Now that Uncle Roger has hung up his flying helmet, and Straight & Level is in for a respar, who is going to provide us with whacky pictures and witty captions?
Global warming? What global warming?
(Simulated attack provides a backdrop for Thunderbirds F-16s - USAF photo)
Anyone who looks at this picture and immediately sees a Southwest Airlines 737.
US Air Force CV-22s take off from Albuqerque (USAF photo)
In case you missed it - this cool picture is doing the rounds. Taken on the evening before the 787 roll-out, it shows all of Boeing's 7-series airliners (except the 787) lined up - for the first time ever. They are assembled in front of the Museum of Flight having arrived at Boeing Field in numerical order, beginning with the 707 at 7:07pm, then the 717 at 7:17 etc...
Anorak points available to those who can identify the operators.
"Okay, which one of you brought an Airbus?"
'
'Ride of the Valkyries', anyone?
The only sound better than propellers...
...is more propellers
(US Navy E-2Cs with NP2000 props - DoD pictures)
Found this while browsing the Pentagon picture site, and couldn't resist. It dates from 1994, the year Grumman merged with Northrop, it's decades-long domination of US naval aviation in decline.
In May 1994, four of the six aircraft types flown by Carrier Air Wing 14 from the USS Vinson were Grummans. But the A-6 Intruder was retired in 1997 and the F-14 Tomcat in 2006, their places on US Navy carrier decks taken by Boeing's F/A-18E/F Super Hornet.
The EA-6B Prowler will soldier on for a while longer and a new generation of E-2 Hawkeye is on the way, so Grumman's legacy lives.
"I'm off!" (Gripen International picture by the great Katsuhiko Tokunaga)
Lone Black Hawk with Bambi Bucket fights Michigan forest fire (US Army photo)
Sun setting on the F-111 (RAAF photo)
"I think it's Globemaster warming" (C-17 in Antarctica, USAF photo)
"I Sea the Knights are drawing in" (US Navy photo)
Visiting Brazil recently my colleague John Croft snapped a picture of the Hawker Hunter used by Embraer as a chase plane during high-speed flight testing of its regional and business jets.
Hunter becomes chaser (From John's blog, As The Cro Flies)
I will admit to being a former Hawker engineer, but who can deny the Hunter is a beautiful beast? This aircraft, PP-XHH, was orginally built for the Royal Air Force as a single-seat F.4 then converted to a two-seat T.72 for the Chilean air force.
It was retired to a museum, then sold to Embraer. Much as I admire the company's regional and business jets, what I would really like is a flight in its Hunter.
"Did I leave the porch light on?" (NASA photo via Steve Trimble)
Just couldn't resist posting this...
F-22 takes off from Elmendorf, Alaska (USAF photo)
In recognition of six decades of boring holes in the blue sky.
Jet set (F-86F Sabres over Korea in 1954 - USAF photo)
Heavy metal (USAF air display at Nellis AFB in 1959)
I have trolled through the Defense Visual Information Center website to find some pictures of USAF fighters through the years. I will leave their identification to you...
Continue reading "Pictures of the week - the US Air Force at 60" »
Only it's mum could love it (USAF photo)
One final word, for now, on battlefield airlift. The Defense Science Board report contains this August 1967 photograph of a US Air Force de Havilland Canada C-7A Caribou disintegrating after flying into the line of fire of a US Army 155mm Howitzer while trying to land at a US special forces camp in Vietnam.
The DSB uses the picture to illustrate that the battlefield enclave into which JHL or AJACS will operate will be a dangerous place. It also serves to illustrate the problems of communication between the services that still exist today. The Army is furious at the Air Force's politicing over the Joint Cargo Aircraft, and while it got the aircraft it wanted the Army could lose control of the programme to the Air Force. JHL vs AJACS is certain to spark a similar "roles and missions" struggle.
[Credit note - the DSB report credits the photograph to "Bettman/Corbis". The picture can be found on the C-7A Carbou Association website, which says the picture, called "Friendly fire", is by Hiromichi Mine and appears in Requiem, a book by photographers who died in Vietnam.]
"Black world, what black world?" (USAF photo)
Not often you see an RAF Tornado posing behind a USAF tanker.
