Of course I have seen it fly by, I mean, who hasn't, right? But those words triggered a reminder of one of my favorite operas, Nixon in China, written by John Adams. Now this Adams fellow is not a good person, and most of his work is easily ignored, but he hired a decent librettist and wrote his little fingers to the bone with his quill pen when he put these notes together, and for whatever reason I like this opera.
I was lying on my sofa thirty years ago, halfway napping, when there came a tapping, oops, wrong poem, when I heard this music, I opened my eyes and there was AF1 landing in a way that no normal plane has ever safely landed. No normal non-VTOL airplane, anyway.
Does anyone remember when Nixon went to China the Chinese built a full scale replica *non-flying) of his Boeing 707? I can't find any reference to it. It seems to me this was the Chinese saying "We're ready to do business."
I do remember that - in typical Chinese fashion they reverse engineered it, well, sort of, but lacking any understanding of the center of gravity, the center of lift and other aeronautical engineering niceties it was not air worthy. Not sure it ever flew. Good times, good times...
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The sliding door was also innovative.
Does anyone remember when Nixon went to China the Chinese built a full scale replica *non-flying) of his Boeing 707? I can't find any reference to it. It seems to me this was the Chinese saying "We're ready to do business."
I do remember that - in typical Chinese fashion they reverse engineered it, well, sort of, but lacking any understanding of the center of gravity, the center of lift and other aeronautical engineering niceties it was not air worthy. Not sure it ever flew. Good times, good times...
And no sliding door - they left off the sliding door - those monsters!
Killing off the educated kinda back-fired on them.
Thank goodness they were and are still able to steal from the best - us!
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