Show us your "other" hobbies in pictures!

[sobo]

I am looking for a seax....Hmmmm....
Andy

I'm lookin' for it, too, but I never seem to get much anymore...

 

[Diamondback]

Looks like a XB-70 Valkyrie bomber. They were cool looking as sh*t! Sure wish we woulda put those into production. Looks helluva lot cooler than a B-52...


EDIT: Ooops, just saw where the poster of that photo (@ch139) had already answered.
I will say in my defense that ch139 posted that photo 9 years before I joined this here li'l group of shooters. Today was the first time I saw it...

B-70 died because an armed Blackbird offered comparable performance at a fraction the crew and cost. Then MacNamara canceled that, in one of the worst ideas since he ever decided to be crapped out of his momma's a**...

 

[sobo]

B-70 died because an armed Blackbird offered comparable performance at a fraction the crew and cost. Then MacNamara canceled that, in one of the worst ideas since he ever decided to be crapped out of his momma's a**...

I thought the Valkyrie was cancelled because the Russkis developed SAMs that would actually hit something moving as fast as the XB-70.
SAMs basically made the Valkyrie's original mission (outrunning Soviet interceptor aircraft to deliver a nuclear payload) obsolete...

 

[Diamondback]

I thought the Valkyrie was cancelled because the Russkis developed SAMs that would actually hit something moving as fast as the XB-70.
SAMs basically made the Valkyrie's original mission (outrunning Soviet interceptor aircraft to deliver a nuclear payload) obsolete...

JFK spiked the B-70 as a production program as soon as he saw the CIA A-12s and saw that Kelly Johnson had proposed fighter and bomber versions, at the level that all he needed was orders signed and checks cleared to start cutting metal on them.

 

[sobo]

JFK spiked the B-70 as a production program as soon as he saw the CIA A-12s and saw that Kelly Johnson had proposed fighter and bomber versions, at the level that all he needed was orders signed and checks cleared to start cutting metal on them.

To be sure, the Blackbird is an awesome aircraft. Love that flying rocket as well.
As a teenager, I had that huge, front-on view, wall poster of it pinned to my bedroom wall.
That thing looked menacing...

 

[Diamondback]

To be sure, the Blackbird is an awesome aircraft. Love that flying rocket as well.
As a teenager, I had that huge, front-on view, wall poster of it pinned to my bedroom wall.
That thing looked menacing...

Many years younger but same. After Grandpa's F-106s were gone that was the bird I wanted to fly... and then my eyes went bad.

 

[sobo]

Delta Dart, if I'm not mistaken...

We lived next to an air base in Walla Walla when I was still in the single digits. They flew the F-104 Starfighter outta there.
I always thought that was a cool plane, what with its high rear stabilizer.

 

[Diamondback]

Delta Dart, if I'm not mistaken...

We lived next to an air base in Walla Walla when I still in the single digits. They flew the F-104 Starfighter outta there.
I always thought that was a cool plane, what with its high rear stabilizer.

Yup, Grandpa was with the 318th for the "College Cadence" deployment to Korea after the Pueblo Incident.

 

[sobo]

Yup, Grandpa was with the 318th for the "College Cadence" deployment to Korea after the Pueblo Incident.

Pa was with the US Army Signal Corps in Alaska, watchin' for the Red Menace comin' over the Pole...

Pa (the grand Sobo) is in the middle, in the first set of brand new clothes he ever owned (courtesy of the US Army).
He was the last boy in a brood of 14 kids...
Uncle Frank (with the garrison cap at the jaunty angle), served in Easy Co., 2 BN, 506 PIR, 101 AB. Uncle Eddie, USMC, is on the right.
Both uncles fought in WWII, Frank in Europe with the 101st, and Eddie on some ship somewhere in the Pacific. Both survived the war.
The Grand Sobo was too young for WWII (b. 1930), but enlisted in 1950 for the Korean War. The Army stationed him in Alaska.

 

[ch139]

wow, what is this?

Only other pic I have of both XB-70s in one shot.

 

[Diamondback]

And then there's the mysterious disappearance of unfinished AV3 the night before it was to be scrapped... seriously, supposedly the scrappers came in to start work and it was like the plane had just evaporated into thin air.

Can you imagine a better way to create a "deniable" highly-capable aircraft for covert activities?

 

[Tinman357]

One of my other hobbies.

 

[Tinman357]

The other one.

 

[EPS]

To be sure, the Blackbird is an awesome aircraft. Love that flying rocket as well.
As a teenager, I had that huge, front-on view, wall poster of it pinned to my bedroom wall.
That thing looked menacing...

Lol seen the blackbird fly many times.
I grew up in Lancaster CA .
Lockeed plant was right there.
And SKUNK WORKS .
The blackbird flew in and out of there all the time.

 

[Diamondback]

Lol seen the blackbird fly many times.
I grew up in Lancaster CA .
Lockeed plant was right there.
And SKUNK WORKS .
The blackbird flew in and out of there all the time.

Wasn't 955 the one Lockheed retained as the in-house R&D ship with a skunk on the tail? (EDIT: It was 'til '85 then replaced by 972, the latter bearing the skunk.)

 

[EPS]

Wasn't 955 the one Lockheed retained as the in-house R&D ship with a skunk on the tail? (EDIT: It was 'til '85 then replaced by 972, the latter bearing the skunk.)

I don't know Skunk works was just a part of Lockeed that built certain planes .

 

[EPS]

Skunk Works®

Witness how Skunk Works propelled the aerospace industry forward, including developing the U.S.'s first fighter jet, shaping the course of aviation history.

www.lockheedmartin.com

 

[Diamondback]

I've been a Skunk Junkie since I was a kid. If you don't have both Johnson's and Rich's autobiographies you're missing out.

 

[EPS]

 

[Diamondback]

Sled Driver is a must too, as is anything by Richard Graham.