Keith Willshaw wrote:
"Mike Zaharis" wrote in message
...


robert arndt wrote:


"Boomer" wrote in message

...

the U-2 was little more than an F-104 with high aspect wings to

overfly

unfriendly airspace. Not much of a "concept" there, just the only way

to

achieve that kind of altitude with the tech of the day. I guess the

Germans

invented the F-104 as well. There were "big wing" recon planes in

WWII, I

guess they were stolen from Germany too.


Gee, the U-2 bears a rather strong resemblence to the F-104, does it?
Let's look at the DFS 228 captured by the US in 1945 and studied for a
year before being given to the British to evaluate (which led to the
Slingsby T-44 concept):

http://www.luft46.com/prototyp/dfs228.html

Yeah right, the DFS 228 has NOTHING to do with the U-2. Get real.

Rob

Rob, let me be the first to defend you. Here's the original aircraft that

proved to the world

that high aspect ratio wings are good - and it's Nazi-era German!

http://www.luftfahrtmuseum.com/htmi/itf/goe3.htm
http://www.hobbyclub.com/Gal-minimoa.htm



Do you seriously think high aspect ratio wings werent invented
until 1936 ?

Francis Herbert Wenham at the Aeronautical society in London
built a wind tunnel and demonstrated the advantages of high
aspect wing ratios for gliders in 1871

This was understood by most of the aviation pioneers including Lillienthal

Keith


Maybe I should have included the HTML commandes [Sarcasm] and [/sarcasm].

I just thought that, if Mr. Arndt was going to focus on a high-aspect
wing (which is the only thing that the DFS 228 and the U-2 have in
common, other than being spy aircraft), I'd give him an even better
example. I thought that a recreational glider would be ridiculous
enough, and I just remembered the Minimoa being one of the more
beautiful long-winged pre-war German gliders.

I guess that with all the tinfoil hat wearing here, and people making
ridiculous statements (not you, Keith, but others), most peoples'
facetiousness sensors are set with a pretty high threshold.