Mustard

More than 50 years after making its first flight, the F-15 Eagle remains one of the most capable fighter aircraft ever developed.

In the 1950’s many believed that railways were an antiquated 19th century technology, soon to be abandoned in favor of faster and more convenient forms of transportation. Short and medium-haul jet travel offered unparalleled speed, while the automobile promised unmatched freedom and convenience. In France the fastest express trains (Le Mistral) averaged speeds of just 120km/h. Although French engineers had set remarkable railway speed records during the decade, including reaching 331 km/h in 1955, few considered railways to have much of a future. To compete against newer forms of transports, trains would have to get significantly faster. This would require engineering new locomotives, as well as rebuilding rail lines with greater precision, more gentle curves, smaller grades and more precise signaling. The effort and resources required seem too great to be worthwhile, but the Japanese were about to radically change how railways were viewed..

By the 1930’s it was well understood that military aircraft would play a crucial role in future conflicts. But there was an issue that had challenged aircraft designers since the dawn of flight. Large, heavy aircraft, like bombers, could carry plenty of fuel, allowing them to fly great distances, but smaller planes like fighters needed to be light and agile could carry only a small amount, limiting their range. This mismatch in flight range meant that on long range missions, bombers couldnt rely on the protection of escorting fighters. The Zveno Project was a Soviet experiment in the 1930s that involved attaching fighters to a bomber mothership and using them as long-range bombers or escorts.

In 1969 Lockheed produced a highly conceptual study to determine the uses and capabilities of the largest aircraft technically feasible using 1960’s era technology. The result was the CL-1201, a nuclear-powered aircraft with a truly enormous 1,120 foot wingspan and a weight about fifteen times heavier than the next largest aircraft in existence. Although Lockheed’s concept is now widely known by aviation enthusiast, the original report is nowhere to be found, having either been lost or destroyed. Currently, the best source of information is a paper published for the 1982 AIAA 2nd International Very Large Vehicles Conference which references several aspects of the original report. Two variants of the CL-1201 were studied. The first was an airborne aircraft carrier armed with 24 aircraft and long-range cruise missiles, and the second, a military transport capable of carrying up to 400 combat-equipped troops, 472 specialized crew, and over a thousand tons of mechanized equipment and supp