As someone born in the early 1950s, I find it thrilling to live in this future, which mostly exceeds the imagination of the Sci-Fi writers I read in my youth. Some aspects of the present seem designed to make it an unprecedentedly golden time to be old – as my memory fails, I have access to all the knowledge of the ages in a small gadget in my pocket – and suddenly the skills that time is taking away from me – the memory for names and other specifics, of where I was last Thursday, of how to cook meringues….seem obsolete, unfashionable. As my outward body decays, it seems less important to have one. Virtual Reality can give me experiences that are now too taxing for my physical body. Something as simple as a bus app can vastly improve my quality of life and, combined with the ubiquity and cheapness of Uber, has made getting from one place to another relatively quick and easy…but…where are the personal transportation miracles I was promised? Where is the jet-pack I need to get me from one place to another as quick as thought? To fulfil the promise of personal flight vouchsafed to me in my dreams? To let me bound across the miles as though weightless?
Things seemed so promising when I was a small child.
In 1955, Stanley Hiller presented the Hiller VZ-1 Flying Platform (the VZ-1E is pictured above), which included two Nelson H-59 engines, a fan, and two large propellers.
In 1958, Thiokol Chemical Corporation marketed a jump belt, a strap-on rocket fuelled by nitrogen tanks, not for the purpose of flying, but to enhance athletes’ ability.
In 1960, Wendell F. Moore of Bell Aerosystems developed the SRLD, the Small Rocket Lift Device. This used pressurized hydrogen peroxide as a fuel, processed through a decomposition catalyst to instantly expand into superheated steam, producing a few hundred pounds of thrust at the exhaust nozzles, which the pilot could control by means of hand grips. Unfortunately, the weight of the fuel required meant that it could only fly for about 20 seconds. Bell rocket belts turn up in movies and on television: Lost in Space, Gilligan’s Island, and memorably in the 1965 James Bond film Thunderball. But at this point, iron entered the soul – the inescapable mathematics of the limitations of flight time due to the weight of the fuel made the whole project a dead end for the aerospace companies, and subsequent developments have come from amateur inventors or small independent companies.
True, in 1994, NASA introduced the SAFER (Simplified Aid for EVA Rescue) a propulsive backpack for use in space when astronauts come untethered during space walks. But a jetpack that works in conditions of weightlessness gets me no closer to a personal jetpack that will take the weight off my arthritic knees.
In 2006 Swiss pilot Yves Rossy developed a kerosene burning pack with wings. This succeeded in crossing the Swiss Alps and the English Channel. But this was a suit comprising 4 jet engines rather than, strictly, a jet pack. It flew at 200 mph and was controlled by shifting his body.
In 2012, Jetlev developed a $99,500 jetpack that can launch people up to 30 feet high using water as a propellant. But the rider  of this device has to be tethered by a hose to a boat. It looks a lot of fun, but has no exciting practical applications.
Jetpack International tantalizingly offer two models of jetpack on their website
But they fly for a maximum of 33 seconds, and the release date is TBA
It looks like my best hope is the Martin Jetpack,  made by a New Zealand firm and inviting returnable deposits for packs which they claim will be available in 2017. It is pretty bulky, with a V-4 gas engine and two ducted fans, and looks more like a small personal aircraft than the backpack of my fantasies. It is certainly too large to be stowed in my hallway with the bicycles, and the videos online make me doubt whether it can by moved by one person – the engine alone weighs 60kg. But it claims to fly for 30 minutes – a great improvement on previous models. To quote their website, “The price has not been set yet while the jetpack is still in development. The Martin Aircraft Company is targeting a sales price of under US$150,000 for the recreational version of the aircraft but this may take some years to achieve.â€
Maybe I’ll just keep saving for that trip with Virgin Galactic.
Ruth Lingford is Senior Lecturer in Animation in the Dept of Visual and Environmental Studies at Harvard UniversityÂ
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1946 was the zenith of piston-engined fighters. The bloody lessons learnt from the hundreds of thousands of dogfights fought in the War had been carefully noted by designers. This knowledge had been distilled into the creation of a generation of aeroplanes wildly superior to their peers from the recent past, but these perfected killing machines faced fierce competition from immature upstarts with an unfair advantage: the first generation of fighter jets. To make this list, aircraft had to have been in operational service during the year in 1946 – hence no Sea Fury, La-9, Twin Mustang or MiG-9 (likewise, also no Me 262 or Ki-84 for example).Â
The order is somewhat arbitrary and cases could be made for aircraft that didn’t make the grade such as the Tigercat and Spitfire F Mk.22. Reality doesn’t confirm to the ‘top ten’ format – and war is not a sport with a league table. This list of ten supremely capable aircraft should however form a good basis for a discussion on the relative merits of ten extremely exciting machines at the cutting edge of mid-20th century technology.Â
10. Vought F4U-4 Corsair ‘The Ensign Eliminator’
The Vought F4U represented a big improvement in performance over the previous generation of carrier fighters, even though it took a great deal of work to make it suitable for carrier operations. The F4U-4 variant saw active service in the last four months of the Pacific war. It benefited from a R-2800-18W engine which could produce 2,400hp with water-injection, and a four-bladed propeller as well as numerous detail improvements over the F4U-1. As a result, it could reach speeds of 446mph at 25,000ft while retaining its predecessor’s impressive manoeuvrability. By 1946, the engine had been upgraded to a R-2800-42W offering 2,760hp, and top speed pushed up to 451mph. Though it had impressive performance, and better range than the Grumman F8F, the F4U-4 was always marginal as a carrier aircraft, with an unpredictable stall in the landing condition, and on top of that NACA determined that it had a few unsavoury control characteristics. Nevertheless it deserves its place as one of the most effective carrier fighters in service in 1946.
Much like Britain’s Tempest II, the Yak-3(VK-107 – there was no specific designation to denote the engine change) was the result of a long process of wartime refinement of a basically sound design, being the final production variant of a highly conventional fighter that had first flown in April 1940. The diminutive Yak possessed beautiful handling from the start but was hampered by its relative lack of power and pathetic armament. By the end of 1945, the Yak-3(VK-107) had addressed both these problems. Engine power, whilst still modest by the standards of other nations, was up by about 500 horsepower whilst the structural weight had been reduced by some 2000lb, mostly by replacing wooden components with metal. Armament was provided by three nose mounted 20-mm cannon offering a heavy concentration of fire without any of the detrimental aspects of wing-mounted weapons. The result was spectacular- a small, well-armed, manoeuvrable aircraft whose loaded weight was less than half that of a Tempest V yet was 10mph faster at 17,000ft. The authorities were delighted: ‘the experimental Yak-3 powered by the VK-107A engine and designed by Comrade Yakovlev appears to offer the best performance of all indigenous and known foreign fighters, being superior in horizontal speed, rate of climb and manoeuvrability‘ gushed the official report. The Yak was not faultless, its ceiling was low, its basic equipment primitive and its range was not exactly in the P-51 class but it was an outstanding fighter aeroplane at low to medium heights and, importantly, was straightforward to produce quickly in massive numbers.
(The Yak-3U that I was referring to derives from the Russian usilennyy which means ‘strengthened’ and is actually: уÑиленный. It would appear that the designation may be retrospective.)
