I didn't know that, pretty cool tech! Thanks for the update, and yeah, so glad the Mayor should make a full recovery.

I believe that 125g impact was what the *car* experienced. And that's WITH the SAFER barrier. It would be interesting to see what data would be recorded at the driver's seat. Still a hellacious hit.

What’s even more impressive is watching the weapon bay doors cycle in-flight. Main weapon bay doors from full close to open (or vice versa) takes less than 1 second. Yowzah!

Not sure about the ventral strakes on the Harrier. Most fast jets use those strakes for both transonic stability (not a Harrier issue, since it's always subsonic), and high AoA stability.

Those *are* the weapon bay doors, they're used for additional stability and flow control when in very slow forward flight.

I think you're referring to the lift fan door. When converting from in-flight mode to jet-borne mode the door only opens about 30 degrees, for many reasons. The two most obvious is 1. the lift fan doesn't need near as much air to balance the vertical thrust of the engine when forward velocity is, say 150 kts., and 2.…

The weapon bay doors open up during lift-fan mode when forward speeds get below some slow speed (50 kts. comes to mind, but I'm not sure) for extra slow speed longitudinal stability.

I'm going to guess that burning fuel ran down the crop furrows.

EvilFD has a good response, but there's one thing about this unverified (I expect whether they really exist or not is quite classified) capability to detect stealth aircraft to keep in mind: it's one thing to know a stealth aircraft is there, it's quite another to get a tracking solution good enough to inflict damage…

Actually you nailed your own question. They're in training squadrons right now with the services (USAF, USN, USMC, and RNAF).

The test pilots are part of the Integrated Test Force, so no real requirement for RNAF pilots to fly UK birds, but considering the VIP it's a pretty good guess the UK had one of their own flying their bird.

That. Was. Epic.

Mustangs (and most, if not all, Allied aircraft) had constant speed props and auto cooling flaps (either cowl or cooler). IIRC, P51s had constant speed props, auto radiator and cooler flaps, auto-rich and auto-lean mixture settings. You can see the constant-speed prop control at work throughout this flight, as the rpm…

This is just my guess, but a potential system could use a low powered radar system to provide close-in positional data to the tanker aircraft, then use a laser system mounted to the end of the probe to get the detailed positional data on the basket. That data is then fed to the flight control system to zero out the…

I was a bit surprised at the error correction the rocket was having to make in the video to spot the landing. If you can elaborate, how is the final nav solution determined? Something akin to ILS? GPS/ADS-B? Laser?

Gotcha, thanks for straightening that out.

Code One always has fantastic photography; thanks for sharing!

Both the KC-135 and KC-10 have to connect the hose to the boom on the ground. The KC-10 (I think) also has a permanent hose/drogue system mounted under each wing. So, it's possible for a -10 to refuel one Air Force jet and two Navy/Marine jets at the same time.

Just fantastic photos, Tyler! Great subject material, but you've still got to get the shot!

I think it was to minimize reflections from the position and nav lights at night.