Recent content by Dr. Saul

And of course that explains why he had not filed a mandatory flight plan and why he was flying an untested aircraft over a population center instead of the desert a few miles east of there.

Flying an experimental airplane is not just fire walling the engines and hauling back on the yoke. "The investigating board criticized Hughes for not following the flight test plan, staying airborne too long, and deviating from a number of standard test flight protocols. The cause of the actual...

He never took directon well. If someone on his staff said to him that you need to watch this and this and that, because that plane was a handful, he would probably ignore them or not pay attention. This is in keeping with his personality. I don't have to have been there to know he was not going...

He never took direction well. He was a know-it-all. There are stories about his movies that expose his narcissistic personality.

I never understood why they didn't put in better engines (with twice the thrust) when they became available. It makes no sense to me. This was the first model I ever got. Loved it from Day 1. I also loved Spy vs. Spy. I see no detriment in the design because of the coincidental look... The wing...

That's because he was a crappy pilot.

How about these?

I always liked the first design better... When they did the second design they made it longitudianally (sp?) unstable, so they had to throw in a forest of underwing stabilizers. These drawings show only two of four...The B-70 overcame that problem by drooping the wingtips. That also kept the...

One stupid nose, coming up...

You are right. A little F-108 Rapier, too. I will post those pictures. NA made a number of designs that were interrelated. All coming from the same design team, so a family resemblance. Powerful designs that made their bread an butter F-86 look positively dowdy. But that's what paid the...

More pictures of this amazing design from NA...

The F-15 is an identical copy of the 1954 North American design called the NA-237. The engines are slightly farther apart and the tails are slightly smaller, but otherwise identical, 18 years earlier.