Re: OT: "Warplane" Documentary Starts This Week on PBS



Paul Suhler wrote:



While they interviewed a lot of people who actually worked in the field, I should also appear in the fourth part, talking about the LO features of the Blackbird. (The brother of the late Frank Rodgers had put them onto me.) Jim Eastham and I drove up to Blackbird Airpark in June of last year and spent the afternoon dehydrating and getting sandblasted.


They've been advertising it, and it looks good.
Maybe you can help me on this; on the photos of the Kingfish radar pole model: http://www.testpilot.ru/usa/convair/kingfish/kingfish.htm
You can see it uses the same sort of radar attenuating "pie-slice" leading edge structure as the A-12/SR-71:
http://www.testpilot.ru/usa/convair/kingfish/img/kingfish_02.jpg
Until I saw this, I had assumed that this was a Lockheed innovation; but this makes it look like it was given to both Lockheed and Convair by a third source, or Lockheed gave Convair access to it.
What's the case?
Also, what's the deal with the Kingfish's rectangular exhaust nozzles?:
http://www.testpilot.ru/usa/convair/kingfish/img/kingfish_06.jpg
That looks like a tough shape to make work structurally for a high-thrust engine; like putting a round peg in a square hole .

Pat
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Relevant Pages

  • Re: OT: "Warplane" Documentary Starts This Week on PBS
    ... Paul Suhler wrote: ... Jim Eastham and I drove up to Blackbird Airpark in June of last ... Maybe you can help me on this; on the photos of the Kingfish radar pole ... or Lockheed gave Convair access to it. ...
    (sci.space.history)
  • Re: OT: "Warplane" Documentary Starts This Week on PBS
    ... Maybe you can help me on this; on the photos of the Kingfish radar pole model: http://www.testpilot.ru/usa/convair/kingfish/kingfish.htm ... Until I saw this, I had assumed that this was a Lockheed innovation; but this makes it look like it was given to both Lockheed and Convair by a third source, or Lockheed gave Convair access to it. ... Or at least the "me" he remembered...that visited his coffee shop and ate a whole pie's worth of them. ...
    (sci.space.history)