Let me tell you a little story about GM people, because the "culture" comes from the people and their attitudes, as you say, Patrick.

I used to work at LTV and was a part of the A-7F program. The plane itself was impressive as stated in the amount of ordinance weight it could carry. LTV began selling the A-7 to the Greek Air Force and various South American countries as well. I'll relay a couple of interesting stories about the A-7 and bad things…

The closest thing we have to a new A-37 would probably be the Scorpion:

I'm waiting for a 25,000 word essay on why we need to buy 250 refurbished A-37 Dragonflys. In all seriousness, though, they'd definitely be a better platform for bombing people on donkeyback than an F-35.

I did a tour in Attack Squadron 147 from October of 1985 to June of 1987. We operated the A-7E. Tough jet. Not difficult to maintain.

Is it just me or does anyone else wish THEY WOULD JUST FIX THE GODDAMN TEMPERATURE SENSOR, ALREADY?!?

There was also a proposal for a twin-engined A-7 that would've used the F/A-18's engines:

While serving with the Royal Air Force at CFB Goose Bay, Labrador, the hangar we used had removable door fillets for the B36 and XC99 and this was in the late 80's! The idea seemed to be to put the ac nose in and close the hangar doors behind the wing so servicing the engines etc. could be carried out in the warm.

The pusher configuration was to prevent turbulent air from the props from passing over the wing and decreasing lift. The Soviet TU-95 addressed this problem by using counter-rotating props to straighten out the airflow coming off the props before it passed over the wing.

Here is the ad, featuring this plane that I mentioned in another thread, from December 22nd 1945.

Imagine, for a second, an alternate universe where instead of wasting all that money on the Model 880, Convair had decided to update the XC-99 with the swept wings and all-jet powerplant from the YB-60. They could have had a jumbo-sized airliner for high-luxury or long-haul routes that could have beaten the 747 and…

There's an Douglas C-124 Globemaster 2 double decker plane that sits outside the air force base north of Salt Lake Utah.

as always a wonderfully written, well researched and well thought out piece. Reading your stuff on here is always a pleasure and I actually feel educated afterwards. I wish there was more reporting and analysis done like yours available to read.

Sweet, my favorite Flickr user getting some Jalopnik rep.

Python4

I thought this was a computergame.....

For some reason the helicopter photos made it really apparent to me that the mast is able to hold the entire weight of the helicopter through maneuvers, while also spinning at crazy speeds.

Best QotD in a long time. Grosser definitely earned its number one spot here. Next do easiest cars to work on!