8. Republic P-47N Thunderbolt ‘$83,000 Jugs’
In 1944 the ‘hot rod’ P-47M appeared, designed specifically for chasing V-1s, which mounted the latest R-2800-57 Double Wasp engine with an incredible war emergency rating of 2800hp. Meanwhile in the Pacific there was need for a very long-ranged aircraft to escort B-29s. Republic were keen to regain the escort mission that the upstart Mustang with its longer range had taken from them and the P-47N was the result. It combined the new engine with a larger wing designed to deal with the truly massive fuel load of 1226 US gallons (to put that into context the Spitfire XIV, when fitted with the largest available droptank, carried 308 US gallons), and featuring square cut tips to improve rate of roll. From the outset the P-47N was designed with provision for a 2500-lb bombload to fulfil the fighter-bomber role. The P-51H was faster but the P-47N outranged it and was more versatile. It was, apparently, a more comfortable aircraft to fly than the Mustang, was a better gun platform and had the edge on the P-51 in some manoeuvres. However, in 1945 a P-47 cost $83,000 compared to $51,000 for a P-51. The P-47N may have been superior to the P-51H in several respects but it wasn’t $32,000 better. Having said that 1816 were built and the P-47N is one of only two aircraft on this list to have seen meaningful service during the Second World War. Oscar Perdomo, the USAAF’s last ‘ace’ of the conflict scored all his victories on the type two days before the war ended.
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7. Grumman F8F-1 Bearcat ‘The Bastard Bear’
In 1942, Grumman had markedly improved on its earlier F4F Wildcat with the F6F Hellcat. The new aircraft did much to turn the tide of war in the Pacific, but was significantly bigger and heavier than its predecessor. Rather than continue this trend, Grumman set about designing a follow-up to the F6F that would be as small and light as the Pratt & Whitney R2800-34 engine would allow, and they achieved a power-loading of 3.5 lb/hp (compared with 5.5 for a P-51). This would allow even better raw performance, particularly rate of climb and short take-off. Like the P-51H the F8F had reached squadrons in 1945 but did not see frontline service before the end of the war. Shortly after the Second World War, the US Navy evaluated the P-51H as a possible carrier fighter, and instigated a mock carrier launch and dogfight between the two aircraft. Legend has it that the F8F had taken off, circled tightly and ‘strafed’ the Mustang before the latter had left the ground. The F8F-1 in service in 1946 was capable of 424mph, remarkable agility and a climb-rate that gave allegedly it the record from brake release to 10,000ft until the ‘century series’ came along. Unlike the Corsair, the Bearcat’s visibility for deck-landing was superb, and it flew ‘as if on rails’, making it practical as well as a hot rod. An innovative ‘failsafe’ wing-fold was incorporated, where the outer panels were supposed to snap off if the G-limit was exceeded, leaving the pilot with enough aerodynamic surface to get home. Unfortunately, though, this failed to work as advertised, leaving the Bearcat unable to fully exploit its impressive manoeuvrability in service. Even then, it could sustain a 7G turn without trouble due to the engine’s high power.
6. Hawker Tempest Mk.II Â ‘Sundown over Empire’
The best British fighter in the last months of the Second World War was the Hawker Tempest Mk.V, which matched high speed with heavy armament and surprising agility for such a large aircraft. Combat reports from late 1944 and 1945 give little doubt that the Tempest Mk.V generally made short work of the Fw 190s and Me 109s it encountered over Holland and Germany, at the low and medium altitudes where most air combat took place at that time. The Mk.II (its lower mark number reflecting the fact that designations were issued according to engine fit during the type’s development rather than a progressive development) replaced the Mk.V’s complex and sometimes temperamental Napier Sabre H-24 engine with a reliable 18-cylinder Bristol Centaurus radial. The change of engine resulted in an improvement in the already impressive performance, being up to 20 mph faster than the Mk.V at all altitudes (top speed was just shy of 450mph at 12,000ft, and did not begin to fall away seriously until 20,000ft) with a better rate of climb, while leaving the handling unaltered. Acceleration was astonishing – the Tempest Mk.II could pull out an initial lead on a P-47D even at high altitudes, despite turbo-equipped Thunderbolt having a higher top speed. At low levels, the Tempest was a barely-believable 80mph faster than the P-47. At altitudes up to 20,000ft, not many fighters could live with the Tempest Mk.II in 1946, while it also made an effective ground-attack aircraft. It served with the RAF in Germany and India until 1951, and with the Indian Air Force.
5. de Havilland Hornet F Mk.I ‘The Spiffing Super Hornet’
Designed for a Pacific island-hopping campaign that was over before it entered service, the Hornet was the finest twin piston-engined fighter ever to see service, boasting superlative range, speed, firepower and handling. ‘Handed’ (the left propeller turning the opposite direction from the right one) engines and airscrews removed the torque that plagued the highest powered piston-engined aircraft and, unburdened by the colossal nose-mounted motor of single-engined fighters, the Hornet pilot enjoyed an exceptional view forwards and downwards from his bubble canopy in the extreme nose. Armament was the standard and effective British fit of four 20-mm Hispano cannon mounted below the pilot. With 4000hp available the performance in the vertical plane was described as ‘rocket-like’ and ‘even with one propeller feathered the Hornet could loop with the best single-engine fighter’. As the fastest ever operational piston-engined British warplane, the Hornet supplied performance that was only marginally inferior to the Meteor and Vampire and combined it with an endurance the thirsty jets could not match. The late-model Merlins that powered the Hornet were highly developed, reliable engines at the end of a decade long process of refinement and improvement and still had advantages over the first turbojets. Not least was their ability to rapidly increase engine speed, useful for a fighter but essential for a carrier aircraft, which the Hornet was being developed into during 1946. In the words of Eric Brown, who flew all but one of the aircraft on this list and conducted the carrier qualification trials of the Sea Hornet, it was ‘a truly outstanding warplane… ranks second to none for harmony of control, performance characteristics and, perhaps most important, in inspiring confidence in the pilot. For sheer exhilarating flying enjoyment, no aircraft has ever made a deeper impression on me‘.
4. North American P-51H Mustang ‘Mustang Harry‘
The North American P-51 was one of the outstanding fighters of the Second World War, and one of the few to have a genuinely strategic impact due to its ability to escort bombers all the way to Berlin. Surprisingly, Edgar Schmued and the design team at North American believed their superb aircraft could be improved upon significantly. Although the P-51B-D models comfortably outpaced and outranged the Spitfire Mk.IX, despite using a similar powerplant, the Mustang was significantly heavier, compromising its rate of climb and potentially holding back even better performance. Schmued asked for a complete weight breakdown of the Spitfire, searching for any areas where the Mustang could be lightened, and using lower British load factors. In addition, the aerodynamics were completely revised, to create a series of prototype ‘lightweights’ that knocked on the door of the magic 500mph. The production version was designated the P-51H, and featured a lighter structure, new wing planform and aerofoil. It improved on the P-51D in every respect, being capable of over 480mph at 25,000ft, with an impressive climb rate and manoeuvrability to boot, and was more forgiving to fly than the earlier models. The ‘H’ just missed the war in frontline service (despite some erroneous suggestions that a few made it to the Far East by VJ Day) though the first squadrons were formed in mid-1945. It could certainly give any contemporary jets a run for their money.
