really, really close to as good as the Iroquois claimed to be, but achieved those numbers installed as opposed to on a testbench. I'm sure it will interest you to know that with the J-75, allegedly down 14,000lbf of combined thrust on the PS-13S Arrow II, the Arrow I was - wait for it - 0.3 minutes slower to 50k feet. That's, uh, not a lot. And that's still a predicted figure, not an actual. Plus, it gave the Arrow a hilariously larger radius of action for the same mission profiles.

They started building the Arrow because the F-101 didn't exist. They stopped building the Arrow because by the time it would exist it would have been worse than everything - not just the F-101, but also the F-4, F-106, hell, even the F-104.

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Immediate-Season4544@reddit

Also nice username! I got to see WuTangs's final tour this year. I'm not a huge hip hop fan mostly punk and metal but my glasses got broke at this concert due to someone dropping their phone on my head from an upper level. Never had my glasses wrecked in all the punk and metal concerts but sure enough the Wu did! Lol

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Youngstown_WuTang@reddit (OP)

I seen them either last year or 2023, it was amazing 👏 , so many songs they played

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Higanbana_-@reddit

The ultimate “evil bird”. Su-47 Berkut. She was a bombshell and i will never forgive Sukhoi for giving up on her.

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Miserable-Stock-56@reddit

Would have loved to see the Blackbird in action!

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Kerbal_Guardsman@reddit

The F-108 and B-70 double combo. Too advanced for one era and not the right kind of advanced for the next.

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No_Consideration_339@reddit

Avro arrow

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namast_eh@reddit

Avro Arrow.

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Comprehensive_Cow_13@reddit

TSR-2, Avro arrow and Valkyrie, the holy triumvirate of mid -cold war cancelled beauties...

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Lonely_Drama_3553@reddit

Great!

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saimen54@reddit

Dornier Do-31

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Immediate-Season4544@reddit

X29 was pretty cool too

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llynglas@reddit

British: TSR2. Cancelled by the British government when they realized in the 60s that there was no need for bombers...

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Terrible_Log3966@reddit

Missiles were the future...... and they still are 60 years later.

I also read somewhere that there was a lot of pressure from the yanks to crush the british aviation industry

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Immediate-Season4544@reddit

A similar thing happened to Canada with the Avro Arrow! Unfortunately unlike the British our R&D and military aviation industries got decimated.

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llynglas@reddit

Yes, why when they realized that missiles were not the panacea they thought, they ordered the F111. But eventually dropped that due to cost (big surprise). Using the brilliant Buccaneer for low level strike until the Tornado was operational.

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Youngstown_WuTang@reddit (OP)

Thank you for showing this 😍🥰

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Immediate-Season4544@reddit

This was the another one I was thinking of. A beautiful aircraft!

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Youngstown_WuTang@reddit (OP)

Gorgeous 😍

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Overall-Lynx917@reddit

You beat me to it!

I've seen the TSR2 at Cosford, and once worked with a guy who was part of the trials team. That's the closest I have got to it.

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AgentVirg24110@reddit

The Convair model 200.

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_flyingmonkeys_@reddit

XB-70 no contest

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Terrible_Log3966@reddit

The TSR.2

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Youngstown_WuTang@reddit (OP)

Take me to dinner first 😍🥰😍

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Arctic_Chilean@reddit

YF-23, F-20, CF-105 and TSR-2

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Youngstown_WuTang@reddit (OP)

Ohh baby 😍🥰😍🥰

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Typhoon_thafox@reddit

F-15 STOL/MTD

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Youngstown_WuTang@reddit (OP)

Ahhhhhh 😍🥰😍🥰

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ussoriskany34@reddit

XB-70

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BrewCityChaserV2@reddit

The Boeing 2707 SST

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Youngstown_WuTang@reddit (OP)

Yesss 😍

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LeafOnWind@reddit

Aurora, it's so cold war and buried in my childhood mystery of it all

Every chance it could declass relatively soon

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Youngstown_WuTang@reddit (OP)

It's an alien 👽 ship!

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Connor_Olds@reddit

Ben Rich talks about this in his book Skunk Works, where he explains that “Aurora” was simply the unclassified name for the B-2 budget line item. Of course, that’s exactly what he would say if he was trying to cover for some super secret alien reconnaissance craft, so who knows?

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streetlegalb17@reddit

Vought XF5U

Unfortunately such a wish will never come true as they of course dismantled it… but had to use a wrecking ball to do so lol

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Youngstown_WuTang@reddit (OP)

That's a Cool little shite, love her

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LefsaMadMuppet@reddit

Martin P6M SeaMaster

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Youngstown_WuTang@reddit (OP)

Yesss 😍🥰

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Festivefire@reddit

Last time I checked, the SR-71 still does research flights operated by NASA, so you could theoretically still see that.

I think the XB-70 is one I wish I could see, it was so cutting edge and cool, even if it wasn't actually needed for anything at the time. In many ways, similar to the SR-71, it was so revolutionary that to this day, that if somebody built it, it would STILL be a cutting-edge accomplishment. If it hadn't crashed, we could have at least seen the prototypes sent to NASA for research flying even if the USAF still cancelled the project, but just like the SR-71, it's job can be done much cheaper by other systems now, so it exists as a very novel engineering achievement with no marketable uses.

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GlobalLemon4289@reddit

Where have you seen this?

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Festivefire@reddit

I remember seeing pictures of SR-71s flying in NASA livery, and science articles about NASA using them for high altitude research, but I just went and checked, and apparently NASA stopped flying them in 1997, so I was wrong about them still flying them.

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