Cool airplane photo thread

And I knew that American and Western were both early users of the 720.

 

Rare shot. Looks a lot like some of the Russian stuff from a few years later


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Did not work too well, but at least it was ugly.

 

The Russians always had big ass tires to operate on rough runways

 

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This picture needs a caption..........

 

UGLY

 

Thought you might enjoy this photo of a painting made of my Dad's P-47D-30 RA (Evansville, IN) by a German artist in 1947. Dad, a 1st Lieutenant then, was part of the occupation forces (86th FBG) in Germany at the time. Mom took a troopship to join him in 1946. She was pregnant with me when the painting was made. The painting hangs from an actual WW-II drone propeller. Those drones were used as targets for AAA training.



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P61 getting a little help

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Not an airplane, but still cool. Amazing what they did back in the 1960's and 1970's without much of the computer technology and a much smaller population.

The Gemini 7 in December 1965.

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Would seem more amazing if the current state of the space program were exponentially greater, but alas we are still stuck in LEO.

 

" painting made of my Dad's P-47D-30 RA "
*****
Still amazed by WW II era pilots and aviation. Just started a book about the light carrier Cowpens and the stat came up of 15,000 fatalities occurred during pilot training. Holy sh*t. Did a brief look up and:

"Looking at totals for the entire war is even more sobering. The U.S. suffered 52,173 aircrew combat losses. But another 25,844 died in accidents. More than half of these died in the continental U.S. The U.S. lost 65,164 planes during the war, but only 22,948 in combat. There were 21,583 lost due to accidents in the U.S., and another 20,633 lost in accidents overseas."

https://www.realclearhistory.com/articles/2019/02/12/staggering_statistics_15000_us_airmen_killed_in_training_in_ww_ii_412.html

 

In 1946 the Class A accident rate exceeded 100 accidents per 100,000 flying hours. It is now less than 2. To say that things were a bit looser then would be a gross understatement. Dad talked about going to the flightline, seeing an airplane he wanted to fly, finding the crew chief, going over the flight manual, and flying it. Needless to say, we do not do that now.

MGen Frank Andrews died in a B-17 crash in Greenland early in the war. Accidents were not rank conscious.

 

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That popped up in my feed a few days ago..."The Mighty Moo"...
Only carrier present in Tokyo for Japan's surrender...

 

I saw it pop up on a feed and with not much enthusiasm downloaded the Audible. Kept my interest, learned some things and would recommend it. For me, it was always kinda "disturbing" thinking about those carrier pilots flying over the Pacific with minimal nav. and questionably reliable aircraft.

 

And fenders to catch the gravel.

 

Part of the equation for my Uncle I am sure. Dad and Uncle (related by marriage), both Navy crossed paths in San Diego at the end of the war. Dad asked Uncle (F6F pilot) if he was staying in. Both 25 or so years old. Uncle responded "Dont think so, these jets coming along are for kids. I'm too old".

 

Some of those early jets, USAF and USN, were pretty underpowered and it took those early turbojets a long time to spool up and make power after being pulled back. Cannot say I blame your uncle.

Dad's last operational fighter was the F-84D straight-wing. The two standard jokes were, first if, someone built a runway around the world, Republic would build a fighter than used every inch of it. The other was tying a bag of dirt in front of the nosewheel with a release cord in the cockpit. Once the end of the runway started to get kind of close, you released the dirt to fool the Thunderjet into thinking it was the end of the runway.

 

Another cool USAF aircraft that never made it into production.

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The F-90's only operational use was in that early cartoon series Blackhawks Squadron.



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In one of many books I read about operating those at Nellis.. Pilot said it had dirt smelling radar and would not waddle airborne until it smelled dirt past the pavement end. They only took off early AM when density altitude allowed it.

 

Dad had declassified flight manuals on the F-84s that he gave to me. I gave them to the Air Force Historical Research Agency at Maxwell AFB when I went through staff college.

 

CV880 taking off. This frame became the Elvis 880 "Lisa Marie".

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Never made any money, but sure went like stink.