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3. Gloster Meteor F Mk.3 ‘A-10 before drug use’
Britain’s first jet fighter still looked like pretty hot stuff in 1946, the staggering leap in capability of Soviet and American jets had yet to occur and Britain appeared to lead the world in the brave new world of jet aircraft. In its Mk 3 version the Meteor utilised the Derwent engine, a marked improvement over the Welland with which the Mk I was (under)powered. The considerably superior Mk.4 had flown in 1944 but would only enter service in 1947 and in the meantime the RAF made do with the still highly capable Mk.3. The Meteor’s great advantage was, of course, its speed. Manoeuvrability was not brilliant in the lateral plane, the ailerons (and the pilot’s arm) had a lot of work to do to overcome the inertia of two Derwents hanging halfway out on those huge wings and rate of roll was pedestrian, but the Meteor could use its obvious speed advantage to engage or disengage any other aircraft at will and four 20-mm cannon in the nose was considered ‘the ideal’ in 1946. In contrast to its state-of-the-art engines the airframe was, in comparison to the Me 262 for example, extremely conservative and blessed with truly massive dimensions. This would ultimately prove to be an advantage as the Meteor was able to absorb requirements for a second crewman, radar, more fuel, better engines, disposable stores and so on with ease. Unfortunately by the time it got engines of really decent thrust the MiG-15 had rendered it an anachronism as an air-superiority fighter, as RAAF experience in Korea would bear out, but in 1946 this was all in the future and the big Meteor could bask in turbojet glory in a piston-powered world.
2. Lockheed P-80A Shooting Star ‘Kelly’s Tip-Tanker’
While the definitive Shooting Star, the F-80C, didn’t arrive until 1948, the P-80A in squadron service in 1946 was formidable by the standards of its time. The speedily designed jet had gone from drawing board to flight in a period only a few weeks longer than that of the North American Mustang, despite the many unknowns associated with jet power and the transonic region of flight. Unlike the first US stab at a jet fighter, the ponderous Bell P-59, the P-80 was right almost from the off. The 1946-standard P-80A had a top speed in tests of 536 mph at 25,000ft, and could top 500mph at a range of altitudes, even with tip tanks fitted, remaining controllable up to Mach 0.82. The Air Force’s Flight Test Division considered that the P-80A was ‘superior in manoeuvrability in most respects, especially at high speeds’, and that ‘a high rate of roll is possible at all speeds, and precision aerobatics can be accomplished with ease’. Furthermore, the Shooting Star had ‘the most excellent lateral manoeuvring characteristics of any fighter of today’ thanks to its powered ailerons. Moreover, visibility was superb thanks to a forward-placed bubble canopy and slim nose. The P-80A wasn’t perfect as a fighter – at certain heights, it suffered from longitudinal instability that compromised its utility as a gun-platform and could be irritating for the pilot. But by 1946 standards, the P-80A was up there with the very best.
1 .de Havilland Vampire F Mk.I ‘The ferocious Spidercrab’
Despite its partially wooden construction and cuddly appearance the Vampire was a force to be reckoned with in 1946. In terms of speed, climb and range the Vampire and Lockheed’s P-80A (its only serious rival) were virtually identical. In terms of armament the quartet of 20-mm cannon was rather more potent than the Shooting Star’s increasingly irrelevant .50 cal machine guns but it was in agility that the Vampire really shone. When both were at their normal loaded weight the Vampire was a ton and a half lighter than the Lockheed and could outmanoeuvre it with ease. Indeed the Vampire was so agile that it could best a Spitfire Mk XIV, itself a fighter noted for its excellent manoeuvrability, in every respect (except rate of roll) whilst at the same time being considerably faster at all altitudes. Given pilots of roughly equal ability the Vampire could never be beaten by the Spitfire. Had the Vampire been in action sooner it would have been a serious problem for the Me 262, combining sufficient performance to match the German jet with both engine reliability that the Luftwaffe could only have dreamed of, and a manoeuvrability the 262 could not rival, all the while being a much smaller target than the Messerschmitt. The key to this sparkling agility was the Vampire’s relatively enormous wing for its dainty weight which also, helpfully, blessed the Vampire with brilliant high altitude abilities – as late as 1949 the USAF’s massive B-36 was deemed to be immune from attack at its operating altitude by the vaunted F-86 Sabre or any other known fighter – except the de Havilland Vampire, which set a new world altitude record of 59.446 ft that very year. Inexplicably, though perhaps inevitably, given that in the Vampire the RAF had the world’s preeminent air-superiority fighter and in the larger Meteor an ideal jet powered fighter-bomber, it was the Vampire that was developed for the ground attack role and the Meteor for air defence. Despite the world-beating performance the Vampire was relatively simple and cheap, ultimately serving with 32 air forces, more than any other British post-war aircraft.
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The best fighters of 1946 were selected by:Â
Matthew Willis writes about naval and other kinds of aviation. His runs the Naval Air History website and can be found at @navalairhistory on Twitter. His book on the Fairey Flycatcher, one of the top ten British naval fighters of 1926, is available soon from MMP Books.Â
 Ed Ward is the co-writer of the new musical ‘Every Day is Like Skyray’, a celebration of the life and work of Ed Heinemann featuring the songs of Morrissey. He is also a freelance illustrator
Joe Coles is the Editor and creator of Hush-Kit
The basic running of the Hush-Kit blog (which makes no profit) costs money. Help us carry on – without adverts. If you’ve enjoyed an article you can donate here or here .Thank you lovely reader!Â
Thank you for reading Hush-Kit. Our site is absolutely free and we have no advertisements. If you’ve enjoyed an article you can donate here. At the moment our contributors do not receive any payment but we’re hoping to reward them for their fascinating stories in the future.Â
In a move long anticipated by industry insiders, Indian’s Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar announced today that Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) will produce a radically modernised version of the 1950s-vintage Hawker Hunter jet fighter.
The original Hunter, a British design, first flew in 1951 and was widely exported. It proved popular with the Indian Air Force, which ordered the type in 1954. The Hunter’s proven airframe will provide a low-risk basis for the new design, the name of which will be ‘Langoor’ in air force service. The Langoor is intended to solve India’s fighter shortage with the minimum of cost and risk, while embracing the national ‘Make in India‘ initiative to develop indigenous weapon systems and technologies. The Swedish aero-company Saab, with its proven track record, will be the partner nation for the Langoor’s testing phase. Lessons learned from the painfully slow Tejas programme, and the mired MMRCA fighter acquirement will inform the project which is intended to emphasise modest and realisable goals. According to Parrikar, the type will enter service in 2022 and will offer reliability alongside operating costs 25% that of the Sukhoi Su-30, with a unit cost at least 70% lower than that of Tejas. The design will prioritise long range and ‘rugged’ reliability over high performance, and will feature proven systems to ensure a high level of combat effectiveness. Parrikar noted that “Mach 1.5+ performance is not necessary for the vast majority of combat missions, yet this requirement has until now dominated our search for future fighters. The use of heavily networked slower assets within a force that includes faster aircraft, like the Su-30, will prove more effective, far cheaper and will give the Indian Air Force what it most needs: larger, safer and more reliable forces. Langoor will be a game-changer.”
The Langoor will differ from the Hunter in many respects-
The original engine Rolls-Royce Avon will be replaced by the Eurojet EJ200
Sensors will include the Swedish PS-05/A radar
New lightweight helmet cueing system
Internal armament of one GSh-23-mm cannon
New wing to be designed with BAE Systems
Glass cockpit
Weapons to include R-73 short range air-to-air missiles
India is expected to order between 250-400 aircraft. Most of the design work has been completed and a prototype is expected to fly in 2019, with service entry scheduled for 2022.
