XB-70A

I made my WORST mistake ever today. So ridiculous and dumb that I still wonder how it could have happened... Being an off-day I decided to restart the work on my 1.2.1-made shuttle, the X-22A. I quickly saw that nothing seems problematic as I already made two test flights with her months ago. She just was a bit unstable, so in that case let's go for a new flight. But no, not a simple orbital flight, let's go to Minmus! Without any other test! () Such a beautiful umpteenth day for a flight! Samus Kerman got the honor to flew it. The climbing was pretty "normal", nothing to note apart of unpleasant tendency of being really reactive to the commands. Separation of the first stage and circularization at 200 km. At this point the spacecraft got around 2.9 km/s available. On the way to Minmus. Once again the orbital angle around the mint-ball was not pleasant for the returning trip. Return to Kerbin with still enough fuel to realize a last circularization. Even if the craft is light I was not about to risk a direct re-entry. One last maneuver and five minutes later Samus started feel the temperature rising in the cockpit... Controls were terrific at this point. After having slowed down enough with the whole surface the nose has to be lowered slowly to evade a flip but every single tap on the arrow keys immediately affect the craft comportment. It forced to control it only by making some quick and light tapping. KSC runway overshot... that's a trademark. Usually I would have re-routed to the Island airfield but as I equipped the X-22A with a "Juno" turbojet for some "powered gliding" the decision was to go back to turn back to the Space Center. The "Juno" was so helpful. Being so low in fuel was not a problem for its low consumption and the craft was so light at this time that it was able to fly instead of gliding. Then the ultimate shame happened... "Gear down and loc..." (...) "nose gear... WHERE IS THE NOSE GEAR?!!" Too low and too late to go around and find a solution. Samus HAD to land! Easy, eeeeaaasyyyyy... It probably my softest landing ever. Not using the gears brakes probably help too to make the nose touch as gently as possible. Well done Samus! I still don't understand what happened here. I still convinced that I haven't forgotten the nose gear when building it in 1.2.1... and once in the VAB it was possible to see that no gear were installed. Anyway I never felt so stupid in KSP than today at the time the landing gear lowered!

As wrote before I was thinking to make some special drawings only dedicated to airborne fire-fighting as most of the time the souls flying these machines are forgotten and do not received the honors they should have. The first made was the DC-6B, so here come the next : A Beechcraft "King Air" is breaking hard to the right after having marked the area while "Tanker 911" is dropping its retardant over it. Air Spray's Lockheed L-188A "Electra". A Canadair CL-415 of the "Protezione Civile" releasing its load of water on a fire-front close of Italian "fire-watchers". I also started a Gemini-Titan to change a bit but didn't worked on it for three days now... too many ground details make me want to throw it away.

First day off in about three weeks, a good occasion to restart the "work". Like the precedent XC-73A the XC-74A, for simple experimental and fun reasons, was built after a real aircraft and stayed in orbit for about five months. Today was the occasion to try its the performances during re-entry and landing : (Master Myasishchev please forgive the insult I made of your creation...) Undocking and saying an umpteenth goodbye to the space tire. Disappointing result here... despite a full fuel transfer to the rear tank and a presentation over 45 degrees the craft start to drop its nose... (Dear KSP team, what would you think about adding a new building to the KSC which will be a wind tunnel?) High Overheating Temperature also know as HOT! I was desperate at this moment. The craft got such a good air penetration compared to my other ones that it wasn't decelerating enough to consider a landing at the KSC with the remnant of fuel onboard... So, over than traditional rerouting to the island airfield. For the first time I was happy more than ever before to have installed more than a single breaking chute here. Gear down on final. The craft appears to become really hard to control under 150 m/s, commands are responding as bad as if we were at 100 m/s for most of the other craft of this category. (Pull up, pull up, PULL UUUUPPPP!!!) Arrrrg controls are terribles! The two small landing gears parts placed in engine 2 and 3 nacelles are transforming the SSTO in a giant bumper car! Hopefully the chutes are making their job so well that I did not have to worry about the landing distance... At least this pair of small gears also make Varuna really easy to taxi and turn. I never doubted of Valentina. Well, such a crazy craft to control and nice to get a good rise of heartbeats when you feel over-relaxed. I will share it once some really small problems will be settled.

