This plane was revieled to the media because it has been retired, having served its purpose as a technology demonstrator.
The shapes of airframes that they can get to fly never ceases to amaze me.
http://www.popsci.com/popsci/aviation/article/0,12543,365576,00.html
http://www.boeing.com/news/releases/2002/photorelease/q4/pr_021018-4m.html
They’re only able to fly because of the electronic fly- by- wire systems; otherwise, they would be too unstable for the pilot to handle.
If you read down at the bottom of the article, it states:
amazingly, in view of its shape—had a simple all-manual flight control system without a computer in sight.
That doesn’t apply to the f-117, f-16, f-14., f-15, b2, the Airbus, and about 90 percent of everything else with a jet engine and an airframe. All manual doesn’t mean all manual. All manual would be cables and pulleys controlling ailerons, rudders, flaps, and landing gears. There are countless electro- mechanical circuits in such planes to make adjustments because a pilot cannot react quickly enough to make.
Of course they’re not manually pulling levers and ropes and things. I thought what they meant when they said no computers in sight was that there were no computers that had to adjust the ailerons, rudders, and elevators without the pilot initiating the action. You had indicated that it would have been too unstable for such a thing in your previous post and I merely posted some quotes I pulled from the article.
We often get confused with manual and computerized. Too much emphasis is placed on high tech as being synonymous with computers. Servo hydraulics are feedback controlled devices that respond to input and adjust for discrenpencies and can be controlled with something as simple as a vacuum tube or transistors but are technological devices. The Soviet Mig 25 flew at 2,000 mph + and had vacuum tubes as part of its avionics. I also think Pop Sci is exaggerating when it mentions that this plane has no computers. Maybe it doesn’t have a computer, but it must have a high degree of IC electronics because this plane has no rudder making it inherently unstable without feedback control or some form of vector thrust to prevent it from tail spinning. But then again, semantics can be the source of a lot of misunderstanding.
Well… they keep telling us that Bumble bees aren’t supposed to be airworthy… hehe… I still want someone to build high-speed rigid airships like in L.Neil Smith’s “Probability Broach”… that’d be awesome, the speed of commercial air travel, but you’re not stuck in a sardine can.
Imp
Never seen that airship.
Once when I was on a geology field trip in Death Valley CA, we saw what I think was the F-117A Flying over head. It was being escorted by two single-engine fighters at a relatively low altitude. From underneath all you could see of it was a big black triangle. http://www.holloman.af.mil/photos/f-117/981223f117.jpg
hehe… I would hope not… “The Probability Broach” is a novel. 
Imp
I saw one at the Toronto CNE airshow. Very slow and awkward looking.
Improvisar thanks for clarifying that for me.
I saw one at the Toronto CNE airshow. Very slow and awkward looking.
Improvisar thanks for clarifying that for me.[/quote]
I saw one too.
I think it looks evil and menacing. 
Too bad there were guards with M16s stationed all around it, saying they’d shoot anyone if they passed the red line around it. They were SP (Security Police), and they WILL shoot you if you do.
Um… dude… not even Marines are that stupid. They’re not gonna shoot you for ducking under the velvet rope… can you imagine what the press would do with that?? If you had a gun in your had, now that would be a different matter. At the most they’d grab you by the arm, and lead you back to question you for a few hours. (Unless the questions turned up some good reason for you to be detained, like your uncle is Osama, and you got a love letter from Saddam in your pocket).
Imp
Um… dude… not even Marines are that stupid. They’re not gonna shoot you for ducking under the velvet rope… can you imagine what the press would do with that?? If you had a gun in your had, now that would be a different matter. At the most they’d grab you by the arm, and lead you back to question you for a few hours. (Unless the questions turned up some good reason for you to be detained, like your uncle is Osama, and you got a love letter from Saddam in your pocket).
Imp[/quote]
Nope, it was a law that they HAD to use fatal force.
Sure, Valarking… sure.
Imp
Oh, BTW, I’ll bet their weapons weren’t even loaded… clips in the pocket like Barney Fife (from “The Andy Griffith Show”). They may have been loaded if this was after Sept. 11, 2001. Trust me, I’m a Navy brat, I know a little about these things.
Imp
8th grade school children gunned down after crossing velvet rope at air show
Officer states “we HAD to”
I don’t think so.
Kids will believe anything though, so maybe the military was just exploiting that. 
A couple of years ago A friend and I went to see the B-17 G “Aluminum Overcast” http://www.b17.org/ when it flew into town on tour. While the crew was showing us the beautiful restoration job they had done and telling us how dangerous it was for the 10 man crews who flew missions in them an elderly man joined the tour who had been part of a B-17 crew during the war.
He was the ball turret gunner. That’s when the real tour started. He told us what it was like to be suspended 30,000 ft. in the air inside a tiny ball on your back in a fetal position with two 50-caliber machine guns right by your ears! He talked about crew procedures, showed us where all his buddies were positioned, and most importantly where to find the relief tube! 
Very educational.
You can even book a flight on this B-17 for $350 - $395.
If this sounds like a lot consider that it costs over $700.00 to fill the fuel tanks!
Sweet… though my favorite WWII aircraft was the Corsair. That was such a beautiful bird. (They were used by the Navy and Marines, I think almost exclusively in the Pacific Theater, I think the only paint job was Navy blue, and it’s the one with bent wings, they extend from the fuselage at about a 45 degree or so down angle for a few feet, then angle back to level.)
If I’m ever rich, I want to buy and restore one of those.
Imp
