Better Than The SR-71 - The Never Built Convair Kingfish, FISH and Super Hustler скачать в хорошем качестве

Better Than The SR-71 - The Never Built Convair Kingfish, FISH and Super Hustler

While many viewers might know of the SR-71 Blackbird - few know about its rival secret project, the Convair Kingfish - a spy plane that could fly Mach 3.2 at over 90,000 feet. Convair was working on designs that could fly faster and higher than the Blackbird, beat anything the Russians threw at it, and could even be used to deploy then undeveloped supersonic nuclear weapons. Let's jump into this black ops never-built project. The SR-71 blackbird has been hailed as an incredible machine that changed the world of international strategic reconnaissance forever - operating deep behind enemy lines, this aircraft didn't have to worry about being shot down - it simply accelerated away from the threat at Mach 3.2 and 85,000 feet until it reached friendly airspace. But this legendary era almost didn't happen, and back in the late 50s, the flip of a coin could have given us a very different aircraft. Our story begins in 1956, with the very first deployment of the Lockheed U-2 Spy Plane. This aircraft was able to fly over the soviet territory, as well as China, Vietnam and Cuba, taking photos and revealing military movements. Well, kind of. Turns out that while the U-2 plane was invisible to American radar, it was appearing on the better soviet counterpart. Thus that very same year, the US started to look for an entirely new aircraft to replace the U-2 and be truely invisible to radar. A year later in 1957, there was a breakthrough in research when it was found that supersonic aircraft would be impossible to track on radar - because the dot or blip, would move so fast across the screen that any operator would simply think it was static noise. Aerospace giants at the time knew that the military was looking for a new spy plane, and had started to submit proposals. These designs included a new one from Lockheed called the Archangel I, which would fly at Mach 3 for long periods of time to confuse radars - although still had a large radar cross section and would be visible. And our hero of the story, Convair offered a parasitic aircraft called the Super Hustler. Originally Convair had been flirting with different ideas to make their B-58 Hustler bomber faster - including attaching rockets under the plane. This concept could not only be launched from the B-58 Hustler but also launched from the ground. For the air launch, the plane would be broght up to Mach 2 at 35,000 feet before being released and under its own power. It would ignite three ram jets to speed up, releasing its booster behind as it pushed forward. This booster section could also be used as a weapon with a nuclear warhead, and have powerful supersonic capabilities to target enemy ground targets. By 1958, a commitity had formed called Project Gusto, to choose one of these many designs. Convair had simplified the design and reduced it to a single aircraft called the First Invisible Super Hustler or FISH This single stage parasitic plane, once deployed, would hit a cruise speed of Mach 4 at 75,000 feet, before climbing up to 90,000 feet for active operations. The total Program cost was estimated to be $205 million in 1958 dollars. These costs did not include the dedicated B-58 aircraft needed for the program. The commitity when reviewing this design ran into a few issues. For one, that laucnhing aircraft, the B-58B was cancelled in 1959 and made it seem unlikely that a suitble replacement aircraft could be found. The airforce was unwilling to part with its existing bomber fleet, and it was too expensive to develop a stand alone launch aircraft. The government asked Convair and Lockheed to return again with a new design. Convair would return with a non-parasitic airframe called the Kingfish. At 73 feet long and a wingspan of 60 feet, it was rather unqiue looking aircraft. This plane would have two turbo-ramjets hidden in the rear of the fuslage, and would be able to fly up to Mach 3.2. Slowler than the original parasitic FISH, but would have a longer range up to (6,300 km). When put head to head with the A-12, the lockheed option was found to ahve a longer range, higher altititue and a lower cost. Convair was also passed over because unlike Lockheeds excellent proven ability with the U-2, a secret, under budget project, Convair had blown out its budget with the B-58 and lacked a secure Research and development facility like the Lockheed Skunk Works. The A-12 would be built, and go on to evolve into the Blackbird SR-71. Ironically, the whole plan to trick the radar operators by moving too fast ended up not working at all. The long exhaust trails of the supersonic spy planes reflected radar scans just as well as the actual aircraft and were easily seen over the radar static. As for the Kingfish, futher studies were performed and surprisingly, some to create a new version that could fly up to Mach 9. However, the invention of spy satelight technology made any futher development moot.