What Military Aircraft Would You Bring Back To Service?
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Could not agree more about the Viggen. First flew in 1967 (before the Jaguar).
and (at the real risk of lighting blue touch paper) was a much more realistic answer to NATO's vulnerable airfields than Harrier ever could be.
You would have hole a lot of concrete to stop Viggens flying from an airfield!
In many ways the Draken was even more ahead of it's time- compare performance and range with the Lightning and consider it was running on just one Avon
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yes. Supposedly they were to be used as tankers. Even the engines are same same as a CRJ-100. Now the hornets tank each other off the boat and they are running out of airframe time. The A-3 was another one that should be brought back. It could tank AND electronic warfare. It would top off the strike aircraft whilst simultaneously jamming.
One going spare on Loch Ness.............
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Gnome de PPRuNe
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Edit: (and of course that aircraft was never in RAF service either)
Below the Glidepath - not correcting
No doubt all of us who knew what really happened have seen fit to draw a respectful veil of silence over dead_pan’s earlier mention of the highly secret Wiggins Aerodyne development, which was so tragically terminated.
That said, were I forced to pick a winner from all the splendid and much-loved aircraft thus far suggested, it would land - by a very short head indeed! - with Nutty’s offer of the (similarly named, but totally different) Fairey Rotodyne.
Oh, what a sad setback to military aviation was the political squashing of the Rotodyne project (and to civil for that matter - but for being a bit noisy, which wasn’t seen to be too big a problem back then) ... and, like so many others, to the once-proud UK aircraft industry.
That said, were I forced to pick a winner from all the splendid and much-loved aircraft thus far suggested, it would land - by a very short head indeed! - with Nutty’s offer of the (similarly named, but totally different) Fairey Rotodyne.
Oh, what a sad setback to military aviation was the political squashing of the Rotodyne project (and to civil for that matter - but for being a bit noisy, which wasn’t seen to be too big a problem back then) ... and, like so many others, to the once-proud UK aircraft industry.
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Two aircraft that, in my opinion, epitomized brute force, purposeful menace and raw power:
The Douglas A-1 Skyraider (especially in "Sandy" RESCORT/CSAR mode)
The Sikorsky MH-53M Pave Low (a thoroughbred beast of a Helicopter)
The Douglas A-1 Skyraider (especially in "Sandy" RESCORT/CSAR mode)
The Sikorsky MH-53M Pave Low (a thoroughbred beast of a Helicopter)