The world's ugliest 737?

You can cram a pretty big radar in those radomes. Looks like there may be an IRST system on top of the front radome, too.

 

I kinda like it.

 

What would be the main purpose of that plain? War? Borders?

 

Radar testing

 

They say the best designs are inspired by nature....


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And they couldn't dump the JT8Ds?

 

I’m sure the Air Force looked at it and figured they could re-engine them for only slightly more than the cost of a new 737 before some bean counter with common sense got involved and reallocated the money towards redesigning flight suits again.

 

Or aircrew spectacles. It is just a modified T-43A, so she has T-43A engines.

 

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I like "function over form" many times over in the engineering world

There's no "Fashion Design Czar" in military defense projects. They aren't out to win awards like Elon Musk, Apple, or Richard Branson.

I think it's cool

Jedi

 

The large radomes allow you to put in lower frequency radars with large antennae and see how low observables technologies work on various Generation 5 aircraft. Low observables were originally slanted more towards higher frequency, target tracking radars. So understanding how they work, practically instead of theoretically, against search radars is very valuable information.

 

This 737 is not the first time Boeing-produced aircraft got "nosey". In the 60's and 70's, the dad of my friend flew the "Snoopy" aircraft that tracked the Apollo spacecraft.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_EC-135

"The Advanced Range Instrumentation Aircraft are EC-135Bs, modified C-135B cargo aircraft and EC-18B (former American Airlines 707-320) passenger aircraft that provided tracking and telemetry information to support the US space program in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

"During the early 1960s, NASA and the Department of Defense (DoD) needed a very mobile tracking and telemetry platform to support the Apollo space program and other unmanned space flight operations. In a joint project, NASA and the DoD contracted with the McDonnell Douglas and the Bendix Corporations to modify eight Boeing C-135 Stratolifter cargo aircraft into EC-135N Apollo / Range Instrumentation Aircraft (A/RIA). Equipped with a steerable seven-foot antenna dish in its distinctive "Droop Snoot" or "Snoopy Nose", the EC-135N A/RIA became operational in January 1968, and was often known as the "Jimmy Durante" of the Air Force. The Air Force Eastern Test Range (AFETR) at Patrick AFB, Florida, maintained and operated the A/RIA until the end of the Apollo program in 1972, when the USAF renamed it the Advanced Range Instrumentation Aircraft (ARIA). "

 

Reminds me of a guy that I used to work for.

 

What effects do these protuberances have on the aircrafts' flight characteristics? They look variously 'nose-heavy' and 'tail-heavy'..... Any reconfiguration of flaps/rudders/??

 

They are not nose or tail heavy, the radar units inside are not heavy..... the space is mostly empty.

 

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went to go order some of those to leave on the central scheduling desk at work... $36 on Amazon! I may buy some later.

 

Woolley shmowks!!!

Good idea...I need some at the hangar!

 

In true Air Force wisdom, they use an old version with the -100/200 engines. They turn jet fuel into noise...

 

Yes the important part is they use a lot of fuel to make that noise.

 

Well, the DO make a LOT of noise....

 

thats what happens when airbus engineers start working at boeing

 

Easy now...I flew the A-300-600 for 16 years and loved it. Light years ahead of the Boeing's of that era..and not the electronic lawn dart tech of the A-320 series aircraft..just sayin ;-)