Wow that's a cranky sounding beast when it wakes up! (I love radials) Here's a better video showing actual flying around and giving it some.. Nice to see the smoke abate and sound smooth after such a scary looking startup! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0TkhjoGNzg
The first Piaggio Gull that ever saw was in the early 60's when I lived near the Bellevue Airport (now gone) and I watched a Comanche make a horrible overshoot and obviously was spooked by what appeared to him was a short runway. Following was the Gull, all set up with a slower airspeed and powering in to put it down at the end of the runway with no problem. Years later I happened to mention the incident to Ernie Gann when we were talking about knowing the slow flying characteristics of any airplane that one was flying. He asked me what color the Gull was that I saw that day and I told him white and turquoise. He smiled and said, " Well, that was me." I should add that the approach from the south took the airplane through a shallow valley at the base of a steep hill that was, at the time, covered with tall firs. The terrain and trees were right under you on base leg and it spooked a lot of GA pilots who many times overshot and ended up in the garbage dump at the end of the runway. Not Ernie and his Gull. Mira Slovak came in one day in a Ryan ST. Bill Boeing lived nearby and I suppose he was the one being visited.
The Northrop N-9M flew over my office on Friday as I was headed out for lunch. Apparently it was destined for an airshow held this weekend in Camarillo, CA. Definitely the coolest thing I have ever randomly seen in the skies. File photos as at > 2,000 AGL my iPhone wouldn't have done it justice. >8^) ER Image Unavailable, Please Login
This was sitting outside an FBO at General Mitchell the last couple of days. Pretty neat. Mark Image Unavailable, Please Login
Its probably sitting there because its broken. Saw this in El Paso last week. I learned from Wikipedia that this Super Guppy is based out of there. Image Unavailable, Please Login
One flew over my home near westchester/danbury/bridgeport ct - couldnt see the colors but it was loud! Image Unavailable, Please Login
Passed a truck towing a SkyMaster on I-80 in Pennsylvania several weeks ago. The entire center section was complete and the wings were stored along side the cockpit. It was painted in Vietnam era makings heading east towards the coast? I couldn't figure out what I was looking at until I was almost past him?
We flew the Cessna 337 Super Skymaster as the O-2A Skymaster in Vietnam. Probably what you saw. Incidentally, that is likely an AT-38B out of Randolph's 12th Training Wing (RA tailflash) with a travel pod mounted on the centerline. Just cross-country, probably.
I'm not sure what the history is but there is what looks like a real 0-2A that is flown out of a small field just west of San Antonio.
Interesting, the thing looked beat enough to have been through Vietnam. I only spoke with the owner for a brief period and the only thing I really remember is that it can fly on two engines or (if memory serves) the front engine. It couldn't sustain level altitude on just the rear.
I was thinking about the other centerline twin, the Do-335. It was as fast as the P-51 on just the rear engine. I would have loved to see that airplane at speed.
I believe I saw a Do-335 in the Wright-Patterson anex many years ago in need of full restoration. During my return visit, it was no longer in the same location. Mark
The only surviving Do-335 has been restored. It is at the Udvar-Hazy museum at Dulles in DC. There were not that many built originally... only 40 or so. It is a bigger plane than I thought it would be... much, much larger than an FW-190.
I worked with an ex-cornier engineer who was one of their test pilots as well as one of their chief engineers. He did a lot of design work on the DO-335 and we talked a lot about it . He was extremely interesting and pretty funny at times when he voiced his frustrations during flight test. " I could never complete a flight test without some damn P-51 trying to shoot at me." When I asked him if they ever got any shots in he said, "Of course not!" He hated the Nazi's and made sure that he had hidden a means of escaping if and when he had to, like hiding his motorcycle in a pile of manure. He flight tested many of the DO flying boats and flew many secret missions during the war that he never mentioned to me. I found out from reading about the Junkers bombers that arrived late in the war. One was flown from Germany to Japan over Russia to deliver secret materials of some kind. Henry flew one of them. He was an engineer and pilot ,period, and had no use for politics. He called the 707 a "stupidity" but worked very hard on the design.
I believe it's the other way around-- the rear engine provides about 70% of the usable thrust. Do you remember the movie "Bat 21" with Gene Hackman?
The short landing gear made it necessary to put 7 deg. dihedral in the wings to maintain engine clearance. This coupled with 35Deg sweep over stabilized the airplane and as he predicted, it "Would wobble all over the sky". Dutch roll was severe and necessitated a yaw damper and special techniques at times. Also it prevented stretching the fuselage for growth in mission capability. He said that a longer landing gear would have allowed anhedral..." Like the Russians."..to have a stabile aircraft. The lack of full time hydraulic boost to rudder and other surfaces caused some headaches also in early models.
Could be.... I just remember them saying that one engine provided considerably more than the other. I dunno if I have ever seen Bat 21, is it good?
This beautiful COZY was spotted at KAND today. Looked up the N-number on ForeFlight and then found this YouTube video... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDmaOH6EMyw Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
