It certainly was at the time. But they had numerous problems and never became a true rival to the 707.
Never tire of watching this one… Ray Hannah, heck of a pilot…
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I wonder what the cost per mission of the A-12 was once all the development , production and operational costs are all accounted for? 
…
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Not a thing of beauty, but I do like the way the Yanks and the Brits designed planes in the late 40s to 60s that were designed for a very specific task.
as an example I give you the Savage (greet name) designed o carry the second generation of nuclear bombs and be carrier launched. Being the heaviest plane to launch from a carrier at that time it has a turbo jet tucked away in the rear fuselage.
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It’s cool… but it’ll never be Valkyrie cool.
Gloriously and heroically pointless. Obsolete before pencil hit paper and more expensive on a per unit basis than the Apollo program. Also one scary bastard to fly due to its ability to melt itself if you opened the taps at the wrong altitude. None of that matters because LOOK AT IT.
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Tristar? flew on one of those on our first foreign holiday in the 80’s.
My mum is shit scared of flying so chain smoked all the way through the flight.
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The US Navy went through a very purple patch of ‘ordering shit off the drawing board to see if it’s any good.’ Case in point; the Vought Cutlass;
Objectively, it was terrible. It was underpowered, the engines stopped working if it rained, the hydraulic system only worked at an absurd pressure and the stall recovery advice basically amounted to “don’t stall.” It does look ready to battle an alien menace though.
Pictured; LCDR Alkire ‘enjoying’ the Cutlass’ woeful deck landing characteristics.
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The first plane I flew in…
Short hop from the old Adelaide Airport out at Parafield to Kingscote (Kangaroo Island).
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Awesome, would love a flight in a Dak/DC3
A true golden era 
- late 40s to late 60s when aircraft design was a zany mix of long-established (and not always good) habits and absolute chuck-it-at-a-wall-and-see-what-sticks batshittery.
The dying days of the piston engine especially fascinate me - with >2-3000hp turning massive props you could generate so much torque the whole 'plane could feel like a wannabe windmill! Takeoffs could be tricky as hell - requiring masses of counter-rudder to go in anything like a straight line. Scary on the ground, lethal on the flightdeck of a carrier…
This led to various solutions - De Havilland’s Mosquito replacement, the Hornet, employed two different variants of Merlin engines which fired in opposite directions and was also (incidentally) Fucking Gorgeous -
Another clever idea was the contra-rotating propeller, utilising a complex gearing system to drive two props rotating in opposite directions from one engine, thus cancelling much of the torque. Unfortunately, complexity proved the enemy of reliability - so most such designs saw only short, post-war service, or none at-all before jets made props of any kind obsolete - e.g. Martin-Baker’s MB5
The other advantage of C-R props was the ability to use shorter blades - handy on naval types (especially tail-dragger undercarriages) like the late Seafires, and the Seafang (pic), and also on naval turboprops (Wyvern (
), Gannet &c.). They also made it possible to reduce rudder size.
The Seafang was pretty much the last, barely-recognisable gasp of the Spitfire family - whose actual dying embers involved the re-use of the Seafang’s wings on the jet-powered Supermarine Attacker -
…by which time not so much as a rivet or curve of the Spitfire remained.
(Footnote, preserved Spitfires with C-R props are either Seafires or Spits re-engined with Shackleton powerplants)
…aaand since Supermarine was previously best known for flying boats, here’s the C-R propped Seagull - the victim of what can only be termed a mercy-killing by the rise of the helicopter in air/sea rescue -
Of course, just in case 2-3000hp passing through a complex prop gearbox isn’t enough, someone came-up with coaxial twin-engine contra-rotating prop designs, most notably Douglas XB-42 ‘Mixmaster’ - sounds like a kitchen appliance, looks like a kitchen appliance -
Apparently it also flew like a kitchen appliance, albeit it achieved its objective of being quicker than a DH Mosquito and carrying a heavier weapons load…
…and just in case it wasn’t already ugly or over-complicated enough, you can always strap-on some more engines…
Well, barely skimming the iceberg’s tip, that’s enough random free-association for one day…
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Always like the Vampire & Venom, one of our old units near Wantage had one on dramatic display on the way in… such a cute little thing.
http://www.telestrian.co.uk/de_Havilland_Venom.html
de Havilland Venom by Robert Seymour, on Flickr
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I can’t remember which ones, but the Mosquito always reminds me of the Biggles Comics from being a kid.
Gorgeous!
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That time Canada tried to build a super interceptor . . .
The Avro CF-105 Arrow. The project was ended (officially) due to government austerity measures and technical difficulties but the strong suspicion is the US government put pressure on Canada to kill the aircraft. Everything connected to the project (and the Iroquois engine programme) was destroyed and Avro Canada was dissolved.
Tidbits like pieces of a mock-up that was dumped into Lake Ontario occasionally turn up
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As the coolest, most iconic commercial airliner of choice, the Dakota aces it.
Simple, end of, etc etc.
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