Pictures of Cold War aircraft.

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I have mentioned on the forum about an occasion when another airman & I were deadheading from Arizona to Barksdale on a C-97 empty cargo flight in 1960. We never saw the copilot, but the pilot, a silver bar who looked our age (19), gave us pre flight info. "The fire bottles are inop, the intercom to this area is out, so your only emergency warning will be if you see us running to the back door. Try to keep up". The crew chief appeared to be about our father's age, so no worries.
 
The B-57A had the original Canberra Fish Bowl canopy. One of the British Canberras, oddly enough with RN markings, was found abandoned at the Melbourne, FL airport and was auctioned off by the airport authority several years ago. It ended up at the the Tico Warbird Museum of the Valiant Air Command.

Being closed up in that fishbowl with nothing more than tiny air hole and being supplied by British Air Conditioning must have been a nightmare. Photos of the first ever Canberra test flight showed the pilot climbing out, literally dripping with sweat. No wonder we put a T-33A style canopy on the later models.

 
Ahhh, the F-4K. When the TSR-2 was cancelled the British aviation industry was given a consolation prize in the form of the F-4K. It would be an F-4, but made as British as possible. It would have not only British avionics but RR Spey engines, modern turbofans rather than those old 1950's J-79's, and that would greatly improve the Phantom's notoriously short range. It sounded so great that the USAF was even considering retrofiiting its own F-4's with Speys.

The reality was that the RN ended up with the shortest ranged, slowest, and most expensive F-4's in the world. When the Falklands war showed the RN to be sorely deficient in air defense (even described as "pre-BoB") they bought USN surplus F-4J's to operate out of Stanley. Crews were warned, "This is an American Phantom, not a British Phantom and these things are awful bloody freakin fast, so be careful!"
 
If the Spey were chosen (at least in part) due to fuel efficiency, why the K became so short legged?
 
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