Mooncaller Photography: Pima County, AZ – Pima Air & Space Museum (Part II)

After our tour of the 309th AMARG finished we returned to the Pima Air & Space Museum. We wandered around until closing.

F-4C Phantom II

This is one of my favorite planes. The glide ratio on these is 1:1, meaning without power every 1 foot of forward motion translated to a 1 foot loss in altitude (this ratio is pretty terrible). What this meant in dog fighting though, is despite being a big heavy plane, you could cut throttle and have it turn extremely easily, then jam back on throttle again.

Not only that but the engines are permanently angled down to help give upward thrust. I remember reading about this plane as a kid and how the pilots would describe it as a flying rock with giant engines.

B-52D Stratofortress

DC-10

I have always had a soft spot for the trijet planes.

A500

I have only ever seen a few of these in the air but always found their prop layout very interesting.

747-100
This particular one was an engine test platform for GE.

777-200

It is always interesting to me when you get up close with planes is just how big the big ones really are, the scale is enormous, and yet how small the small ones are. I really do not get the same sense of size when on the level with or above a plane at an airport.

F-14A Tomcat
F-14 has also been one of my favorite airplanes. It has variable wing geometry and a tone of hard points for mounting weapons.

The airplane served as both a long range interceptor and an air superiority fighter.
It had a fantastically advanced radar system which, if I recall correctly, allowed for locking on of up to eight targets at a time. Six of these were with the AIM-54 Phoenix air to air missile which had a 100 nautical mile range.

I also have a general soft spot for twin engine fighters. The fact that these were capable of mach 2.3+ helped too.
Though I really like the plane and its capabilities I have never been a big fan of the Top Gun movie which features this plan heavily.

At this point the sun is setting and therefore the lighting is greatly reduced in the hangar. Photos are getting a bit tricky.

S-3B Viking
Holly liked how the wings folded for carrier storage.

AH-1S Cobra
The same airplane information cards I liked as a kid had a some fun facts about the Cobra. First, they could fly stably at very low altitude. Second, they may have been equipped with "booster rockets" to get to get into combat range quicker, usually when sea launched. And three, one of the pilots commented that the best way to kill a Cobra was with a laser guided bomb dropped from above.

SR-71 Blackbird
Capable of mach 3+ this is an excellent plane for anyone who like things that go fast. But my favorite fact about the plane is that its skin and fuel tanks were leaky on the ground and at take off and the plane needed to refuel shortly after take off. Due to the heat generate by going mach 3+ and the air resistance there was a significant amount of space left for the metal to expand and the plane did not become leak proof or air tight until it was up to operating speed.