The "Pictures of the World's Coolest Aircraft" Thread

[Dinner]

Didn't Daimler put Fokker out of business a few years back? It's sad since Fokker made so many of aviations early designs.

[Zylka]

Saab Gripen! Only posted as I love high end Saabs and the jet just plain looks cool. It's supposedly garbage, someone care to brief us as to why? [Looks at the filthy Bajaner ]

Lots of test flight crashes, I think. Impressive!

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Frogger
Was it supposed to land, or was it supposed to redock in flight?

It was supposed to redock, so that once a particular fighter threat had been dealt with, it would be available for continued use as long as it had fuel and ammo.

[Chemical Ollie]

Originally posted by Zylka


Saab Gripen! Only posted as I love high end Saabs and the jet just plain looks cool. It's supposedly garbage, someone care to brief us as to why? [Looks at the filthy Bajaner ]

Lots of test flight crashes, I think. Impressive!

It's supposedly garbage because the test flight crashes was on live TV. Lots of mean jokes in media after that: "The world's most expensive farming tool". But I think the plane is better than it's reputation. All warplanes crash during test flight, don't they?

What makes this aircraft special is that it is mechanically unstable. The centre of gravity is far back, and this is compensated by very advanced guiding systems on the front wings to keep the flight steady. The unstable design allows the pilot to make extremely sharp turns to avoid missiles or get behind the enemy. It has never been tested in lethal combat, and hopefulle never will, so we will never know.

[Asher]

But what we do know that is because it is mechnically unstable, it has a tendancy to crash.

[Chemical Ollie]

Originally posted by Asher
But what we do know that is because it is mechnically unstable, it has a tendancy to crash.

Yes, if the guiding system fails, the plane is doomed. EMP, anyone?

But it now makes up the bulk of the Swedish Airforce (to which I belong) and it hasn't crashed since 1993. Or perhaps one plane was lost in a training accidident in the mid 90's, I can't remember, but such accidents happens to any warplane any time, don't they? Inexperienced pilots do mistakes. The test flight crashes were handled by an expert pilot, actually the same guy in both cases. He survived both times.

[Jaguar]

I love the F14.

edit: photo was too big. I am resizing and I will post it next.

[Jaguar]

Here it is. I like this photo a lot.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Olaf HÃ¥rfagre
What makes this aircraft special is that it is mechanically unstable. The centre of gravity is far back, and this is compensated by very advanced guiding systems on the front wings to keep the flight steady.

I'm sure the systems were very advanced a long time ago, but from what I've read, it's not too advanced. Although I'm sure it's a bit dated computer-wise.

3 x 266MHz PowerPC processors, 160MB harddrive, 64MB RAM with 1MB/s databusses.

[Skanky Burns]

At least cooling the processors wouldn't be a problem.

[Jaguar]

My computer could control that plane.

[Jaguar]

Originally posted by Skanky Burns
At least cooling the processors wouldn't be a problem.

Smiley ettiquette lesson: Never post a after your comment because that's laughing at your own joke which is rude. Instead, post it before your comment.

[Drake Tungsten]

[Jaguar]

Is the plane still around today? Or did it get destroyed in the blast? I assume it's still around because those planes could fly pretty high.

[Chemical Ollie]

Originally posted by Asher

I'm sure the systems were very advanced a long time ago, but from what I've read, it's not too advanced. Although I'm sure it's a bit dated computer-wise.

3 x 266MHz PowerPC processors, 160MB harddrive, 64MB RAM with 1MB/s databusses.

That was the state-of-the-art computers when the plane went through final testing about 10 years ago. As I wrote, it hasn't crashed since then, so the system is doing it's job properly. You don't need the system to be more advanced than that, do you?