Aircraft Trivia Quiz

youre actually starting to head toward the right direction there.....

I could be talking from the wrong orifice here , but I do recollect something about a ground attack aircraft (possibly Russian) that had a huge barbette of downwards pointing guns.....

Other than the fact it was a possibly a twin prop from before/during WW2 I cant recall anything else

Even with the YB-40, you are still only at less than half....and no, I'm not making this up.  This was an actual aircraft that did fly and fight in this configuration.

The Boeing YB/TB-40 with "up to 30" guns?

Or if you want to get funky with the numbers, the AC-130A "Project Gunship II" had 48 barrels, albeit bolted together into 8 sets of 6.

Re the A-26, the A-26B-60-DL had eight guns in the nose but only 6 under wing guns, three each side.

With the turret guns the total still only came to 18.

As farm as I can ascertain no A-2 variant ever carried 20 guns.

Good guesses, but neither one is correct.  In fact, they both carried only a fraction of the correct answer.

lol sorry dude. After some research i think Phil has got it, just got the number wrong. The A-26 could have 8 in the nose, 4 under each wing in gun pods, and 2 each in 2 remote turrets totaling 20 guns.

But well wait for F-8 to respond, see what he says.

Scorp got there by 1/2 a minute........

The B-17 Old 666 had 19.

Douglas A-26B-15-DL Invader.  18 guns in total.   Six forward-firing 0.50-inch machine guns in nose. Forward-firing armament could be supplemented by eight 0.50-inch guns mounted in four-gun twin packages mounted underneath the outer wing panels. Two 0.50-inch machine guns in remotely-controlled dorsal turret. Two 0.50-inch machine guns in remotely-controlled ventral turret.

Of course the B747s of Kallita, Atlas on military cargo charters and the C-5s and C-17s of the USAF can carry far more but they aren't for use by the aircraft

OK, this aircraft carried the highest number of guns ever installed on an aircraft.  Please name the plane and the number of guns.

Correct.  The Thunderceptor had inverse taper and variable incidence wings trying to overcome airflow problems on swept back wings, it also had its main undercarriage retracting into the outer wings.

Powered by a jet engine supplemented by a rocket motor it was Intended as a production run type, but its maximum endurance of 25 minutes made it all but useless as an interceptor to defend a country the size of the USA so no order materialised and the prototypes were used for a period for various experiments.

Over to you F-8fanatic.

How about the XF-91 Thunderceptor?  The second prototype had an engine failure just after takeoff in 1951.  The pilot landed it on the lakebed, but by the time the fire trucks got to it, the entire tail of the plane was burned to nothing.  Republic then rebuilt this airframe with a V-tail similar to a Beechcraft Bonanza.  After this plane was finished with flight testing, it was used at Edwards AFB for crash crew testing, and was later scrapped.  The first prototype survives today at the USAF Museum in Dayton, OH

Apologies guys, there is an error in the original post.  TWO examples were built, one survives, the other was scrapped sometime after having performed a Phoenix like act and, when later grounded, having more fiery encounters.

No, but we're almost in the ballpark.

The Curtiss XF-87 Blackhawk may be a contender with its all angle nose armament and a buffeting problem Curtiss could not solve.

This type was odd - but not as odd as the VVA-14.  In so many ways this type was so like its contemporaries that, at first glance on the ground, it didn't look odd.  Its given name was very much in line with the age and others from the same manufacturer.

How about the Bartini-Beriev VVA-14?  The aircraft was quite odd, in that the wings were actually detachable.  The plane could be used as a WIG 'ekranoplane' type with the wings off, or it could fly like a normal airplane with the wings on.  the plane was originally designed to use inflatable floats for use as an amphibious ASW platform but these were troublesome so they were replaced with rigid floats.  The plane was even designed to have VTOL capability, but the company that was supposed to design the 12 lift engines never came through.  

No, but wings would be good to think about.

Vought XF5U  It had no wing.

No.  Later than that.  Something about this aircraft's looks seemed to be very wrong.

This sounds a lot like the Barling Bomber and that had lots of problems.  First, it was expensive.  Second, it flew poorly.  Third, and this was a huge deficiency, the wings tended to catch rain water and that could lead to rotting of the structure.

I'm wrong but it fits the specifications.  

This type was "different" in so many ways that it could only be described as an oddball.  Built by an at the time major supplier to the manufacturing country's airforce it received a designation within the standard nomenclature and its given name was within the manufacturer's series of the time.  

Only one example was built.due to a major deficiency.

And we're STILL making them!!  Well......the 747-800, anyway.......

Well that was fast.

Over to you Phil.

B747

Not quite, a hyena produces around 1100Psi bite force. And Jaguar around 2000Psi. There are others more powerfull. But theyre considered amphibians.

This aircraft has flown the equivalent of 101500 trips to the moon and back.

It took 75000 drawings to produce the first one.

Spot(s) on!

A swing wing development that was planned to be a production aircraft, but just wasn't up to the job - the power-plant playing quite a large part in it's failure.

Named after the Jaguar, with it's skull piercing bite which is second only to the Hyena in force.

Grumman XF10F Jaguar

Engine was notoriously unreliable (yay westinghouse)

The pilot described it as entertaining to fly because there was so much wrong with it.

It was a test bed for automated variable geometry wings.

Named after a jaguar.

And it was based of the F9F Panther.

Scorpiomikey

An aircraft with a poor engine - possibly the poorest

that didn't fly very well - correct

used Boundary Layer Control - no, it's innovation was in the same area of the aircraft though

was named after an animal with a tail - yes, one with a bite second to one