Aircraft Trivia Quiz

That would be the Mirage IV. The Germans were justifiably worried about a French nuclear-capable supersonic bomber which could only make it as far as Berlin if the crew wanted to come home again afterwards.

Cheers,

Chris.

Correct;

The French "suicide bomber" - nice looking plane.

Onto you.

OK - name me a jet airliner which featured bicycle (as per the B-47 ) undercarriage.

Cheers,

Chris.

  Airbus A340-600???? this photo shows it. Kinda??? Maybe???

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Virgin.atlantic.a340-600.g-vyou.arp.jpg

   Or maybe the A380

Nope. By bicycle, I mean two main gears situated along the fuselage centreline. Aircraft with two or more main gears retracting into the wings or wing roots, such as the B-747 and the MD-11, don't count.

Cheers,

Chris.

That's the one. First German jet airliner, to be precise. Not a wild success - even Interflug didn't want to buy it. I think the glazed nose is a navigator's station, but it would have been cool if it had been an observation lounge...

Dcaponell's turn

Cheers,

Chris.

DH 5

Would that be the Sopwith Dolphin, Bruce? Initial versions had two fixed forward-firing Vickers guns and two Lewis guns on a flexible mounting, before it was realised that this might be a bit too much like hard work for the pilot, if he also had to fly the plane at the same time.

Cheers,

Chris.

It was indeed the Dolphin. Another backwards-stagger-wing. The question was of course inspired by the previous one, thanks dcaponeII.

Not only were there two Lewis guns mounted to shoot over the propeller (sometimes these were reduced to one or none) but there was also an arrangement on some Canadian(?) machines where the guns were mounted above the lower wing, outside the propeller arc (much like the later Gladiator, except the guns for these were mounted in pods below the lower wing).

The top brass, of course, thought that this was going a bit far, and that two guns should be more than enough.

The major issue with the Dolphin was the fear factor (rumour mill, maybe) of the possibility of pilots breaking their neck in the event of a bad landing involving a nose-over (because there was no upper wing to protect him) - hence the "roll bar" on which the Lewis guns were mounted. Maybe this is also why the excellent Bristol M1 didn't find favour on the Western Front (but excelled elsewhere), plus of course, it was deemed to be not as well-built as a biplane.

Over to you.

chris hall wrote:

Would that be the Sopwith Dolphin, Bruce? Initial versions had two fixed forward-firing Vickers guns and two Lewis guns on a flexible mounting, before it was realised that this might be a bit too much like hard work for the pilot, if he also had to fly the plane at the same time. Cheers, Chris.

Looks to me like he's got it!

I assumed he meant operational. The only other option I can think of is an experimental Eindekker that had four or five guns, but it was found to be too complex for the interruptor gear to be practical.

Tom

T_Terrific wrote:

Looks to me like he's got it! I assumed he meant operational. The only other option I can think of is an experimental Eindekker that had four or five guns, but it was found to be too complex for the interruptor gear to be practical.

He did mean operational, and they were. The Lewis guns weren't "flexible" as on a Scarff ring or even a Foster mount a la SE 5a. They were fixed, and they were flown in combat.

I didn't say that the four guns could be trained on the same target (although maybe  on a Zeppelin ...)

OK. Name me an airliner, that made it into production, with forward-swept wings.

Cheers,

Chris.

Depending on whatyou considered to constitue an "airliner" in terms of seating capacity (seems to vary);

HFB-320 Hansa Jet?

I'm not sure that there's a minimum number of passenger seats (one?) that an aircraft has to have in order to qualify as an airliner. Some of the very earliest ones (converted DH-4s) had only three or four, and some of the helicopters operated by Heli-Air Monaco on their scheduled Nice Airport - Monaco service have only four passenger seats.

But yes, it was the Hansajet I had in mind. Your turn, Junkie.

Cheers,

Chris.

This aircraft was inspired by a type/role only perfected in the latter part of WW2, Development started in the late 40s & the aircraft served on into the 80s, it also managed to claim a number of performance records in early service - it was also liked by it users for its performance.

This is a twin jet, single & twin seat (not at the same time mind) aircraft that served in more than one role. Key performance factors were limited on earlier models. 

Dang! Stumped!

Hmmm... Night fighters were perfected at the end of World War Two... but exclusively two-seaters!

High Altitude interceptors came into their own at the end of World War Two... but not too many two-motored, jets come to mind...

 ...and performance records! Gee-wiz... thinking...

...The BAC "Lightning" started out as a research project... in the '50s... soooo...

 Maybe the McDonnel Douglas F-101 Voodoo? I don't think it made it into the 80s...!

The role was initially intended as a long range penetration/escort fighter, as perfected by the Stang.

The Craft was indeed the F-101 Voodoo, the EF-101B served for Canada until 1987. Is it just me, or if you look long enough at the Voodoo - can you see a Phantom trying to squeeze out?

Onto you.

Yippee!

Got it. Cool.

 ...Well if you think you see a Phantom "II" trying to squeeze out, you'd be correct!

The Phantom II borrowed design features of the Voodoo extensively.

That's what I was getting at - anyhow, more importantly - its your turn now.

No question posted within 48H of correct reply results in abduction by special ops team for some strange & painfull s***.

Milairjunkie wrote:

That's what I was getting at - anyhow, more importantly - its your turn now. No question posted within 48H of correct reply results in abduction by special ops team for some strange & painfull s***.

Actually, the time frame for a "blank" question or answer is not supposed to be as few as 48 hours.

When I first suggested this forum, I then later added a couple of simple rules so no one could unfairly come in and possibly "hang the forum out to dry" (whether the reason is valid or a hostile gesture by an antogonistic troll) by not responding.

Since I got tired of re-posting the basic guidelines for when the forum becomes "open" to anyone else, I finally took the time to revise my opening post at the beginning of this string that I origionally posted in '05.

See:

 /forums/ShowPost.aspx?PageIndex=1&PostID=896447

Tom