The F-89 Scorpion. Well a really neat model of one anyway. I remember my grandma got me a kit of one once. Anyway. This is all that stood between us, and all being burnt charcoal shadows on the wall when I was 8 or so. Now 'nothing' can save us. Just thought I'd mention this.
Them things on the wing tips are missile pods. The bright idea at the time was to pack the F-89 wing pods with a bleep load of unguided missiles. This for shooting down formations of Russian bombers. This is when anyone's bombers flew in formation.
Incident December 23th 1958.
In the one actual combat test against a formation of six Russian planes intruding into Alaskan air space...by mistake...ahem. Back then as those elders out there will remember. In them days both sides did shit like this all the time to test response reactions, and timing.
Dress rehearsals for the Big One.
Well that one time when fired them damned F-89 pod things flew all over the sky, and didn't hit a thing. Later NATO spies found out that the Russians thought it was a warning salvo. Lucky for us they didn't know the things just didn't work.
They later equipped the F-89 with guided munitions. The Cold war was just so much fun. There's one of the un-hit targets below.
It's a code name Turbo-prop "Bear". Don't laugh they had zillions of these to overwhelm U.S., and Canadian air defenses. They would have too. To this day I don't think folks understand how close we came to a nuclear war in them demented days. It wouldn't have been a world killer like it'd would have been just a few years later.
However enough to set back the Northern Hemisphere 50 to 100 years. A 1960 nuke dust up would have shifted the balance of power southward. Today in 2017 Brasilia would be the capital of a world dominating South American Australian South African hegemony.
Come to think of it how bad could that be.
No comments:
Post a Comment