Those magnificent men in their flying machines..

ICBM · June 2018

Emp_Fab said:

We used to get them every day at 6pm. We used to call them "The six o'clock booms". Mostly because they happened at six o'clock and went 'boom'. Concorde would accelerate over Mach 1 once it got over the Bristol channel on its daily flight to JFK. Dunno why is was always two booms though.... always two, about 0.75 seconds apart.

One is from the compression shockwave at the nose and the other from the collapse of the cavity the plane leaves in the air behind it. There is a double boom from any supersonic aircraft, but most military ones are short enough that you don't really hear them as two separate sounds - Concorde is long enough that there's enough of a gap to clearly hear both.

FazTheWookie · June 2018

It still amazes me that there were only eleven years between the first flight of the Avro Lancaster and the first flight of the Avro Vulcan!

JezWynd · June 2018

Once had a unusual view of Concorde. Walking on crest of the hill above Brighton Railway Station when Concorde slowly flew past very low as it lined up to pass over the newly reopened Grand Hotel. Beautiful sight.

ESBlonde · June 2018

FazTheWookie said:

It still amazes me that there were only eleven years between the first flight of the Avro Lancaster and the first flight of the Avro Vulcan!

Designed by the same dude too, Roy Chadwick. (well he led a team).

The title of the thread reminds me there is a wonderful aircraft collection in Bedfordshire called the Shuttleworth trust. It was started pre WWII by a wealthy young lad collecting 'old' aircraft, bearing in mind that in the 1930s old aircraft couldn't be more that 30 years old! The boy Richard Shuttleworth became a man and joined the RAF as a bomber pilot, he lost his life in 1941 and the collection became a trust which holds aircraft that flew before Richards death in 1941. It's a unique place to visit and the summers evening flying shows are quite special. They have an original 1911 bleriot that still flys on it's original engine, it is the worlds oldest flying aircraft. Engine time is restricted to a pass along the length of the grass runway about 15ft in the air. The aircraft is pulled to the start and from the end by two blokes to save engine wear on any taxi manovers!
Anyway the film those magnificent men in thier flying machines was released in 1965 when the made some reproduction aircraft for the movie, one is now held at Shuttleworth and that reproduction airframe is as old as the machine it was built to represent was in 1965! Beautifully maintained by the shuttleworth trust.

Hendon, Gosford, Duxford are all wonderful museums. But Shuttleworth is very special and intimate. A living museum in every sense of the word.

ICBM · June 2018

ICBM said:

But if Trump *really* wants to "Make America Great Again", manned exploration of the Moon and possibly Mars would be at the top of the list of ways to achieve it, and also establish his place in history.

Well this wasn't quite what I was thinking of...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-44527672

But still - "This time, we will do more than plant our flag and leave our footprints [on the Moon]. We will establish a long-term presence, expand our economy, and build the foundation for the eventual mission to Mars."