"T. B." <partyslammer at (no spam) socalrrcom> wrote in message
news:484aa1ba$0$20174$4c368faf at (no spam) roadrunner.com...
"Alan Erskine" wrote:

"Damon Hill" wrote:

news:w6adne5d1ubVHdTVnZ2dnUVZ_qXinZ2d at (no spam) posted.northdakotatelephone:

It almost appears *something* blew off the top of the plane at about
the 1.58 point in the first video.

Crew ejection.

No, it's a few seconds earlier than the crew ejecting. It's just as the
front wheel lifts off the runway.


I think that's just an illusion from passing in front of some sort of
drainage grate behind teh runway.

Although this works, it generates a whole lot of drag; and the B-2
seems to have them opened to some extent during its whole flight
profile...which works against the drag advantages of the pure
flying-wing design.


This wouldn't be the first time that a real physical object didn't
quite live up to the specs of it's paper predecessor.

Pilots always thought they were walking a tightrope while flying the
YB-49, and just one wrong move would get them into a situation where the
aircraft would fall apart in a matter of seconds.


Kind of like driving a car in that respect :)

The stability problems get discussed here:
http://www.aerospaceweb.org/aircraft/bomber/yb49/

Trivia question: Who is the only living pilot who has a street named
after him at Edwards AFB?

Captain Glenn Edwards, the co-pilot, was a native of California, which
is why the base was named after him, not the pilot. The pilot was
either Forbes or Fitzgerald and there already was a base with a very
similar name.

In article <sqsj44t6fus18mcsfi63259n06gmhta08l at (no spam) 4ax.com>,
Reunite Gondwanaland (Mary Shafer) <reunite.gondwana at (no spam) gmail.com> wrote:

Captain Glenn Edwards, the co-pilot, was a native of California, which
is why the base was named after him, not the pilot. The pilot was
either Forbes or Fitzgerald and there already was a base with a very
similar name.

I quote Wikipedia, which happens to agree with my personal recollection:

"Forbes Air Force Base [Kansas] was named for Major Daniel Forbes,
an Air Force pilot from Kansas who was killed in a crash of the
Northrop YB-49 Flying Wing."

On Mon, 09 Jun 2008 15:41:29 -0400, rages at (no spam) darkstar.arc.nasa.gov (Kathy
Rages) wrote:

In article <sqsj44t6fus18mcsfi63259n06gmhta08l at (no spam) 4ax.com>,
Reunite Gondwanaland (Mary Shafer) <reunite.gondwana at (no spam) gmail.com> wrote:

Captain Glenn Edwards, the co-pilot, was a native of California, which
is why the base was named after him, not the pilot. The pilot was
either Forbes or Fitzgerald and there already was a base with a very
similar name.

I quote Wikipedia, which happens to agree with my personal recollection:

"Forbes Air Force Base [Kansas] was named for Major Daniel Forbes,
an Air Force pilot from Kansas who was killed in a crash of the
Northrop YB-49 Flying Wing."

You're quite right and I was wrong. It was home state getting the
name for both of them. I was probably thinking of another early
aircrew member with a street named after him at EDW. Think of what it
was like back then, having so many bases that they could name two from
one accident. That didn't last long.

Edwards had been named Muroc, after the Corum family, early settlers
in the area. (The name was spelled backward because earlier the USPO
wouldn't accept Corum for the post office, as there was another post
office named something similar, like Coram.)

I prefer the USAF system of naming things after dead aircrew to the
USN system of naming things after local places. It still irritates me
that they renamed Lewis after Glenn, no matter that they call it Glenn
Research Center at Lewis Field.

Trivia question: Who is the only living pilot who has a street named
after him at Edwards AFB?

Mary "That would make me kind of nervous"
--
Mary Shafer Retired aerospace research engineer
We didn't just do weird stuff at Dryden, we wrote reports about it.
reunite.gondwana at (no spam) gmail.com or miliff at (no spam) qnet.com
Visit my blog at http://thedigitalknitter.blogspot.com/

I quote Wikipedia, which happens to agree with my personal recollection:

"Reunite Gondwanaland (Mary Shafer)" <reunite.gondwana at (no spam) gmail.com> wrote:
Trivia question: Who is the only living pilot who has a street named
after him at Edwards AFB?

Yeager?

I prefer the USAF system of naming things after dead aircrew to the
USN system of naming things after local places.

I don't know if Derek knows what a ship is. We'll have to translate. I
believe he knows them as "targets". :-)

LOL

"Reunite Gondwanaland (Mary Shafer)" <reunite.gondwana at (no spam) gmail.com> wrote:
Trivia question: Who is the only living pilot who has a street named
after him at Edwards AFB?

Yeager?

On Tue, 10 Jun 2008 00:26:15 +0000 (UTC), Rick Jones
rick.jones2 at (no spam) hp.com> wrote:

"Reunite Gondwanaland (Mary Shafer)" <reunite.gondwana at (no spam) gmail.com> wrote:
Trivia question: Who is the only living pilot who has a street named
after him at Edwards AFB?

Yeager?

...Mary, I've been told that there were in fact *two* streets at
Edwards named for Yeager. Is one of these on-base and the other
locates on whatever off-base community exists out there?

On Mon, 09 Jun 2008 15:41:29 -0400, rages at (no spam) darkstar.arc.nasa.gov (Kathy
Rages) wrote:

I quote Wikipedia, which happens to agree with my personal recollection:

...On the other hand, if forced to choose between Wikipedia and Our
Holy Lady of the Test Pilot Ziggurat, I think it's pretty obvious even
her partial recollections would hold more weight than a Wikipedia
article