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“Everybody
Bermuda Triangle
It makes people disappear
Bermuda Triangle
Don’t go too near
But look
At it from my angle
And you’ll see why I’m so glad
Now Bermuda Triangle
Not so bad!”
— Barry Manilow, Bermuda Triangle
An area of the Atlantic Ocean off Florida is home to unexplained forces that regularly cause aircraft (and ships) to disappear in very large numbers. Emergency radio calls are never made from the lost machines and no trace of them, or those aboard, is ever found. Hush-Kit dispatched Canadian car lot attendant Stephen Caulfield to get to the bottom of this alarming mystery.Â
The Bermuda Triangle was one of the major conspiracy theories of the era between the end of the Second World War and the invention of the Internet. This mystery was right up there with Kennedy assassination theories, Bigfoot and Jack the Ripper. It was featured in every one of those lurid books of the ‘unexplained’ beloved by children and idiots in the 1960s onwards. (‘Conspiracy’, as a prefix for ‘theory’, should not be used as a synonym for delusional: many fringe ideas turn out to be true – in the early 20th century the idea that the Mafia was an extremely powerful organisation was dismissed by most respectable people and authorities as hogwash)
This patch of the Atlantic Ocean would occupy the popular culture throne of bullshit until the attacks of 9-11 on the Pentagon and World Trade Center altered the fundamental scale and nature of conspiracy theory.
Loose lips
A large cargo ship the SS Cyclops, under contract to the United States Navy, disappears in 1918 along with the 306 people aboard. Other vessels follow. A flight of five Grumman TBM-1C Avenger torpedo bombers disappears in December 1945 while on a training mission from Naval Air Station Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Ditto the large seaplane sent to look for them. Light aircraft, airliners, military jets – all have disappeared there by the dozens, hundreds, thousands.
Were Communist forces (perhaps based in Cuba) behind the losses? Aliens or hidden civilizations with advanced technologies were also earned blame for the long string of disappearances which began to occur in numbers around the time of World War I and appeared to peak in the 1970s. It scared people.
Swiss cuckoo
 A German named Erick von Däniken was also hovering near the top of a cockeyed pyramid of writers and “researchers†popularising a plethora of whacked-out ideas about the world back then. Maybe he was Dutch, though. Sometimes you can’t tell. (Note from Editor: you can’t put “researchers†in quotation marks while not even Googling facts — he is Swiss, he’s also alive so his lawyers can contact you directly, Stephen)
Von Däniken and his ilk had ideas about aliens mating with monkeys, resulting in advanced civilisations which had then either fallen under the oceans or deep into the Earth’s molten core (the civilisations that is, not just the horny monkeys). This, right after building the pyramids and scraping out the Nazca lines of Peru so that flying saucers could come back and get them. They also dumped odd sculptures, monumental buildings and even jewellery shaped like delta-winged jets all over the ancient world. Â
Deathrays. bestsellers and horseshit
Missing aircraft were being death-rayed clean out of the sky by these powerful entities and hidden societies keen on their Atlantean privacy. Von Däniken sold sixty-three million copies of his string of occulty-ey alternative history books – with nary a chat room in sight. Via some twenty million copies of a single book on the subject, travel guru Charles Berlitz and his magnum opus of horseshit The Bermuda Triangle made the titular area a household name in the 1970s. Before the Internet, you really had to work it to participate in conspiracy theories. You couldn’t just load up on skunk, and post to an online forum or retweet some creepy shit on Twitter. No, you had to watch TV documentaries and go to matinees at theatres in dying second rate shopping plazas. You had to borrow seven or more yellowed paperbacks from that crazy dude at the pub. You read tabloid newspaper articles in the papers that got left in the cafeteria at the plant you worked nights in when you first got back from Vietnam. It wasn’t as easy as now.Â
All this fervent activity fed content producers like Von Däniken and Berlitz whose mark can still be discerned in the popular culture. Some of this rubbish has made it onto the Internet, much of it is forgotten.
Aurora and chemtrails investigated by  former MoD expert here.
It wasn’t all bad. For example, Flight 19, the Avengers mentioned earlier, or at least a representation thereof, made it to the back cover of a Talking Heads album. Two other British musicians dedicated songs to Flight 19, the best-known single aerial disappearance into THE BERMUDA TRIANGLE. Both latter efforts are only remembered on Wikipedia.Â
Flight 19’s five Avenger crews probably did what many a rookie formation might do, fly a reciprocal course by mistake or fail to identify the Bahamas. This probably led them to run out of gas and crash as darkness was falling and in the panic totally fuck up on established radio procedure for emergency ditching. The Atlantic off Florida is practically carpeted with World War II aircraft wrecks. All lost nowhere near an enemy.
This particular photo (main image at the top) has adorned pulpy book covers and accompanied tabloid newspaper articles or trashy magazine features over and over for decades. Usually on the anniversary of the disappearance of Flight 19 it is used to introduce some new vanishing, to restate that the myth has not been disproven by any particular authority and that “something†was basically devouring aluminium and people out there south of Bermuda, east of Florida and north of Puerto Rico. These black and white Grumman TBM Avengers became one of the inescapable images of the mid-to-lower-end of popular culture in English-speaking countries in the 1960s and 1970s.
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Mostly, THE BERMUDA TRIANGLE appears to have had balanced, if middle-of-the- road, taste in aircraft. These types were swallowed up by it:
Grumman TBM Avenger Martin PBM Mariner Douglas C-54 Douglas DC-3 Junkers Ju-87 Stuka (navalized Kriegsmarine version) Avro Tudor IV Lockheed Super Constellation Lockheed C-130 Avia BH-7A McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II Hansa-Brandenburg W.29 Boeing B-29 Boeing KB-50 Boeing 737 Grumman F9F Cougar Jet Britten Norman Trislander (some accounts indicate “Islanderâ€) Piper PA-23 Navajo Mikoyan Gurevich MiG-15 (Nato reporting name “Fagotâ€) Dassault Falcon 900LX and that one “a private Cessnaâ€
Conclusion: THE BERMUDA TRIANGLE is weapons grade junk mythology bordering on pseudoscience. Or it would be if there was any science to attach the prefix pseudo to.Â
It’s bullshit.
Why?
Methane. Vast pockets of it release from the seabed on an irregular basis. These unpredictable emissions blow out the buoyancy of even the largest ships causing them to smash instantly onto the seabed. As the rising methane enters the atmosphere it causes aircraft to stall violently after bursting into flame because their engines have ignited it. (Note from Editor: Methane has been shown to sink ships, but I’m not sure if tests have been conducted for aircraft, nor how it could affect aircraft that are not at extremely low altitude. Note this gas comes from undersea craters. Interesting article here– also no aircraft losses related to biggest recorded methane release here).Â
Geophysics kids. No aliens, secret Nazi redoubts, no paleocontact with ancient astronauts. No Cuban death rays made in the CCCP are involved. Flying reptiles? Crystal pyramids. Nope. None of that nonsense. The Avengers were not found in the desert somewhere and their crews repatriated alive by peaceful aliens, either. That only happened in the 1977 movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
As it turns out, methane has come to be identified as a primary agent of anthropocentric climate change. Methane releases are considered extra-deadly drivers of what looks set to destroy humanity. Perhaps THE BERMUDA TRIANGLE was some kind of dim, twilight lit premonition of our own extinction at the hands of an atmosphere we altered and which all our science, engineering and industry turns out to be as useless against as our poetic spirit does?
