If there was a plane I’d like to fly in, it would be the Ford Tri-Star…. Not sure why I say that, since I’m not a big fan of flying, but the Tri Star looks pretty cool!
This picture above shows the inside… This makes the inside of a Delta Connection CRJ look pretty big. But the dozen or so seats are leather with little reading lights above. I like the curtains on the windows too. I think those are airsick bags in the seat backs! Notice the square look to the cabin, as opposed to the rounded tubes of today’s aircraft.
Tucked Neatly below the Wing of the Spruce Goose is the SR-71 Blackbird…. No reconnaissance aircraft in history has operated in more hostile airspace or with such complete impunity than the SR-71 Blackbird. It is the fastest aircraft propelled by air-breathing engines. I watched one cross my radar screen abord the USS Bowen while crossing the Atlantic in just a few short sweeps of the radar. That was one fast airplane. The Blackbird’s performance and operational achievements placed it at the pinnacle of aviation technology developments during the Cold War. The airplane was conceived when tensions with communist Eastern Europe reached levels approaching a full-blown crisis in the mid-1950s. U.S. military commanders desperately needed accurate assessments of Soviet worldwide military deployments, particularly near the Iron Curtain. Lockheed Aircraft Corporation’s subsonic U-2 reconnaissance aircraft was an able platform but the U. S. Air Force recognized that this relatively slow aircraft was already vulnerable to Soviet interceptors. They also understood that the rapid development of surface-to-air missile systems could put U-2 pilots at grave risk.
From the Archives — originally published on the Opelika Daily News on March 23, 2005. View the original page.
