"Life Magazine planes (1952)" Topic

Beautifull draws.

How many of them had you when you was a kid?

Hope you enjoy!.

Amicalement
Armand

My "New England Air Museum" (in 1/48) had models of all the WWII planes, and the F-86 as well. I notice that the carrier in the last picture is the USS United States, which never got built.

Ah,the F-89 Scorpion or as a high school teacher of mine, who was piloted one, called it "the flying vacuum cleaner" because the low slung engine intakes would suck up anything on the runway.

It got even more interesting that decade – Century series supersonic fighters as well as proposed mACH 3/5 XF-103 and XF-108 Rapier, TSR-2, B-52s, CF-100 and then CF105, English Lightning, Hunter, MiG-19/-21, French Ouragans/Mysteres/Vatours. Not all entered service but exciting times.

Military aviation's got kinda boring. We're still relying on the A-10/F-15/F-16/-18/Tornados/MiG-29/Flanker of the 1980s (albeit with modern avionics).

Sure we've had F-22, Eurofighter and Rafale enter service but I remember reading about these when in was 11 years old in 1991 (well Eurofighter was EAP then).

About the only place there's anything interesting happening is China – J-10, J-20, J-31, development of carrier aviation etc.

A stat I read somewhere is that since end of Cold War, market for combat aircraft has dropped 90%. No wonder there's only a focus on a very few projects worldwide.