[ATTACH]
Brought to us by the folks the brought the P-51 Mustang a few years before.... talk about looking good.
Interesting sidelight. French ace George Guynemer's Vieux Charles SPAD XII armed with a 37 mm single shot cannon shooting through the hollow propeller shaft of its Hispano-Suiza V8. Only a couple of aces could make this work. The Hispano-Suiza V8s used a flat plane crankshaft, if that sounds familiar. French Sopwith Triplane in the background. The French were terrified of their Triplanes because those made by subcontractors other than Sopwith were prone to shed their wings in flight while maneuvering. Image Unavailable, Please Login
Ah yes, the famous "Gimli Glider", in which an Air Canada pilot who had flown sailplanes used those techniques to safely land an out-of-fuel 767 on a former air force base he had used to fly out of! I have a piece of that aircraft's skin attached to a keychain.
American-built "DH-4 Liberty" in front of the Alamo during a publicity tour in 1918. The DeHavilland-designed plane had an American-designed V12 and was the only American-built airplane series to fight in WW1 Image Unavailable, Please Login
I imagine that this is FIFI or DOC. I had a one hour flight in FIFI in 1992 in the bomb aimer's position that was a memorable time for me.
I believe they started designing the B17 in the mid 30's and the B29 in 1940. Its remarkable the leap in aircraft technology in just those few years. I've always thought both were beautiful designs. The B17 looking like a tough b@astard and the B29 looking elegant and sophisticated.
The B-17 was a 1933 design that was, in part, a metal iteration of the previous fabric covered metal airframes and it was a combination of old and new techniques. The fuselage was a strong semi-monocoque design where the wing was a combination of heavy square aluminum truss spars , warren truss ribs, and an inter spar covering of an inner corrugated skin covered by an outer smooth skin. It was a prime example of multiple load path construction that was almost indestructible. It was also very heavy. The B-17 followed the 247 that was the initial transition from the earlier designs, the Model 80. The B-29 was a giant leap into the modern shear web and stiffener construction that was also used in the B-24, a design that was 7 years after the B-17. Interesting that the original B-17 drawings were in English fractional dimensions and the 1939 E model fin and horizontal tail was laid out in the decimal system as was the 1941 B-29.
