It’s a long time since I qualified as an Aeronautical Engineer and worked on Tornadoes, Hawks and Harriers, and I’m still a sucker for plane-spotting – civil or military.
At a time when civil aircraft are all increasingly scale-efficient clones of each other, and air-travel a non-PC chore, driven by eco-econo-geo-political considerations, it’s a wow to see the F22 raptor perform (here at Farnborough). A bit of creative freedom, even if it is equally non-PC to be a fan of a military fighting machine. Engineering – rooted in ingenuity – is the built world of humanity, and aero-engineering provides many fine examples of that art and craft.
[2021 Note: Even BBC suffering link rot after 13 years. Not sure where that video has gone.]
The display video opens (very briefly) then later an extended sequence (at about 2mins 50) with some amazing slow speed manoevres – you have to keep your eyes on the cloud texture to see which direction the machine is actually moving – tumbling like a snowflake, as the caption says. Clever stuff. I may have to add the F22 to my list of favourite flying machines – F6-Lightning (EE/BAC), F4-Phantom, Mig-23, Harrier, A10-Thunderbolt, F14-Tomcat, and now the F22-Raptor.
[Post Note: Aircraft page started here … never to be completed.]
[Post Note: Interesting also how variations on Navier-Stokes has become a recurring topic.]