1. Love the website. All the articles I’ve read so far are indeed Damn Interesting! Keep up the fine work!

2. I live in the UK, on a housing estate that is near the former site of a RAF base. All the street names have some sort of aeronautical name, for example Barnes Wallis Close, Sunderland Close etc. At the back of the estate, there is a road that leads nowhere (I think there may have been a time when expansion of the estate was on the cards, never happened) and the road is called Brabazon Way. Useless information I know, but I thought it was at least semi-interesting…

Some of the elements of this story reminded me of the Komet, a rocket aircraft utilizing as one of its’ fuel components a very concentrated hydrogen peroxide which often blew up ground personnel during fueling. If memory serves, the Nazi’s changed fueling procedures in some pretty important ways, no longer trying to pump both components of the fuel into the plane at the same time.

While it was probably the fastest fighter in the sky at the time, it was of extremely short range. Another interesting feature: to keep the weight to a minimum, the wheeled undercarriage was abandoned on takeoff. If the pilot was lucky enough to survive his mission, he had to do a powerless, gliding belly-landing. I think the aircraft had something like five minutes of powered flight. Once out of fuel, they were extremely vulnerable to our P-51 fighters. They used various methods of assisting the take-off. Had the Germans been more wise than they were in deciding to develop aircraft carriers, we could have had considerably more trouble dealing with this aircraft.

The reason behind this is simple. If all the propellers rotated CW, the aircraft would have a tendency to roll towards the right. If you counter-rotate the blades, this effect is cancelled out.

The model ended being either copied or the design leased by other model and toy companies. Congress did not notice the model/toys until one of the test stealth fighters crashed. At which point they brought the supposed scandal to the lime light by wanting a panel to find out how a top secret aircraft was being sold as a toy and as a model to anyone interested in it. Which when it was discovered no more than a toy designer’s own invention, it caused a few red faces in congress.”[/quote]

The kit was made by Testors. Revell had nothing to do with it. At the time, Testors had an affiliation with Italieri, an Italian plastic model maker. This is what caused the stink. I distinctly rememeder a congreessman or senator (don’t remember his name) stating that he was miffed that an Italian model company knows what the stealth fighter looks like and he, as a memeber of the U.S. government, has never seen it. Of course the kit was based on supposition and I don’t recall the senator eveer saying “never mind” when photos of the actual plane being released. I’m looking at the model right now.

My thoughts exactly. It’s easy to say that it was a waste of money b/c we know now that it wasn’t utilized as desired, but back then they were spending money on knowledge expansion and dreams. There’s hardly anything more worthwhile than spending your money on hopes and dreams, even if they do prove to be short-lasting.