#experimental aviation

[aviatrix-ash]

For no reason other than the fact I love them, here's a few of the many, many biplanes I've met recently :3

[curatorsday]

Thursday, November 9, 2023

I spent the day working on the text for a new exhibit entitled "Did it Fly?". The photo above shows two members of the Hammondsport Amateur Aero Club in 1909. The group of seven young men (aged 15-19) designed, built, and successfully flew three gliders before turning their attention to powered flight. They built the Babcock Machine biplane - as seen in pieces above - and equipped it with a one cylinder, 7 hp motorcycle engine.

So, Did it Fly? (keep reading to see answer)

YES! It lifted off under its own power and carried 19-year-old William Babcock about 75 feet before landing safely.

[dronescapesvideos]

Curtiss XP-55 Ascender, prototype canard fighter aircraft. Circa 1943.

➤VIDEO: https://youtu.be/ChtEyx09ZIY

[nocternalrandomness]

Lockheed XF-104 photographed in 1957 over Rogers Dry lake

[usafphantom2]

4 August 1967. The newly unveiled white X-15A-2 next to XB-70 No. 1

@ron_eisele via X

[carbone14]

Chasseur expérimental Kyushu J7W1 Shinden découvert dans une usine à Fukuoka – Japon – 10 octobre 1945

[supreme-leader-stoat]

Tell us about the time you flew!

It was actually a recurring thing, but there's this program called Young Eagles hosted by the Experimental Aircraft Association, and what it is is they'll get pilots (often retirees) with their own small planes to volunteer their time and vehicle to take 8-17 year olds up for free and teach them to fly, in the interest of helping the younger generation get into aviation.

Anyway, there was a chapter within driving distance of my hometown. So every few months when they had a meetup my dad would drive my sister and me out, and the pilots would actually go and take us up in their planes, and depending on how many kids there were you'd either get to copilot or you'd be a passenger. And so over the course of my involvement with this program I actually learned all the skills you need to pilot a small plane, from ground checks to takeoffs to landings to actually steering the thing in midair and reading the instruments and whatnot.

If you or any younger family members have any interest in aviation, I really do have to recommend you try to find out if there's an EAA chapter near you. Everyone I met as part of Young Eagles was incredibly cool. I also know at least some chapters also have similar programs for adults, if you're no longer a kid but still want to learn how to fly a plane.

[enriquemzn262]

Sky Hawk

Iranian project to use the Raytheon MIM-23 Hawk surface-to-air missile as a long-range BVR missile for the Grumman F-14 Tomcat, in an attempt to compensate for the lack of AIM-54 Phoenix missiles, expended during the Iran-Iraq war.

The project proved factible, but the end of the war brought an end to it.

[radarsteddybear]

This is the Northrop “Gee-Whizz” Decelerator Sled. As you can see, it's not an airplane--it is, as its name would suggest, a sled. It was built used in tests after WWII to better understand the injuries sustained during pilots in aircraft accidents. They would launch this thing down a 2,000 ft. long track at up to 200 mph and then abruptly stop it, creating a deceleration of up to 46 Gs, all with a human person inside. The project was run by Dr. Col. John Stapp, who himself made 26 runs on the sled, suffering "concussions, cracked ribs, broken wrists, and retinal hemorrhages," proving that test pilots (and test...sledders?) are truly a different breed. He felt that these injuries were worth the information these tests provided, saying, "I took my risks for information that will always be of benefit. Risks like those are worthwhile."

The upshot is that the results of these tests led the Air Force to call for redesigned cockpits and pilot harnesses.  These tests also led to the Highway Safety Act of 1966, which required seat belts in all new cars sold in the US beginning in 1968.  

[cathartes-aura-shitposting]

weird plane time!!

since i have a random unusual aircraft generator and see a severe lack of any fun airplane facts (especially on the obscure/strange ones), i decided "fuck it" and step up to give tumblr some fun little airplanes.

and for the first post....it's a helicopter.

the Bell YAH-63 (aka Bell model 409).

