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Airplane Porn (and the occasional helicopter)


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Lotsa luck.Boeing already tried it. Didn't work. Concorde didn't work either.

 

Boeing'g SST was on track when NASA cancelled it.  They later tried to restart the program but Boeing's CC Beaulau [a tough negotiator!] said in effect Give me a contract to deliver 6 airplanes or I will sell my SST mockup for scrap.  Nasa waffled and Boeing sold their beautiful metal mockup for scrap [it was built on company money as a hard metal Aluminum not Titanium validation of the then new CAD/CAM software].  I saw and walked through the mockup, very nice!  It was designed from the start as an expandable fuselage.  It could be stretched horizontally to add length.  And is was width expandable to accomodate extra cross section seating.  The Brit / French SST was a fixed design [like the original Super Connie] and was not amenable to growth without complete redesign.

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Boeing'g SST was on track when NASA cancelled it.  They later tried to restart the program but Boeing's CC Beaulau [a tough negotiator!] said in effect Give me a contract to deliver 6 airplanes or I will sell my SST mockup for scrap.  Nasa waffled and Boeing sold their beautiful metal mockup for scrap [it was built on company money as a hard metal Aluminum not Titanium validation of the then new CAD/CAM software].  I saw and walked through the mockup, very nice!  It was designed from the start as an expandable fuselage.  It could be stretched horizontally to add length.  And is was width expandable to accomodate extra cross section seating.  The Brit / French SST was a fixed design [like the original Super Connie] and was not amenable to growth without complete redesign.

On track to not working,you mean. As of this day, no SST design can make money.Plus they are banned from every airport in the states except a

couple on the coast.

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I think Boeing got the SST mock-up back a few years ago (it was a church for a while) and it's at the Museum of Flight.

 

Lord I hope so!  That was one beautiful design.  Boeing came up with an Induction Brazing method that eliminated bolted or JAN type joints on the hydraulic and pneumatic lines that was brilliant.  No leaks and a pre-set repair procedure for repairs and replacements.  When I saw and visited it, it was complete for the left side only, replacing the plywood original mock up.  Plans for the right side wee being drawn up.  Only wing to body and right side mirror image fittings and wing / rear stabilizer were left to go.  Sometimes flipping CAD/CAM from right to left uncovers OSIFs in the original layout.

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"Legend" has it that LBJ was dyslectic.  When he was presented with the concept for an "RS17" he blurbed "SR71" so that's what it became.

 

From Snopes

 

During the initial stages of assembling the YF-12 in late 1960, it became apparent to ADP [Advanced Development Projects, better known as the Skunk Works] engineers that the basic interceptor airframe could be adapted to provide a strike bomber. Russ Daniel approached Kelly [Johnson, head of ADP] with the idea and asked to write a basic feasibility report.

Kelly reviewed Daniel's B-12 proposal with Strategic Air Command's Commander-in-Chief (CINCSAC) General Curtis LeMay, who agreed to fund R & D [Research & Development] studies provided that these projects would not be used to harm support for the XB-70 Valkyrie bomber program [which is stunningly unstealthy, with huge wingtips that deflected downward at right angles, two big verticals also at right angles, non-moving canards at right angles, and a delta wing with only small dihedral].

{ snip }

Sometime in 1966, the B-12 was christened the RS-71 (RS for Reconnaissance-Strike and the number '71' indicating a follow-on from the RS-70 Valkyrie, which was formerly the B-70). The lack of weapons procurement alarmed Lockheed, who produced drawings of a pure reconnaissance variant, designated the R-12.

{ snip }

[More snippage, mostly of discussion of the political situation during the election year and the transcript of the White House press release inwhich the airplane was called the SR-71 and described as providing a long-range advanced strategic reconnaissance (i.e. SR, as it wasn't Johnson misspeaking) plane for military use.]

 

Although the political wrangling continues, the future of the R-12 was being solved by Goldwater's taunt. Johnson had conveniently (and politically) transposed 'Reconnaissance-Strike' into 'Strategic Reconnaissance'--hence 'SR-71', which was really Lockheed's R-12. Unfortunately, the B-12 was lost to the McNamara era.

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