"Got gas?" (USAF photo)
"I have a flare for this" (US Navy photo)
"Hup, 2, 3, 4. Keep it up, 2, 3, 4." (Colonel Hathi's March - USAF photo)
Bernard Zee has posted a great collection of his photographs from the US Navy Blue Angels display during San Francisco's 2007 Fleetweek in early October, which he is kindly allowing me to feature here. You can see Bernard's photography on his website. Meanwhile, read on to see more of this F-18 's amazing "sneak pass".
"How low can I go...?"
This Texas Air National Guard F-16C has been painted to celebrate the 111th Fighter Squadron's 90th anniversary. Besides looking cool, the colours and markings reflect the unit's history since it was formed on 14 August 1917 as the 111th Aero Squadron.
I can identify the blue and yellow worn by pre-war trainers such as the unit's PT-1s; the squadron's Ace In The Hole insignia approved in 1933; and markings from WWII, when the unit flew P-51s.
(USAF photo)
Phew, all that supersonics stuff was a bit serious. Time for something more seasonal...
LC-130 Ski Herk at McMurdo Station, Antartica during Operation Deep Freeze (USAF photo)
On the first day of Christmas (not sure what I'm getting into here)...
...a Super Hornet on a carrier deck.
Boeing sent to me (so far, so good...)
Two F-15s...
The Ministry's Top Kneddy sent me...
Three Eurofighters... (© Crown Copyright)
The Brown Jobs sent to me (only eight more to go...)
Four UH-60s...
The Supreme Commander sent to me (that's a relief...)
Five Swedish jets...
The Ministry of Old Planes sent to me...
Six T-28s smoking... (© Trojan Horsemen)
The Congressional mark-up sent to me...
Seven C-17s airlifting...
The Dependable Engines folks sent me (having to get creative now...)
Eight TF33s burning...
Biggles and Algy sent to me...
Nine Tornados formating... (Crown Copyright)
The Kingston Old Boys sent to me (ahhhh, Hawker...)
Ten Hawks a-stylin' (Crown Copyright)
The Land of the Loonie sent to me (this was the difficult one...)
Eleven Snowbirds er...sitting.. (count the canopies)
Those nice chaps in archives sent to me...
Twelve F-84s Thunderjetting...
Continue reading "On the twelfth (and final) day of Christmas..." »
It's the beginning of the week, so it's a sunrise for a change...
"Wakey, wakey. Jump-jet to it!" (US Navy photo)
"Room for one more?" (Sea Knight approaches Tarawa - US Navy photo)
Things are getting interesting in chilly Alaska as a squadron of US Air Force F-16s moves in to provide aggressor training for the newly arrived F-22s.
"We call this scheme Arctic Flanker..."
"...and this one Frigid Raptor!" (USAF photos)
The US Marine Corps has just released this rare image of an MV-22 Osprey tiltrotor operating in Iraq - there are green rotor-tip lights, the Marines now tell me. (US Navy photo)
"Miss you" (US Navy photo)
"Final Countdown anyone?"
Another example of "visual aerodynamics", although usually the condensation cloud caused by the low pressure behind shockwaves is photographed from the side...
As we're talking about tankers...
(US Air Force photo)
Surely those can't be KC-X source-selection documents...
More visual aerodynamics - a nice wingtip vortex in the catapult steam
(US Navy photo)
...your harpoon decklock is broken?
"It's mine, I caught it first!" (US Navy photo)
...personal, the finalists in this week's Chubby Cheeks competition:
Working on a Chinook feature, and I found this...
"Shall we dance?" (RAF Chinooks - Crown Copyright)
"Makes you want to rush out and buy a couple of hundred Skyraiders!" says my colleague Kieran Daly of this Embraer picture of a pair of purposeful Super Tucanos. I'm not sure Pratt & Whitney Canada's PT6A, even at 1,600shp, sounds quite the same as a Skyraider's Wright Cyclone, or a Sea Fury's Bristol Centaurus (a personal favourite), but of today's trainer/attack turboprops only Embraer's Super Tucano has that iconic look of a late-era propeller-powered fighter. And it gets used in anger.
This page contains an archive of all entries posted to The Woracle in the Picture category. They are listed from oldest to newest.
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