Let me put in my vote for this as a fine thread. I am learning a bunch of stuff, all of which I don't really have the time to look up, but which I am glad I now know. For example, that the Merlin had dual superchargers and how they were configured; the exact shape of an F104 wing; the list of airfoils on the U.Ill WWW site (which apparently one of my guys knows about because he designs airfoils for X-Plane as a hobby); the name of a book which contains details of Merlins; the names of lots of airplanes with symmetrical airfoils, a feature of which I was not aware they had (I had thought symmetrics were for aerobatics, for all the usual reasons). (I even sent a note off to Boeing about the XB-15, which was acknowledged but remains unanswered. It's hard to believe that Boeing doesn't have a company historian.) In particular, many thanks to Jane for originating the thread and asking all the questions that the rest of us would like to ask but don't get around to.
PBL