zzdcar
Home
/
Reviews
/
Beyond Cars
/
The Grognard Was the Strangest Jet Bomber of the Early Cold War Era
The Grognard Was the Strangest Jet Bomber of the Early Cold War Era-July 2024
2024-02-19 EST 22:13:51

Image for article titled The Grognard Was the Strangest Jet Bomber of the Early Cold War Era

The Sud-Est Grognard looked more like a drawing of a spaceship than . The experimental French jet fighter, of which only two were built, belongs to my favorite era of aircraft: . While jet engines saw their in the flak-ridden skies of , figuring out how best to bend an aircraft around an air intake and turbine remains a hard problem.

While ultramodern jets, like the just-unveiled B-21 Raider stealth bomber, solve that with careful shaping of intakes ports, the Grognard’s solution was almost comically straightforward: stick a big opening on the top of the plane, behind and above the cockpit, and trust that the air will feed the engines sufficiently.

At alternative aviation magazine Hush Kit, writers Hugo Mark Michel and Joe Coles compiled a list of “.” Here’s how they describe the Grognard, ranked 9:

“The primordial soup of the early jet age spawned some extremely ugly aeroplanes – and the SE.2410 Grognard, known derisively as the ‘Bossu’ (hunchback) was one of them. Of many unusual features, its double-decked jet engine arrangement is the most notable, and was later adopted by the English Electric Lightning (and nothing else).”

Image for article titled The Grognard Was the Strangest Jet Bomber of the Early Cold War Era

The plane, they continue, was designed for ground attack, or quickly hitting and bombing tanks, artillery, soldiers, or anything else that might be a threat below. With two engines stacked on top, there was room to hold four 550-pound bombs, or two 750-pound bombs, as well as a rack of rockets, which could fire in an explosive salvo, killing with volume more than accuracy.

At least, that was the premise. The Grognard first flew in 1950, and by 1952 the only two in existence were out of service, plagued by a couple of crashes and a change in role. That still meant enough time for a glowing write-up in the April 1953 issue of Popular Science. Under the headline “,” the story features a picture of a Grognard landing with parachute assistance, and notes the jet had a range of 645 miles.

By the time that story ran, the plane was canceled. France and other countries developed a range of other jets, and real jet-on-jet warfare took place in the skies above Korea. Depending on how one counts, there have been four or possibly five generations of jet design since.

Image for article titled The Grognard Was the Strangest Jet Bomber of the Early Cold War Era

The Grognard fits into a nice space I have for “real planes that look like they were based on children’s drawings.” While aviation was hardly a new science in 1950, jet aviation meant pairing a much more powerful engine with existing designs, largely worked out for the limits and traits of propeller-driven craft.

It’s an era full of weirdness, and quickly iterated further weirdness. When American defense giant Northrop Grumman unveiled the new at the end of 2022, it had been 34 years since a pre-merger Northrop unveiled the first B-2 Spirit stealth bomber. While the Raider was not continuously in development in the same way, modern aircraft last longer, are more extensively maintained, and only really come together when a government can fund their development at scale for at least a decade.

With the reveal of the Raider, everything was carefully calibrated to conceal as much as possible while announcing a new jet, from the types of phones allowed into the event space to the time of day the plane was announced. The science of modern aircraft design, eight decades into the Jet Age, is refined, full of both trade and national secrets.

The sensors that spot planes, and then guide missiles to shoot them out of the sky, have advanced by leaps and bounds as well. The bare-metal look of Cold War stalwarts, cheap and effective for planes that might see up to a decade of service, has long since been surpassed by protective coatings and color patterns aimed at confusing visual and sensor identification.

While the Grognard’s role in active service ended in 1952, it still flew as a test and training craft for a couple more years. The plane, this little early Cold-War oddity, bears the distinction of being the to fire a French-made air-to-air missile.

Comments
Welcome to zzdcar comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
Beyond Cars
Deadliest Train In America Kills 3 People In 2 Separate Collisions At The Same Crossing
Deadliest Train In America Kills 3 People In 2 Separate Collisions At The Same Crossing
operate between Orlando and Miami and hold the unwelcome distinction of being both the first intra-city high speed rail in the U.S. and the , by far. After three people died at a single grade crossing in two separate incidents last week it seems the feds are finally perking...
Jul 13, 2025
Crystal Chunks Are Bursting Through The Road In China
Crystal Chunks Are Bursting Through The Road In China
A video of what looks like quartz breaking through the surface of a is making the rounds on . I don’t get over there much, being suspicious of the Chinese over concerns of it spying on its users, as the reports. OK, fine. Actually, I just don’t get the humor...
Jul 13, 2025
Marshmallow Treats Ended Up On The Royal Air Force's No-Fly List
Marshmallow Treats Ended Up On The Royal Air Force's No-Fly List
Over in the United Kingdom, there’s a certain dessert known as a “teacake” — or, as a British friend kindly informed me, it’s more accurately known as a “Tunnock” in Scotland. Basically, the food in question for this particular story are actually a cookie base topped with marshmallow, coated...
Jul 13, 2025
Aircraft Touch Tips During Blizzard At Japanese Airport
Aircraft Touch Tips During Blizzard At Japanese Airport
As at , its port side wing the starboard vertical stabilizer of bound for Hong Kong. This comes at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport, and . “Our aircraft, which was stationary at the time with no customers nor crew onboard, was struck by a Korean Air A330 which was taxiing past,”...
Jul 13, 2025
String Of Boeing Failures Continues With 737-800 Flight Turning Back With Cracked Cockpit Windshield
String Of Boeing Failures Continues With 737-800 Flight Turning Back With Cracked Cockpit Windshield
In the wake of recent major , including , , and the debacle that was , it isn’t a good time for further failures by the company. that would , an unrelated 737-800 with a cracked windshield, became international news this weekend. The flight took off from Sapporo-New Chitose...
Jul 13, 2025
2023 Zero DSR/X: The Bike Of The Future, But Not Our Future
2023 Zero DSR/X: The Bike Of The Future, But Not Our Future
The world, in 2023, is cyberpunk. We’ve got the , the , and the that keeps the and the . But in cyberpunk media, people are always riding . Why are we stuck with the same bikes we’ve always had? , it seems, wants to address this grievous wrong....
Jul 13, 2025
Copyright 2023-2025 - www.zzdcar.com All Rights Reserved