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This is not your weird theory. There is some truth to it. Look up Kelly Johnson’s account on several books about military airplanes. In case if anyone doesn’t
by systemvoltage 6y ago
This is not your weird theory. There is some truth to it. Look up Kelly Johnson’s account on several books about military airplanes.
In case if anyone doesn’t know he is: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelly_Johnson_(engineer) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelly_Johnson_(engineer)
Basically his philosophy, at some corner of his brains was "If it cools beautiful, it will fly well." The way I think of it is - streamlined shapes are generally more pleasing to human vision system. Not sure why, some innate biological/evolutionary trait. So, Kelly designed a lot of beautiful planes with his gut instinct when there is no data/objectivity, but only some instincts to rely on. Legendary engineer!
- larrywright 6y agoKelly absolutely hated the design of the stealth fighter, which I believe was the first plane the skunkworks built after he retired.
- thedrbrian 6y agoBen Rich , Kelly’s successor, also though the military gave out contracts to less good aircraft/companies due to how much other work they had. For example Lockheed got the F-117 but didn’t get the order for the follow up large bomber. That went to their competitor because they hadn’t had a contract in years and might be going out of business. See Lockheed’s SENIOR PEG here https://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/lockheeds-senior-peg-the-forgotten-stealth-bomber-1534057907 https://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/lockheeds-senior-peg-the-f... Interesting idea to have a larger force of cheaper planes rather than the small group of super expensive B-2s that the US got.