I went to the museum about three times now. Her condition still was pretty good the last time in 2014, and I found her really interesting to discover how hard the condition onboard were. Even as an after-War submarine it still was a "classic" one. But my biggest disappointment was what they made to the Colbert guided-missiles cruiser. We should never had give her to the city of Bordeaux. Nearly immediately after she was docked to what was supposed to be her resting place some groups of different inhabitants were created, with one named "Destroy the Colbert", simply because she now was "spoiling the view from their apartments". Not enough incomes and the bad will from the city simply finish to kill her. She now is roasting in the bay of Brest with other ships from the navy waiting to be dismantled or sink as targets. I was about to use them as an exemple in my first post. We already talked about them previously for the fate of Sao Paulo, so many of them having served all around world and none being preserved is a shame...

This old lady got such an important history of active service. I understood maintaining them in a good shape for museum can be terribly expensive but to keep at least one unit of a class should be considered more important than what peoples are thinking. Personally I still consider the fact that we kept the Redoutable, Flore, Argonaute and Espadon SS/SSBN as a miracle. The last time I went to visit the Maillé-Brézé destroyer at Nantes she was not in a good external shape. And what we did to the Colbert CG is just shameful.

I quickly made it a month ago but totally forget to share it here...

@legoclone09 I was about to rebirth this topic, you beat me and well as a love Duran Duran, discovering them at 7 years old while looking at "A view to a kill" for the first time. Impossible to forget this generic... My favorite single since I've seen the movie at 4 (I know it's so overheard and stereotypical) : But my number one group since ever stays Toto. Principally with "Wings of TIme" from their "Kingdome of Desire" album : And an addiction to Fish and Marillion : (I will always remember the feeling I got the first time I heard it)

Traditional Indian modular aerodynamics : Switzerland had deployed Toblerone Chocolate-like trains too : Steam trains addicts will love this pipe :

Thanks for the good laugh I just got!

Oh yes! Thank you. I will try to find a shop specialized to find them and some others. I think to start some special drawing only devoted to airborne fire-fighting with the forgotten aircraft models or the most unexpected, like this Douglas DC-6B from the French "Sécurité Civile" : F-ZABD, callsign "Pélican 62", served from 1978 to 1990. Once I will feel enough "confort" I will start to place some decors all around.

I decided to come back to KSP today. Finally completing the XC-73A Pallas SSTO and making her operational : The step to 1.3 makes me change some things to the game and so I had to use an older save to complete the flight. Leaving Outer Heaven after nearly half a year. De-orbiting and final descent to the KSP. The craft didn't overheat too much but she still use to pitch down at the end of the re-entry. Traditional runway overshot... but I took the decision to not divert to the island airfield this time as the I was not able to remember the landing speed of the craft and think it should be huge. Final turn and gear down. The craft appears to be heavier than what I expected but also stay well in controls while still flying under 100 m/s. Just need some thrust. The breaking chute helps a lot this time! Rudder controls also are sufficient on the ground. Welcome back! I still have to refine some things then will upload it on KerbalX.

Thank you. I wish I could do better but it would also require a better equipment than ball-point pens and school color pencils.

Some new ones made these last days : Aeroflot's Tupolev Tu-154M landing at St-Pete Pulkovo. AREA Ecuador Convair 990 "Coronado". Pan Am Boeing 377 "Stratocruiser" at Rio de Janeiro Galeão. A Yugoslavia Air Force Canadair CL-215 dropping its load of water on a mountain fire in the Balkans.

Personally the wings, horizontal and vertical stabilizers firstly made me think to the one of the Su-15TM : But you these of course, the rest different.

Apart of some real trolls who are doing it intentionally the real conspiracy gurus and their followers are more and more numerous. But is this not, alas, what has always eaten up Humanity? From ancestral beliefs to the crazy "conspiracy" theories of the recent years they find their followers through the simplicity of which they are made. They are so simple, absolute and totally irrational that it is impossible to contradict them by the reflection and rationality. And of course it is so human to choose the path of Supremacist Easiness instead of the complexity and the efforts coming with.

I don't have a lot of time today, so here is a fast made F-16. Like the famous solo display the RNLAF is using in Europe.

I like it too, "7.62" well resume it. To be back to the topic : Sud Aviation SE-210 "Caravelle" 10B3 of Syrian Air The BAC TSR-2 prototype is waking up some quiet lords. The Dassault "Mirage" III V-01 prototype achieving a vertical landing. A Vickers VC10 Type 1101 of Gulf Air landing at Cork (I totally missed the landing gear here ).

Never before, but thanks to you. I was starting to like this trailer then once I have seen the OH-6 Cayuse it was over. Now I can't stop to think about it and want the game!

