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It's amazing how they come up with all these fantastick inventions. The engineering, design, testing, and the guts it takes to crawl into one of these aircraft for the very first time and put it through all of the flight testing that they do. Also who makes the decisions and how those decisions are made, as to which aircraft makes the grade and becomes the next one to be used by our Armed Forces was very interesting as well. I recall working at Ryan Aeronautical Co. at Lindberg Field in San Diego back around 1958 or so, and serving an apprenticeship as a machinist, and just outside the doors at one end of the building I worked in, there was a huge platform upon which they were testing an airplane that stood verticaly on it's tail-end, tethered on four points with a fuel line over-head. Kinda like a rocket. And the pilot would fire up the engine and hover that thing over the platform. We would all go out and watch it and listen to the huge roar. I wonder if that is where vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft had it's begginings? As usual HULU, you are bringing back great memories to me of my youthful days and adventures with these kinds of programs. Thank You !
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