More importantly the Bermuda Triangle is very big, according to John Reilly, a historian at the U.S. Naval Historical Foundation (speaking to the National Geographic)- â€The region is highly traveled and has been a busy crossroads since the early days of European exploration….To say quite a few ships and airplanes have gone down there is like saying there are an awful lot of car accidents on the New Jersey Turnpike — surprise, surprise.†For years no ‘control area’ – a similarly big and busy areas of sea- was compared  to the Bermuda Triangle –when it was the numbers were similar.
There’s also the small matter that some of the accounts of missing aircraft and vessels were just made up by writers. Those wishing to procrastinate from sorting out bills or putting out the recycling can easily spend a happy hour cross-checking the popular reports against official records.
Aurora and chemtrails investigated by  former MoD expert here.
Stephen Caulfield used to work around the corner from the old Avro plant near Toronto, Ontario, Canada (the one they didn’t bother building the CF-105 Arrow in). He toils closer to home now, at a car dealership in a sprawl called Mississauga. The brand his employer sells includes a sporty model named after the Mustang fighter. He has a serious blog called suburban-poverty.com. Follow his chemtrails on Twitter.
Want to see more stories like this:Â Follow my vapour trail on Twitter:Â @Hush_kit
At least there is a model kit. You could buy five of them and hang them up in your washroom. It would be funny if it weren’t for the terrible lightning illustrated on the front cover- oh, and the ghoulish horror of it all.
Outside the Western world, Russia’s ultra-agile Su-35 is the most potent fighter in operational service. We asked Justin Bronk from the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) think-tank his thoughts on the Su-35’s combat effectiveness against the Typhoon, the backbone of NATO’s fighter force. We also look at how the Su-35 would fare against the US’ F-15, F-16 and F-22.Â
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HK: What is the current status of the Russian Su-35 fleet?
JB: Russia has 48 Su-35S in service with another 48 scheduled for production. They appear to offer a greater average serviceability rate than previous iterations of the Su-27/30 family, as well as the MiG-29, mainly due to the success of the new Saturn 117S thrust vectoring engines which have so far avoided many of the reliability issues of previous models. However, as with many other aspects of the Russian military, the fact that the production and service numbers of the Su-35 are quite low and exist within a huge mix of various MiG-29 and Su-27/30 derivations which do not share many key components means that running costs are high and logistics remain complex. This drives down serviceability to significantly below US, British and French fighter fleets, except in the case of small forward deployments such as Syria where the entire logistics chain can be concentrated on keeping a small portion of the force at high readines
How does it compare to Typhoon in terms of the following:
Detection/conspicuity to hostile sensors
The Su-35 has a significantly greater Radar Cross Section (RCS) than Typhoon due to its large intakes without effective fan-blade shielding, vertical dual stabilizers and thrust vectoring jet nozzles, as well as the latter’s greater use of radar absorbent materials and signature management for canards. The Su-35’s larger size and the canted position of the engines and greater thrust required also contribute to a heat signature that is significantly greater than Typhoon’s.
In terms of radars, the Su-35S’s Irbis-E PESA radar provides extremely high power levels allowing target detection beyond 300km (although without weapons which can engage at this range), as well as claimed advances in detecting low-observable threats such as stealth fighters at significantly beyond visual range. However, the downside to this is that the Irbis-E has to operate at extremely high power levels to achieve this performance and so is easily detectable and track-able at ranges beyond those at which it can track. All radars except AESAs with very low probabilities of intercept such as the F-22’s APG-77 suffer from this paradox but it is worse for the Su-35 because of the latter’s very large RCS and IR signature which means it must rely on out-ranging its opponents at BVR rather than trying to sneak up on them whilst relying on passive tracking.
Copyright Eurofighter-L. Caliaro
Typhoon’s CAPTOR-M is comparable with the Irbis-E in terms of long range tracking and detection in active scanning mode and may be inferior with regard to detecting low-observable threats, but Typhoon has a very significant advantage in terms of passive tracking through the DASS and the world-leading PIRATE IRST.
Performance (at various altitudes, speeds and in both WVR and BVR)
Both aircraft are capable of super-cruising although the Typhoon’s speed without afterburners at combat loading is significantly higher than the Su-35*. Top speeds at low and high altitudes are comparable, but again Typhoon has the slight edge. In terms of kinematic persistence, the Su-35 burns much more more fuel to sustain energy than Typhoon, but also carries twice as much fully loaded. In prolonged engagements, the Typhoon has better combat persistence during sustained afterburner-dependent manoeuvres and also retains energy better at during high-g turns. This would tend to put the Su-35 at an increasing energy disadvantage over time, even as its thrust-to-weight ratio improves towards parity with Typhoon as it burns off fuel.
During a BVR engagement at high altitudes, assuming both aircraft have detected each other, the Su-35 is likely to be at a significant energy disadvantage as Typhoon would be flying at its higher service ceiling at faster supercruise speeds.
WVR, however, the Su-35 is extremely dangerous due to its phenomenal supermanoeuvrability due to its thrust vectoring engines and huge lifting body. Both in the horizontal and vertical planes, Typhoon would likely be outmatched by the Su-35 WVR, unless a Typhoon pilot could find space to accelerate vertically to gain an energy advantage without being shot down in the process. In reality, of course, whilst in a WVR dogfight situation the Su-35 does have a kinematic advantage, both aircraft are equipped with helmet-mounted sights to cue off-boresight missile shots and carry extremely manoeuvrable IR missiles with excellent countermeasure resistance. Neither is likely to survive a WVR ‘merge’ against the other.
*HK: The Typhoon’s maximum quoted supercruise speed has varied. EADS test pilot Chris Worning put it at M1.15-M1.2, the RAF have stated M1.1 and Typhoon pilots have suggested 1.2-3 with four conformal AMRAAMS, twin tanks and twin ASRAAMs, and 1.5 clean. The Su-35’s supercruise is marginal, probably no higher than M1.1 – it is a much draggier design than the Typhoon.
Maintenance/reliability/sortie rate
Su-35 is bigger, heavier and more mechanically temperamental than Typhoon. However, it does not have such a dependence on software and computers which can cause many issues of their own in the case of Typhoon. If deployed as part of a large unified fleet by a Western air force, Su-35 could probably approach Typhoon’s reliability rate and surpass it in terms of ease of maintenance. However, the fact that Su-35 exists within a patchily resourced Russian Air Force with a myriad of different fighter types means it comes substantially below Typhoon in terms of reliability.
Defensive aids/electronic warfare (EW) suite
Russian EW capabilities tend to be superb. However, their defensive aids suites often lag behind their Western competitors. In the case of Su-35 and Typhoon specifically, both have some of the best DAS and EW capabilities which their respective nations can mount in frontline jets, but the exact details are highly classified. It is probably fair to assume that Typhoon has the edge in terms of defensive aids and passive ELINT gathering, whilst Su-35 has the edge in offensive EW and jamming capabilities.
Man-machine interface/ ease of flying and fighting
This is an area where Russian jets have always struggled. Even with multifunction cockpit displays and digital flight instruments, the Su-35 lags behind Typhoon in terms of ease of flying and fighting with it as a weapons system.
Network connectivity
Lack of Russian Air Force standardisation means that Typhoon wins hands down with latest generation Link 16, MIDS and other connectivity advantages. However, Russian tactical doctrine may mean that this disadvantage is less of an issue for them than it would be for a Western Air Force.
