Pictures and Links Gallery

Pictures

Picture 7.2 Boeing B-17G "Flying Fortress"

The B-24 and B-17 were the most common heavy bombers of the U.S. Air Force during the World War II. Although the B-17G had 13 guns, including one cannon (the B-24 had eight guns), they suffered heavily from interceptor attacks. A typical failure was during the operation "Tidal Wave" of 1942, when about 300 B-24s were sent to bomb Ploesti. They encountered heavy losses from the fighter and antiaircraft gun attacks. This disaster could not be so terrible as it was, if there were any escort fighters. The P-51 was one of the aircraft to solve the problem.

"Lancaster" is the most famous British bomber of World War II. It was developed from the unsuccessful twin-engined Avro "Manchester". "Lancaster" was exceptionally successful. It and the Henley Page "Halifax" were the backbone of the British air force. It could carry the "Grand Slam" bombs, that could be as heavy as 10 tons each. A special "Lancaster"- equipped No. 617 Squadron used them to carry the the Wallis bomb- a high explosive bomb that was capable of causing an awful amount of damage (it was not used so widely because it was extremely delicate).

The B-52 was the leading strategic bomber in the U.S. Strategic Air Command during the 50s, 60s and 70s. It was designed to fly 14,000 Km at 950 Km/h on the altitude of 14 Km without refueling. It has endurance of a week with refueling, therefore being a very important factor in the NATO around-the-clock patrolling missions during the Cold War. Although Soviet aircraft designers tried to reach its performances in their Tu-16, Tu-95, and M-4 bomber aircraft, the B-52 remained the best in its distance properties. During some period they managed to perform the "Nuclear Patrol" - a route around the borders of Russia with nuclear bomb load. B-52's first production model made its first flight in 1954, so in the 70's it was already an old aircraft for dumb-weaponed strategic bombing missions, because all the possible strategic enemies had built their air defense system mainly so that it could destroy B-52. So the B-52 fleet was transferred to rocket ammunition/second wave bombing tasks, and then gradually removed out of service, until only 100 B-52s (all of them B-52G/H) remained.

 

Picture 7.5 Lockheed YF-12A

The original purpose of this prototype aircraft was to escort strategic bombers on long-range missions. The project failed, but the famous SR-71 "Blackbird" spy plane was developed from this aircraft. Clarence "Kelly" Johnson, who was the "Skunk Works" designer in Lockheed developed the SR-71 to replace the much slower U-2. The U-2 was distantly related in its design to the F-104.

Links

Table 7.1: Additional links related to aircraft

Table 7.2: Some links related to space exploration: