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It would be interesting to read your views.

I think Indian Airlines was the only A320 customer that ever operated with bogey wheels. From what I read last, the remaining three A320-200 that Air India inherited from Indian Airlines will be phased out by the end of this year. Yet to see an Aeroflot A320 with bogey wheels.

PS: I am all for the Lightning, it was a gunfighter and an aircraft capable of extreme aerobatics. The Starfigher is the dud with a cockpit built around some missiles an engine, hope a separate thread can be created for it ;)
PPS: For all of its outstanding achievements, the Lightning has to be forgiven for being so ugly!

Views of a (professional) layman!? (Esp. given the source of the invitation)

If a missile is characterised by its essentially one way flight path, ending in death and destruction, then it has to be the F104. (And I think the German widows would agree!)
One of Kelly's duds, but it looked to be at Mach1 even when on the ground.

The EE Lightning was the better plane.

Regards
Sutripta

Boeings do not need no stinking bogie gear. We land on soft grass field all the time!

https://youtu.be/aOpBXmqa0eY

Sutriptada, Your knowledge is way beyond what you let others know and your googly questions say it all. Agree fully with your assessment.
‎
The F-104 sacrificed everything for rate of climb and acceleration to its everlasting detriment. The Lightning was also not a well designed aircraft with immense maintenance difficulties and a poor crash record second only to the F-104. For reasons I have not researched EE did not go for a tailed delta design that would have added to stability with a better chord length. But in manoeuvrability and climb and super cruise the Lightning was one generation ahead. The F-104 had superior and more reliable avionics and missiles. Both these aircraft incidentally had the poorest peace time safety record of any production jet since 1945.

On your other Q - Russian A320s carry normal twin wheel landing gear. IA was the only one who ever went for the bogie. The then Cochin runway was the only one [of projected stations it was planned to fly to] that needed this.

The Dutch airforce used the F104, but is more known in the Netherlands due to the scandal involving our then crown prince Bernard, husband of queen Juliana at the time. He took a bribe from the manufacturer. Resulted in us buying the thing (we did not know till later) and a constitutional crisis some years later when he was found out.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_bribery_scandals

Many books have been written on both the F104 and the Lightning.
I like these books in particular; Lightning boys. Stories from the man who flew and maintained these aircraft. About a year ago I met a former RAF fighter pilot from this era. His stories were very similar to the ones you will find in these books. Some even quite a bit more amazing.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/s/?ie=UTF8&...d-298080703601

A Lightning featured in a TopGear episode. Jeremy Clarksson put one in his garden. Much to the dismay of his wife. You can say a lot about the man, but he is hard core military aviation enthusiast.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnGXerN0tlo

Jeroen

Good man JR Clarkson. Giving me some ideas. Can't put it in a lawn as we've moved to an apartment but maybe on the roof of the building.

Back to the tingling topic of aircraft landing gears. I always found these bicycle gears balanced by outriggers amusing. Saw it on 5 aircraft including the Yakolev Yak-28 below. Landing in windy conditions could have been adventurous. I wonder of those outriggers ever snapped!

You missed Dunlop.

MRF was apparently able to develop aircraft tyres because the company is good in making cross-ply (bias-ply) tyres. Most aircraft tyres are crossply and not radials. The reason being economics as crossply tyres can be retreaded.

Having said that, I think I read somewhere that the IAF is not very happy with MRF.

Correct! My father was a tyre dealer and retreader (not aircraft tyres:) ) and I still remember the desk calendars and promo materials of Dunlop which prominently featured their aircraft tyres. IIRC these were the first tubeless tyres too.

I also remember the Dunlop TV ad that depicted an aircraft landing, with "Dunlop" rendered in BG instrumental score. Can't find it in youtube.

By any chance do you know the tyre specifications on the ones that go in Airbus A320 and Boeing 777.

Are there possibilities of tyre burst in aircraft tyres ?

Yes, whether it is a little single engine propellor plane or a modern commercial jet liner, tyres do burst.

Usually too heavy and or pro longed braking.

On the latter. These tyres are usually equipped with safer plugs. When the tyre pressure build up due to prolonged braking action, the plug will pop rather then the whole tyre. But when an aviation tyre hits debris on the runway at high speed the whole tyre might shred. Remember Concorde in Paris. They hit a piece of debris. It shredded the tyre that spew its bit everywhere, including the wing/engine area cutting though fuel lines etc.

Jeroen

Add castoring nose wheels.



U2 too I think. In the U2, were these jettisoned after takeoff?

Regards
Sutripta

Got a question about the F104 and Pakistan.
The real reason was shiny new toys for generals. But how was Pakistan's need for F104s officially presented on both sides?

Regards
Sutripta

I am very familiar with castoring nose wheels. Lots of single engine airplanes have them. You use differential braking to steer at low speeds. Once you have sufficient airspeed and or prop wash your ruder authority will take over.

Yes, the U2 had little wheels attached at the wing tips that fell off or were jettisoned after take off. Landing a U2 was a real bitch. You had a pilot chasing the U2 down the runway in a "Charger" or similar giving instruction to the pilot how to bring it down on the deck

No idea of the history. But it could be the desire, on both sides, to have a loyal ally gifted with America's first Mach 2 fighter which was quite 'the' thing to own then. A reward to engender loyalty to keep communism at bay, a gift for permitting U-2 flights from Peshawar to Norway and support the so called 'free world'. In the end what the PAF got were 14 second hand aircraft in 1961-1962 for which spares dried up in 1965!! And the aircraft themselves were retired in 1972. In the 1960s Pak believed advanced weapons were a strategy in themselves. They got Mach 2 fighter and submarines before us.

Interestingly the PAF replaced the Starfighter with the Mirage III - an aircraft of similar vintage and the ones the West Germans were evaluating against the Starfighter. But money bags won.

^^^
The real reason is not in doubt, but was wondering what official usage scenario was mentioned in the files.

Regards
Sutripta