In a message dated 12/20/2004 4:30:32 PM Central Standard Time, micallahan@worldnet.att.net writes:

<< I actually think the F-22 up there is a test aiframe like the B-2 they
put on display a year ago.  Mike C.

I did see a film strip of one slam into the ground nice and flat. It was hurt bad. But the pilot was OK.  >>

They have filled the new hanger and are half way through another new hanger. They moved the B-36 from one to another. People came from all over the world to get pictures of it in the sunlight. They just took the end off of the hanger and dragged it and about 20 other planes outside to get them out of the way. Amazing.
They have pieces of the cargo version of the B-36 that they are going to restore.

The Boeing entry was so ugly that it should have lost. No self respecting pilot would ever fly the thing. Look at what we can see. Think of what they are working on. Before I retired I saw a flick of a solid state gun that fired in the million rounds per minute area. It looks like a 5 pound solid block of aluminum. When it runs out of ammo, you pitch it. It cannot be reloaded. They fired it at the front end of a Chrysler K car. When the fire and smoke cleared, the car looked like it had gone through a giant blender. They have a pistol version of that same thing. One soldier can take out a street full of bad guys with one pull of the trigger. It shoots in kind of a conical plume. You don't have to aim it, just point and click.

If you have played with the model rockets, it always happens that you put a nose cone on the biggest motor you can buy and a set of fins, just to see how fast it would go. Well supersonic is how fast. But you cannot follow it. It just vanishes leaving a smoke trail. Under study is a demolition rocket that is launched from a Humvee mount that carries 6 of these things. Just a 140 pound rocket motor with a nose cone and folding fins.
It uses the laser guidence fins up front, but has no explosive or warhead of any kind.

So the kid in the Humvee lights the target with his laser, and pulls the trigger. You don't want to be close to the target. The round needs a bit of distance to get to 5 times the speed of sound before it just runs into the target. The movie was a M113 getting the hit. Every bolt broke. Every weld broke. Pieces went hundreds of yards in every direction. It probably killed all of the germs too.

Just like a pocket nuclear weapon. Just a motor and a guidence head. Why didn't I think of that?  But I run on again.

Lynn E. Hanover