Airplane spotters- 2 unusual sightings

[grwebster]

Today, landing at Nice France on a flight from Venice I saw there was a RAF VC-10 refueler at the airport. Did know these 1960s aircraft were still flying. Must be supporting the Libyian revolution efforts. It was finiahed exactly like this one
http://www.google.fr/imgres?q=vc-10&um= ... 29,r:0,s:0

Not to be beat, also present was an Antonov An-72 (Nato 'Coaler') in a wild, presumably civilian paint scheme. I have never seen one of these before. This is a photo of it
http://www.flickr.com/photos/didairbus/ ... s-denis60/

[dasimperator]

First link didn't work till I removed all the Google-added krep...

http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/bri ... del-03382/

[Tone]

Nice engine nacelles on the An 72, I had forgotten about that plane. They assist short take-off ? ? I saw a British airways VC-10 in 1977, only time I ever saw a real one. Of course, several toys ...

[grwebster]

The An 72 was designed with what is called a 'blown wing' or 'blown flaps'. The 'boundry layer control' concept uses the exhaust from the main thrust engines directed over the top surface of the wing to create extra lift.

It was tried on the experimental Boeing YC-14 (there is a nice toy in the Bachmann Miniplanes range of this aircraft).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_YC-14

There were a few experimental aircraft designed that carried an extra engine that was used only to develop exhaust gases that were ducted over the top surface of the wing.

The Japanese flying boat ShinMaywa US 2 has a 5th engine in the fuselage for this purpose and I believe is the only production aircraft to use the concept.

[alas]

check this out:
http://www.vectorsite.net/avan72.html
and

http://www.turbosquid.com/3d-models/ant ... max/420546 !!

who or what is BB?