Oooh, the beautiful VKS 12.7 mm

I made some new ones during the week. 17 January 1991, Iraq : Operation Desert Storm just has been initiated. Splitting the air in the darkness a Lockheed F-117A Nighthawk from the 37th Tactical Fighter Wing of the U.S Air Force is dropping one of its laser guided-bomb over Baghdad's strategic targets while the Iraqi anti-air defense is lightening the sky of tracers and projectors.The raid, initially seen as a total success, was later decreed as a partial failure.But the fact that the Nighthawks were able to enter and escape from Baghdad, then one of the most well defended city in the world, without any loss was, is and will stay a great achievement in the aviation and military histories. 3rd June 1973, France : the Tupolev Tu-144S Charger is taking-off from Paris Le Bourget in the howling of its Kuznetsov NK-144A engines. Fighting for the Supersonic transport first place against the Aérospatiale-BAC Concorde during this 1973 airshow the crew tried to push the aircraft to its known limits while the team of Tupolev bureau deactivated the securities of the onboard computer to let the crew realized their maneuvers. After having realized an impressive take-off and a low altitude passage over the field the crew re-engaged the afterburner to climb at full thrust. The aircraft later initiated a steep dive and while the crew tried to recover the aerodynamic and dynamic forces broke the right wing, making the aircraft spinning to its back where the forces destroyed its fuselage in thee main parts which finally crashed on the small town of Goussainville. The crew of six and eight others peoples were killed in the tragedy. This accident marked the death of the Tu-144 program which was already seriously threatened by its opponents within the Soviet airplane industry. The crash site now got a stone placed along one of the town main road and which can be approached. And my favorite of the week : An Air France Lockheed L-1049G Super Constellation is climbing out from Paris Le Bourget airport in a stormy night from one of the multiple daily flights to New York Idlewild airport (now JFK) in 1956.F-BGNJ enter in service with AF in 1953 and was immediately reservede to some of the most glorious destinations of the time, Buenos Aires, NYC or Delhi. As all of the airline's Super Constellation "November Juliett" originally was a L-1049C then was modernized as a L-1049G in 1956, at this occasion she also received a red "Super-G" paint on her fuselage and tail.She kept on flying for Air France for nearly 14 years until the 8 August 1967 after 24 284 hours of flight then is sold to Air Fret.She is re-registered as F-BRAD in 1968 and is used for medical evacuation in the short lived Republic of Biafra (a secessionist state of Nigeria) and in others conflict places. "Alfa Delta" finally came back to France in 1974 when she landed for the last time at Nantes Atlantique airport.She just escaped to her dismantling when Mr. Gaborit bought her for a little sum in order to make peoples visit her at the parking of the airport. She now was totally renovated, repainted to the colors of Air France with her original registration and still can be visited at Nantes.

Never raise the white flag. I got depressions too, four in 25 years of existence with a first at 10... and am doomed by a health problem which was officially supposed to ground me. But I just rise my finger to some of the medics and blinded administrative workers and finished by becoming a pilot. Of course I never get anything more bigger than a Cessna Caravan in my hands for now but I will keep on fighting, just to realize my dream and to live in my passion.

I remember one of my uncle who worked at the CNES then the ESA from the 70's to this year got an important number of different launches recordings. He is the one who gives me a part of passion as a kid with his cassettes at a time of the ESA was not diffusing its different flights to the public. I just got Ariane 1 flight number 3 and an Ariane 44L from the end of the 90's in a box at the family house and he got all the rest. Whoaaa, Trinitite. I don't know what I would give to come to this Historical site and grab an example of it.

"Face Bank" made in Japan :

Interesting topic! I got some rarities due to my dad who was a diver in the French Navy then in the National Gendarmerie, he got the occasion to recover a cryptographic rotor machine on a sunk ship of the U.S Navy out of the coast of Normandy. It's in a perfect state and is working. A lot of onboard lanterns too and many other things I can't remember now. But what I got the most interest of has been found by my grandfather who, also in the Gendarmerie, was sent on the 3 June 1973 at Goussainvile to the crash site of the Tupolev Tu-144S. It's something with Turkish 981 he never talked us about... but he kept an ashtray of the Soviet supersonic airliners : I placed it just over the pedestal of the model. This one was placed inside a seat armrest of the first class. Impressively it was not too damaged by the impact or the fire.

I used gifs.com for months now and was not disappointed. The last time was for "Galli the Alligator" and "Tai Chi" profil pic :