Great Planes that never were

Republic XF-12 Rainbow ^ | 08-15-2008 | Self

[jwparkerjr]

Now, that's when planes were planes! None of the cabin class, supercharged, retractable gear with glass cockpit that we see today! And a tail dragger too boot. Makes my heart ache!

When I was a kid, learning to fly, at a little bitty airport in St. Elmo, Alabama, in the 50’s there was a guy there with a Stinson Voyager. I used to love to just sit in that plane and pretend I was flying. A friend of his came in one day with a Stinson Station Wagon. Don't recall much about it other than it seemed like a lot of airplane to a kid who was doing dual for $6 an hour in a 1946 Champ and solo in a club Ercoupe. You never knew what would show up on the weekend at that little 2,000 ft. or so grass strip just SW of Mobile, AL.

My heart goes out to kids these days who have a hankerin’ to learn to fly. $300 just get your 3rd class medical. And precious few flying clubs to let you get at least some break on the rental.

Thanks for the great picture! I plan to get out with the guy here who does aerials from the 195 and get some shots of the plane and his set up. My son flies an EC-135 for a county EMS system here in Florida. My, my how times have changed since I was his age!

[Mashood]

Sorry for the delay. The P-80 was SLOW by mid-1940’s jet standards, because it only had one engine. Thats why the P-80 was not introduced into the war.. it was even slower than the Mustang by some 150 mph. American jet (powerplant) technology did not measure up to either the British or Germans. Only after German jets were shipped back to the US and reversed engineered did jet power become a true reality.

[valkyry1]

Several high performance single engined fighter-bomber aircraft based on the PW Wasp 4360 engine which were shelved at the end of WW2.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_XP-72 Republic XP-72

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_XF8B Boeing XF8B

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AM_Mauler AM Mauler

[valkyry1]

IIRC, they had a B58 chase plane that could keep up until around Mach 2.5, but it would use up all its fuel right away. So therefore no chase plane could keep up with it.

I think the B-70 with a few enhancements would have been much more effective than they gave it credit for. A squadron coming in at M3.4, good ECM and SRAM’s could have overwhelmed their defense network.

The B70 in that incarnation did not have enough mission flexibility for its cost.