Weapons
Su-35 benefits from superb Russian missile design expertise. The multiple seeker-head mix which Russian fighters would fire in missile salvos in combat with Western fighters makes defending against them a very complicated task. At long range, the Su-35 can fire a mix of semi-active radar homing, anti-radiation (home on jam) and IR homing missiles, whilst at short range the ‘Archer’Â series remains as deadly as ever. Typhoon has the excellent ASRAAM and IRIS-T short range IR missiles which can equal or surpass their Russian counterparts, but at long range the AMRAAM is showing its age and against Digital Radio Frequency Memory (DRFM) jamming technology which the Su-35S employs, its Pk drops significantly to the point that multiple missiles would likely be required to kill each target.
Which set-ups would favour which aircraft?
High and fast in BVR combat and rules of engagement which allow long range missile shots would favour Typhoon, especially once Meteor is fully integrated next year. WVR combat, especially at lower altitudes and speeds favour the Su-35. During a sudden incident as part of, say Baltic Air Policing, where both aircraft would typically be at medium altitude and at close range during QRA intercepts, Su-35S would likely be a real handful for Typhoon.
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Which aircraft, all things being equal, would have an advantage?
I would certainly still take a Typhoon going into a hypothetical ‘all things equal’ scenario, because of its superior kinematics at high altitudes and speeds which allow it to have control of an engagement except in specific scenarios.
Are there tactics which would enable a Su-35 force to take on a F-22 formation?
Simply put – no. Whilst the Su-35 does have the hypothetical capability to detect the F-22 at close ranges using its IRST and potentially the Irbis-E radar, both sensors would have to be cued to focus on exactly the right part of sky to have a chance of generating a target track. By contrast, the F-22 will know exactly where the Su-35 is at extremely long range and can position for complete control of the engagement from the outset with superior kinematics. The Su-35’s only chance would be to absorb the AMRAAM and AIM-9 shots from the F-22’s and hope that they had sufficient numbers left to attack the tankers and airbases which the F-22’s rely on post-engagement.
How do the F-22 and Su-35 compare in terms of close-in agility/energy preservation/types of fighters (angles V energy)
The Su-35 can probably out-turn an F-22 in a horizontal fight at medium and low altitudes, but the need to carry missiles and tanks externally to be effective, as well as the brute size of the Sukhoi will ensure it remains at a distinct energy disadvantage to the Raptor in terms of energy retention and acceleration at all speeds. The F-22 also will not get into an angles fight with an Sukhoi – there is simply no need for it to do so.
How do they compare in terms of BVR engagements?
BVR engagements are all about situational awareness, positioning/energy advantage, and persistence in terms of fuel and missiles. In all but the latter category the Su-35 is hopelessly outclassed by the F-22 (as are all other operational fighter aircraft). Even in terms of missiles, the Su-35 can carry up to twelve to the F-22’s eight but combat practice, especially against stealthy targets, involves firing salvos of six missiles with mixed seekers so the Su-35 only really has two credible shots. By contrast the F-22 can get much closer without being threatened so even against the Su-35S DRFM jammers, it can fire smaller salvos with much better Pk.
Britain’s Typhoons have intercepted Russian Su-27 approaching British airspace (pictured), and performed multiple exercises with Indian’s Su-30s. Far less is known in the West about the Su-35’s capabilities.
How would USAF F-15Cs and F-16Cs fair against the Su-35?
The USAF’s classic F-15C is slightly outclassed by the Su-35, although with upgrades along the lines of the Saudi F-15SA configuration, with a very powerful AN/APG-63(V)3 AESA radar and double the missile loadout of the classic F-15C, they are approaching parity again – albeit with a much heavier focus on BVR capabilities than WVR manoeuvrability than the Sukhoi. The F-15C (modernised), teamed with the F-22 fleet, can certainly remain a match for the Su-35S.
By contrast, the F-16 Block 50/52 fleet is certainly not capable of meeting the Su-35S on anything like equal terms – losing out to the Russian fighter in kinematics, sensors, weapons loadout and EW capabilities.
And against the Saab Gripen and Dassault Rafale?Â
Gripen is a bit of an unknown quantity against modern air superiority machines because it takes a fundamentally different approach to survivability. Whilst in traditional DACT exercises, Typhoon pilots have often referred to the Gripen as ‘cannon-fodder’ due to its inferior thrust-to-weight ratio, speed, agility and armament, in the few cases where the Gripen has ‘come to play’ with its full electronic warfare capabilities, it has given Typhoons very nasty shocks. Against the Su-35S, Gripen would rely on the cutting edge EW capabilities which Saab builds the Gripen (especially the new E/F) around to hide the aircraft from the sensors of the Russian jets in much the same way as the Raptor relies on x-band stealth. These EW capabilities are so highly classified that there is simply no way to assess their effectiveness in the public domain. Having said that, RAF pilots who I have talked to with experience of the Saab fighter’s EW teeth first hand say that the ability of the aircraft to get alarmingly close without detection thanks entirely to EW is very impressive.
Rafale is in a similar position as Typhoon relative to Su-35, but with less of a kinematic advantage over the Su-35 at high altitudes and BVR ranges, and being closer to parity on manoeuvrability at medium and low altitudes than Typhoon. Equally, the excellent SPECTRA system on Rafale would give it more offensive and defensive options in the EW space against Su-35 than Typhoon would have.
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What do you expect the future holds for the Su-35, in terms of upgrades and production figures?
I expect that following the second order of 48 being delivered to the Russian Air Force by 2020, further orders will come in in dribs and drabs whilst the PAK FA/T-50 continues to be refined. Upgrades here and there will no doubt be added but I don’t anticipate any fundamental improvements – the Su-35S really is the pinnacle of the Flanker line.
What should I have asked you about the Su-35?
Haha, is it good value for money? Not withstanding what I’ve said about the various ways in which top-of-the-line and extremely expensive Western fighters such as the F-22, Typhoon (and Rafale which we haven’t really touched on) have answers to the Su-35, for its price tag of around $65M very little comes close!
Justin Bronk is a Research Fellow at the Military Sciences at Royal United Services Institute. He has written articles on the RAF’s role in Syria, and the Rafale versus Typhoon.Â
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NOW AVAILABLE: The Hush-Kit Book of Warplanes, a gorgeous heavily illustrated – and often irreverent- coffee-table book covering the history of aviation 1914 – the present.
The USAF 1960s programme that led to the F-15 was won by McDonnell Douglas, but other fighter design houses had offered rival concepts. The most exciting of these unsuccessful designs was offered by North American, and was designated NA-335. In many ways its configuration resembled the later Sukhoi T-10. The Sukhoi T-10, after much modification, became the now ubiquitous ‘Flanker’ series. The American design differed in two significant ways: it lacked the gap between the engine nacelles, and it had only a single vertical fin.
The ventral gully produces complicated airflows and can offer some separation issues for air-launched weapons, but it does allow the rear fuselage to add significantly to overall lifting area contributing to the fighter’s performance. The 335’s single-tail (backed up by large ventral fins) would have made the aircraft inferior to a twin-tailed aircraft like the F-15 in controllability at high alpha, but it would have been lighter and simpler. However, the ‘335s significant leading edge roots would have aided its ability to generate high alpha angles. Even with folding, it is harder to see how the large ventral fins would not necessitate a very tall stalky undercarriage.
