Got ‘er done way early this time, and since I couldn’t find a way to save the piece without actually posting it, I figured it’d be better to go ahead and get it on up there rather than risk losing the entire thing should the compooter crash or the power go out or some other nightmarish something.
Titled “Autonomous plane?”, this one uses the somewhat disturbing news of the USAF’s launch of a plane they call the Valkyrie which is powered completely by AI as the springboard for a look back at what I consider to be the REAL Valkyrie, the XB70. We go on from there with a photo-rich ramble through the catalog of early-jet-age fighters, all the way back to the unstoppable F86 Sabre. Kinda tough to excerpt this one, but I’ll take a stab at it anyhoo.
The diminutive Starfighter was conceived and built as a replacement for North American’s F100 Super Sabre, shouldering it roughly aside before the F100 had even had its maiden flight. The Super Sabre was itself the successor aircraft to the famed F86 Sabre, America’s very first swept-wing fighter and quite a pretty l’il gal her own badass self.
And what a badass she was, too, eventually turning the tide against the once-invincible MiG 15 over Korea to close out the conflict police action war with a convincing 10:1 kill ratio. So successful was the F86, in fact, that it remains the most-produced Western jet fighter by a hefty margin, at nearly 10,000 units built.
A fun post to write for sure, I think y’all will really enjoy this one.
“A fun post to write for sure…”
Even funner to read, Mike. Well done!