Illu

Quick boost makes one

I’ve only ever seen that patch worn by ADC F-104A pilots. Most of them say “F-104A” whereas modern reproductions generally say “F-104”.

A buddy of mine is a check airman for Southwest. This is in the cockpit of a bird they recently bought from Mexicana…

Can’t find it on eBay, and I don’t buy from Hannants because of the ridiculous shipping.

The Granger Box was a colossal flop. It never worked as advertised, as evidenced by the fact that the world found out about it when the Soviets displayed the one in the photograph. Had it been effective and worked as advertised, Powers would have completed his mission and landed safely. One outcome of that incident was that the USAF greatly increased and improved its technical ELINT collection capability in order to try to get better intel on the precise parameters of the SA-2 radar systems (and others). Prior to 1960 that was seriously lacking.

The only real external difference in the MS vs. a MiG-23M is the IRST blister under the nose (missing) and a shorter radome. The shape of the nose was identical, just a shorter radome and a longer metal structure aft of it. I’m sure there were cockpit detail differences, but I doubt anyone would know the difference. You really don’t need a conversion kit, since there’s really nothing to convert. Just leave off the IRST hump and paint the shorter radome.

The early U-2s only operated in daylight as far as I have ever read. At least over their target areas. IR photography certainly existed at that point, but what they were looking for was better photographed in daylight. Remember that this was before the advent of satellite photography (or even satellites, for the most part), and thus the west had virtually no idea what lay behind the Iron Curtain. The U-2’s job was to uncover how many bombers, missiles, and other military assets the USSR had, and those things were most easily seen in daylight.

Speed was not a factor for the U-2. It was/is a powered glider. The difference between top speed and stall speed at 75,000+ feet is a couple of knots. Eliminating the sun glint was much more important to the aircraft’s survival.

Natural metal reflects the sun, making the aircraft highly visible in some circumstances, even at high altitude. The blue paint reduced or eliminated that. Since nobody in 1959 could put human eyeballs anywhere close to the U-2’s altitude, that wasn’t much of an issue. But making it less visible from the ground was.

Just found out he had stomach cancer.

CIA U-2s were not black until the mid-1960s. Initially they were natural metal until 1959, when they were painted semi-gloss Sea Blue FS 25044. The internals were yellow zinc chromate. NOT black!!

Posted by his wife on Facebook. No details. He was 59.

Yes, I have read the thread. I appreciate what you’ve done. But that has nothing to do with the market viability of an F-86H kit. If it’s such a great idea, why has no one done it? You appear to believe it’s a sure-fire winner. My suggestion is, start your own model company and find out. I’d be elated to be proven wrong on this.

@Sabrejet why don’t you start a model kit manufacturing company, then you can do an F-86H for us?

You’re being pedantic and nonsensical.