The sabre-shaped wings are particularly interesting – they feature similar wingtip curvature to the T-10, potentially causing issues at high transonic speeds and ruling out the use of tip-mounted missiles.
Keep this blog alive!
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What was the most combat effective piston-engined fighter ever made? An analysis can be found here.
North American proposed a similar design for the nascent F-14 requirement.Â
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Here’s a very quick guide to some interesting books for aviation enthusiasts.
Ultimate Fighter: Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter
Bill Sweetman (2004)
Superbly well-researched and wonderfully readable, this book has also aged extremely well. Sweetman’s deep understanding of the subject and his clarity of thought makes this a must-have for those interested in modern military aviation.
Probably the only masterpiece of literature that tells the true story of a single Bloch MB.170 reconnaissance mission. This haunting book details the thoughts of a man who has watched the destruction of his nation, as he flies a pointless – and likely suicidal – mission.
A Passion for Wings: Aviation and the Western Imagination, 1908-1918
Robert Wohl (1996)
This book looks at how the arrival of the aeroplane affected the Arts in the West. Though a trifle dry in places it is full of extremely interesting images and accounts. When originally released it was favourably reviewed by no less a figure than J.G. Ballard.
What was the most combat effective piston-engined fighter ever made? An analysis can be found here.
When music is terrible the artist will often describe it as ‘experimental’ to avoid criticism, the same is often true of prototypes and experimental aircraft. Given the parade of ludicrous machinery that test pilots were required to fly, the long career of Captain Eric ‘Winkle’ Brown is all the more remarkable. Test pilots deserve everyone’s respect.
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The ‘Beetle’ was based on an idea that would be politely referred to as unorthodox, and never looked like actually working. It barely had any features that weren’t radical – a VTOL (vertical take-off and landing) jet designed to sit on its tail and transition to level flight courtesy of an annular wing, making Thunderbird 1 look conventional. It resembled an eel sticking its head out of a sunken galleon’s cannon.
After the Beetle, the Supermarine 508 appears almost conventional. In fact, in some respects, like its straight wing, it was old hat. Like its near contemporary it was the product of several evolutionary dead-ends, so much so that it is remarkable that it eventually spawned an operational aircraft. The 508 was designed as a response to the questionable idea that the undercarriage of naval aircraft should be dispensed with, and that they should instead be catapulted into the air and land on a giant mattress. The aircraft was also intended to be armed an enormous recoilless gun that fired massive shells – and threw out a weight of equal mass behind it to compensate for the kickback. It also required the aircraft containing it to be huge, and have a butterfly tail to avoid losing the tail the when the gun was fired. This straight-winged behemoth was expected to be supersonic, thanks to thin aerofoils. Even the Admiralty quickly realised that wheel-less aircraft firing artillery shells at Soviet bombers was not the way forward. Rather than doing the sensible thing and scrapping the 508, the design was pursued with retractable undercarriage- the extra bulk of which meant it was now definitely subsonic. Straight wings being so ‘40s, it was redesigned with swept surfaces and a cruciform tail, and redesignated the Type 525. The latter flew for less than a year before it crashed, killing test pilot Lieutenant Commander TA Rickell. It was developed into the Supermarine Scimitar, and probably shouldn’t have been.
The Convair F2Y Sea Dart was one of a string of attempts to create a fighter aircraft that could operate directly from water. The Sea Dart was probably the most ambitious, attempting to create a supersonic fighter that could also land and take-off from water. Unlike conventional floatplanes and flying boats, however, the F2Y was intended to take off and land using ‘hydro-skis’ which extended from the underside of the aircraft to form a planing bottom. Various layouts were tried as the effects of ‘tramping’ (fierce bouncing on waves or water surfaces) almost broke the back of a test pilot. These problems solved, various aerodynamic problems were coming to light, but a demonstration flight was planned for dignitaries over San Diego Bay anyway. As the pilot, Charles E. Richbourg, lined up for a high-speed pass, he lit the afterburners, which triggered violent pitching, causing the airframe to break up in mid air. And that was the end of the aircraft, the concept and, sadly, the pilot.
8. Qaher F-313Â
‘The Plastic Persian’
Everything about the Qaher F-313 is spectacularly incompetent, not least the very obviousness of the fact that it is not a real aeroplane. It is supposedly a stealthy fighter aircraft prototype developed by the Iranian state aviation organisation. It is in reality a mock-up of something that looks vaguely like a stealth fighter, presumably for ‘domestic propaganda’. “The advanced aircraft with an advanced appearance has a very small radar cross section and is capable of operating and flying in low-altitude,†said Iranian defence minister Brigadier-General Ahmad Vahidi. Which is presumably true, on the basis that radars would have difficulty picking up a chipboard model aircraft sitting on the ground, and it is pretty much only capable of operating a low altitude, on the basis that it doesn’t fly. If it could fly, according to a long queue of industry experts, its thick wing and odd fixed canards would light up radar scopes like Christmas trees, just before the nozzle-less jet engine melted the rear half of the aircraft – as long as it had not attempted any high-alpha manoeuvres, in which case the engine would already have flamed out. In any case, enemies would have plenty of time to prepare given the 260 knot maximum speed suggested by the ‘prototype’ aircraft’s airspeed indicator. The comic ineptitude continued with the Minister of Defence insisting a video released to the world’s press featured a flying demonstration of the prototype, while the designer admitted that the footage actually featured a small-scale model. Which was the only honest thing about the whole bizarre episode. At least no-one died (assuming the designer hasn’t suffered an ‘accident’).
7. Stipa-Caproni
‘Tigermoth in the the belly of a whale’
File under W, T and F. There are bad ideas that seem good at the time. The Stipa-Caproni ‘(Barely) Flying Barrel’ was one of the other kind. In the early 1930s, Luigi Stipa developed the idea that blowing an aircraft’s propeller through a duct running the length of the fuselage would increase the propeller’s efficiency. Caproni was compelled by the fascist government to build an aircraft to Stipa’s principles. The result was a bizarre fat tube with tiny wings that looked from the side like the ugliest cartoon aircraft ever, and from the front, like an accident involving a Miles Magister and a length of water main. To Stipa’s credit, it did fly, but very slowly, as any increase in propeller efficiency from the duct was more than offset by the drag of the huge fuselage. It was also found to be very stable – so much so that it could more or less only fly in a straight line. Stipa later complained that the jet engine was ripped off from his ideas. On the plus side, it wasn’t fatal – indeed, it would be pretty hard to injure yourself at the speeds the Stipa-Caproni flew.
6. Bristol 188
‘Filton Failure’
The 1962 Bristol 188 is undoubtedly an attractive aircraft and was rather fast, briefly hitting an oddly appropriate top speed of Mach 1.88. A shame then that it fell completely and utterly short of what it had been designed to do, which was fly at speeds above Mach 2.6 for sustained periods. The Type 188 was conceived to research heat build-up in airframes at high supersonic speeds, as this was feared to be a limiting factor for some of the very fast military aircraft then on the drawing board. Three were built, at fabulous expense, from (very heavy) stainless steel, assembled with specially developed welding techniques, with an exotic cockpit refrigeration system and fused quartz canopy, all intended to resist the high skin temperatures the aircraft was expected to meet and never did. Unfortunately, Bristol forgot about fuel tankage. Even with de Havilland Gyron Junior engines that were less thirsty than the originally planned RR Avons, the 188 could barely stay in the air for 25 minutes, and could not get near its intended speed. Despite this, it was the most expensive British research project to date. An embarrassing dud, not redeemed by muttered excuses about providing data for Concorde’s development. At least everyone who flew it survived.
