A-12 canopy at eBay

$5 billion dollars, ON SALE for $2200! That is a DEAL!!!!!!

Oh and can somebody explain how the hell it ended up mounted on top of a trailer?
 
The canopy looks... cheap. So I'm guessing that it was a mockup, or a broken component repaired for some reason... or a broken component that was disposed of and repaired later. Whoever got it *may* have mounted it atop a trailer as sort of a skylight. If you actually worked on the A-12, it would be kind of an amusing thing to have a canopy, even a repaired one, on top of a U-Haul or horse trailer.

Same kind of thing happened with the floats from one of the Martin SeaMasters... got turned into a pontoon boat by one of the engineers.

NOTE: this entire post is pure specualtion.
 
it's from unfinished A-12s
mockup sucks compared to this
 
flateric said:
it's from unfinished A-12s
mockup sucks compared to this
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Flateric is correct. I checked, this isn't even from the sled tests, it's the real deal.
 
Orionblamblam said:
There certainly looks to be something wrong with the actual transparency, though. Looks like a few too many pieces of plexiglas sorta rivitted together.
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Or used in Dazzler tests after the program folded, perhaps?
 
flateric said:
via miracles of capitalism, price has grown a little... Buy it now: US $620,238.00
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Didn't he pay about $2,300 for it?
 
Yeah it was about that much. He got it from Purdue U on the US gov't suplus website a few weeks ago.
 
circle-5 said:
flateric said:
via miracles of capitalism, price has grown a little... Buy it now: US $620,238.00
Click to expand...

Didn't he pay about $2,300 for it?
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If he can get six hundred grand for a two grand investment... more power to him. Wish I could do the same...

Somehow I suspect the "buy it now" price is kind of a gag.
 
Orionblamblam said:
circle-5 said:
flateric said:
via miracles of capitalism, price has grown a little... Buy it now: US $620,238.00
Click to expand...

Didn't he pay about $2,300 for it?
Click to expand...

If he can get six hundred grand for a two grand investment... more power to him. Wish I could do the same...

Somehow I suspect the "buy it now" price is kind of a gag.
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I've given up trying to understand crazy "buy it now" prices. After seeing an Airfix 1/72 scale P-51 - the one that kind of looked like a P-51 if you squinted at it from across a darkened room - for "buy it now" $50.00 or seeing three common as in pick up for a couple of bucks at a swap-meet kits each with million dollar 'buy it now" prices I've accepted that some people just use that listing option to play with people.
 
ha-ha!
http://www.ebay.com/itm/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=150718532486&ssPageName=ADME:B:SS:US:1123#ht_9783wt_1185
 
It can't be the real thing, the original canopy was supposed to open to a side, with hinges lengthwise; note the hinge-like bits sticking out at the back, F-14 style.
 
Foxglove said:
It can't be the real thing, the original canopy was supposed to open to a side, with hinges lengthwise; note the hinge-like bits sticking out at the back, F-14 style.
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It's the real thing, verified both by an engineer and access to photos of the same article, with it's brothers, from 1991.

Photos of the sled test cockpits/canopies were published around the time of program cancellation, in AvWeek. You can match this article up against those if you can locate the issue.

I couldn't figure out a good way to use this at home, would make an interesting skylight though. I've been looking for something like this to decorate my new place. Bits of TSSAM and STS just don't have the same conversation value.
 
Foxglove said:
It can't be the real thing, the original canopy was supposed to open to a side, with hinges lengthwise; note the hinge-like bits sticking out at the back, F-14 style.
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I would suspect that while the canopy opened sideways, it was jettisoned up and aft (using these fittings) with rocket assistance, during the crew ejection sequence.
 
quellish said:
I couldn't figure out a good way to use this at home, would make an interesting skylight though. I've been looking for something like this to decorate my new place. Bits of TSSAM and STS just don't have the same conversation value.
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You just need a titanium front door for this to make a lovely window in... I want a front gate made out of F117 inlet shields.
 
Last Saturday I spoke with a friend who worked on the A-12 program. I mentioned these pictures and he replied "I doubt that it is. The A-12 program is still tied up in litigation so nothing should have been released." He did ask me to send a copy of the pictures. The next day he replied "That's an A-12 canopy." Today he followed up with his thoughts that this one could have been the sled test canopy. However. He did say that he only remembers two transparencies on that one.
 
This is the real canopy. It's not from the sled test. This is the actual canopy from an un-built A-12. The case should just be laid to rest as it has been proven by Quellish's digging.
 
Hi,
I live in Lafayette, and deal with Purdue's surplus department almost daily. I was able to see it and touch it. You all don't know just how close this thing came to being scrapped for the aluminum. It was close, very close. It sat outside in a parking lot for over a month before being sold on Gov Deals. I talked to the buyer, he is dead serious about his asking price, even though the price at which he purchased it at is all over the web. It will be an interesting item to watch. I can tell you that it was heavy, very heavy.
 
This makes me sick , I want to punch in the face of such people who can only buy things in order to resell them later, spreading nothing but inflation of money. Do you realize, this is a part of US aviation history? It was an amazing attempt of engineers to build the next generation of airplanes. How can a 5 billion dollar attempt be found at a scrapyard? How sick low level scumbags must the executives be to destroy such a piece of engineering? If the issue was a hangar or a lack of space, you could have hired me for 0 dollars an hour, I would have built you a shed for free of charge. Where are the smartasses billionnaires who buy and sell stupid football clubs and players, yet ain`t have enough brains to preserve the history of US aviation ,which stands on par with Soviet Union? These were your fathers who had brick calcualtors and drawing boards, instead of kick-butt Cray Research sized computers. Yet it is them, who built A-12, Sr-71,An-225 Mrya, B-2, and F-23 along both sides of the ocean. Besides my love for aviation and engineering , I am a big fan of US concept cars, and it makes me similarly sick how big 3 is selling concept cars on various auctions dissolving their signature and texture of engineering legacy. I would love to create a new museum of US concept cars, where we could preserve all the concepts , devoting each floor to a seperate decade. We could even have a voting box for the cutest concept ever created either within a decade or the whole museum. Each Year the best voted concept would be displayed at the honour exhibit display with all the available info on its enginnering, designers, etc. I know there are many rich people who don`t know what to do with their money. How about a noble deed, and a sense of being needed to this world, a sense of finding peace in this world, even in your last sigh of saying goodbye from this world, you could say, the life was worth living, for I left a legacy to be proud of. here is a pic of another ppiece of history which is slowly decaying away in oblivion. Every time you destroy a part of US aviation history, you destroy a part of me......
 

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Well, the plot thickens, I am in West Lafayette, IN, and the local paper ran an article about it last Saturday.....

http://www.jconline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2012201140312

In the article is the paragraph, "But there could be a catch in that plan. In the past week, Kettleman has been contacted by the members of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. Kettleman, who has since found a lawyer familiar with the A-12 saga to help him, allowed the agents to inspect the canopy.

He admits they didn't seem too interested but is unsure what will happen next. A spokesman for NCIS could not be immediately reached Friday."

the Ebay auction got somebody's attention..........
 
ADVANCEDBOY said:
This makes me sick , I want to punch in the face of such people who can only buy things in order to resell them later, spreading nothing but inflation of money. Do you realize, this is a part of US aviation history?
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And if it wasn't for people who "buy things just to resell them," those bits of aviation history would be simply discarded. If it wasn't for the profit motive, the museums of the world would be largely empty.
 

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