(link to wiki page)

this fine fella was an experimental attack helicopter created by Bell Helicopters, and it was to compete for the Advanced Attack Helicopter (AAH) competition.

bassically, the AAH competition was exactly what it sounded like; a competition between aircraft manufactures to see who could create the best next attack helicopter for the US Army. more specifically, as wikipedia states: "the Army's broader concern was the task of protecting Western Europe from the numerous Warsaw Pact tanks to the east"

what the army wanted was an attack helicopter that was better than the AH-1 Cobra in both range, firepower and performance. the YAH-63, alongside the YAH-64 (which would later become the well-known AH-64 apache), competed for that title.

unfortunately, the YAH-63 lost. why? well, the Army said that the two-bladed rotors made it "more vulnerable", and believed that the tricycle landing gear was less stable than the taildragger landing gear that the Apache had.

three helicopters total were made. the first one crashed a few months after it's initial flight. the other two were the ones that actually competed.

wikipedia doesnt state were the other two prototypes went. however, searching through google, i found that both examples of them ended up as the United States Army Aviation Museum near Daleville, Alabama:

and as an avigeek who advocates for the preservation of historical aircraft (and especially the rare and weird ones), i always love it when prototypes like these are spared from being scraped/destroyed. they really are a one-of-a-kind.

[ellie-tarts]

georgie georgie georgie

because i absolutely cannot be stopped i've made a temeraire oc

born to aviator parents, georgie probably would've been slated for an egg if she'd been a boy, but she and her sister were girls, and while there aren't many women in the corps, there also aren't many dragons who absolutely require a female captain

but she loves being an aviator and loves dragons, and is on good track to be a lieutenant in some years

of course the dragon plague upends things, and there is a lot of reshuffling and many many aviators are grounded

she sneaks in to watch the egg hatching of an uncertain breed. and the dragon rejects all the potential captains offered to her and instead seeks out the teen girl hidden away, refusing everyone else

the dragonet hatched quite small, and despite a rapid growth period and everyone's best efforts, she ended up even smaller than the average winchester

and thus the two learned to be couriers

which is probably good. since her dragon mostly views other people on a range from disinterest to dislike. she would not have taken well to a crew

and this personality is juxtaposed with georgie's attempts to be confident and easy going due to her new duties, which are more public than she was trained up for

good luck out there you two

also if you got this far, the flowers in the middle are st john's wort, for her last name

x x

[aviatrix-ash]

It was a little too hot today to work on the actual N3 Pup so the little plen gets arted instead. This was super fun to do! :3

[otherworldly-vignettes]

I don’t know why I love airports. They’re over-crowded, uncomfortable, and crammed full of busy, anxious people. The seats are always uncomfortable. The copy-paste stores selling copy-paste souvenir’s of interchangeable city logos. Everything overpriced. But I love the wandering. The hidden nooks. The art. The anticipation. The possibilities. The questions. The trip to anywhere one step away.

I don’t know why I love airplanes either. They’re cramped and smell funny. But I love the people. The passengers all going to the same place. The small world of acquaintances. The strangers who strike up a conversation. I love the feeling of movement. The thrill of take-off. Watching people dwindle to specks. Watching cars turn to blurred lines. Cities turn to blips on the landscape. The engineering of the wings. The endless seas. The endless clouds. The feeling of flight. And watching as it all returns to normal. Life rushing back at me, the metaphorical and literal converge.

[dronescapesvideos]

Bachem's Ba 349 Natter (Viper), the world's first manned, vertical-take-off interceptor. ➤VIDEO: https://youtu.be/CmbZ0C2W8yE

[nocternalrandomness]

Bell X-1 'Glamorous Glennis' at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, Washington DC

[usafphantom2]

X-31 Semi-Tailless Concept.

In 1994, software was installed in the X-31 to demonstrate the feasibility of stabilizing a tailless aircraft at supersonic speed, using thrust vectoring.

@Destroye83 via X