5. Douglas X-3 Stiletto
‘Jetship dominatrix’
Like the Bristol 188, the Stiletto was designed for fantastic speeds and was completely incapable of reaching them. Douglas had a proud history of high-speed research aircraft in the late 1940s, with the Mach 1 (just) D-558-1 and the superb Mach 2 D-558-2. The X-3, intended for an airframe-scorching 2,000mph, looked as if it was going that fast sitting on the ground. In fact, it could only just exceed Mach 1, and only then in a dive. Much of the blame can be laid at the door of the engines – Douglas realised during the design phase that the J46s they intended to fit had grown too large and too heavy during the powerplant’s development, and had little choice but to fit smaller J34s of lower power. By the time the X-3 flew, in 1953, it was obvious that it was useless for high speed research. A few flights by Air Force pilots were made, and a few more to test the stability of the aircraft’s layout, during which it was discovered that the aircraft suffered from ‘inertia coupling’ at supersonic speeds, a phenomenon that led to control inputs in one axis leading to violent, unintended movements in other axes. The X-3 would have been useful investigating this phenomenon, as the Air Force was starting to lose F-100 Super Sabres to the condition. Unfortunately, NACA pilot Joseph Walker was making a test flight when a particularly harsh pitching movement overstressed the airframe. Much is made these days of X-3 data helping the F-104 programme, but it’s hard to see how much could have been provided as only 51 flights were made, and those of necessarily short duration.
4. DFS 346
‘DFS Sale now on!’
As the Second World War lumbered to a close, Germany’s aircraft designers realised that the main frontline fighters were based on 1930s designs and erupted into a frenzy of creativity, churning out new concepts and forms like there was no nazi tomorrow. One of these was the DFS 346, dreamed up before the company sensibly realised its limits and went into furniture sales. The 346 was intended to go supersonic before anyone was really sure what supersonic flight was all about. As such it had a highly swept wing and carried the pilot in a glass nose in a prone position, which it was thought would help him remain conscious at high speeds, or possibly pretend to be Superman. A partially complete example was taken back to the Soviet Union after the war, and wind-tunnel tests revealed dangerous aerodynamic flaws. The Soviets – with their characteristic lack of prissiness – decided to test it anyway. On the first, gliding, flight, test pilot Wolfgang Ziese barely retained control of the wayward 346, descended too fast and smashed his face on the canopy on landing. Unpowered research continued until 1951, some three years after a Russian-designed aircraft had gone supersonic. Finally, powered tests were carried out, whereupon all control was lost and Ziese bailed out. The 346 may at least have contributed to Soviet supersonic research, though probably not much, and its chief benefit was likely to have been in persuading the Soviets that flying face-first at high speeds was not a good idea (though Winkle Brown noted this position had some advantages). Its pilot survived, which is a point very much in its favour, though not unscathed.
Taking an aircraft designed during the super-advanced ‘Luft ‘46’ phase of WW2 and adding ‘50s US high technology? What could possibly go wrong? In the late 1940s, Bell, builders of the first supersonic aircraft, came by a German prototype with some unusual features. The jet-powered research aircraft Messerschmitt P.1101 recovered from Oberammergau by advancing US troops had wings that could have their sweep angle adjusted on the ground. Bell decided to go one better and develop the P.1101 with wings that could vary their sweep in the air. The result was a machine with a stall so vicious that one false move would lead to a spin that could not be recovered from, perhaps unsurprising given the tiny tail surfaces. Nevertheless, it took two years and 200 flights before the apparently inevitable crash happened, tragically with the loss of pilot Captain Ray Popson. The US government quietly dropped plans to tart up the design and sell it as a low cost fighter to NATO countries, but was able to claim that research into variable geometry had been useful.
2. Christmas Bullet
‘Christmas whoppers’
The designer of the 1919 Christmas Bullet, Dr William Whitney Christmas, was such a liar and fantasist that in some respects it’s a wonder that he actually went to the trouble of building an aeroplane at all, rather than just telling people he had. In fact, Christmas seemed to have persuaded his backers to finance him on the basis of two previous aircraft that there is no evidence ever existed. The Bullet, most definitely did, though most of the claims its owner made for it – that it was the world’s first cantilever-wing aeroplane, that it was the first with a plywood monococque construction, that it was in any way airworthy – proved false. ‘Bullet’ was, though, an apt name for a projectile that invariably harmed anyone it came into contact with. Christmas managed to find funding to build two ‘proof of concept’ aircraft to demonstrate his ‘ideas’ of a deliberately flexible wing inspired by those of birds, and tepid support from the US Army, which leant an engine for ground-testing and the services of a test-pilot, Cuthbert Mills. A flight was attempted in the first aircraft, whereupon the wings peeled off during take-off and the aircraft crashed, killing Mills. Christmas claimed that the aircraft had reached a speed of 197mph. A second aircraft was built, and a propeller issued by the Army, despite the loaned engine having been destroyed during the unauthorised flight as Christmas had kept this secret. The second aircraft also crashed, also fatally. Christmas was still trying to sue people for claiming the aircraft had killed its pilots as late as 1930, and insisted the aircraft had reached a speed of 222mph. Fraudulent and lethal, the Christmas Bullet only avoids the top spot on the basis that few people (still too many) took it particularly seriously at the time.
1. Republic XF-84H
‘Noisecorvette’
The Republic XF-84H combined terrible (and bizarre) characteristics with a conceptual dead-end, and a shabbily run programme; it is clearly the winner. Jet engines of the time had poor acceleration and endurance,  so the earlier F-84 was redesigned around an Allison T40 twin linked turboprop driving a highly unorthodox propeller designed to revolve at supersonic speeds (conventional propellers lose efficiency as the speed of their blades approaches Mach 1), and an afterburner on its jet exhaust. As such, it was designed to be the fastest propeller driven aircraft in the world, at about 670mph, and the Guinness Book of Records gave the XF-84H some credibility by claiming this record for the aircraft in 1997. Guinness was wrong. The vibration of the propeller shaft and uncontrollable snaking in flight meant that the aircraft probably failed to exceed 450mph, and even piston-engined propeller aircraft have gone much faster than this. To add insult to injury, the supersonic propeller was so loud that it could be heard 25 miles away. Close up, the horrific howl caused headaches and nausea, and an engineer and a crew chief both experienced violent fits triggered by the sound. Edwards AFB made the test crews tow the aircraft a long distance out into Rogers dry lake before testing the engine. Twelve flights were made from 1955, all by Republic test pilots – eleven by Hank Beaird (ten of which were cut short due to some technical problem or other) and one by Lin Hendrix, who threatened to fight anyone who made him fly the aircraft again. The only flights made were the manufacturer’s proving programme, and it’s tempting to conclude that this was only completed to avoid financial penalties. No USAF pilot flew the ‘Thunderscreech’. It would probably have killed someone – possibly from the noise alone – if its pilots hadn’t refused to fly it, or the USAF not seen sense and belatedly cancelled the programme.
Dedicated to the memory of Eric ‘Winkle’ Brown
What was the most combat effective piston-engined fighter ever made? An analysis can be found here.
Matthew Willis is a writer and journalist specialising in naval aviation. He is the biographer of A&AEE and Fairey test pilot Duncan Menzies. His book on the Fairey Barracuda will be out later this year.
