A TR at last

Steve, I hope that I didn't say something bad. I sent you a PM a bit ago. You must be too busy with putting Sparky away for the year. What great photos you have of the race activities! The air to air photos and formation flying is the essence of flying and your pictures are exciting as heck. The B-25 must be pretty well corroded if everybody gives it a thumbs down and that is an inexcusable in my mind. I flew in a B-25 in 1985 and I have never seen a more steady and stabile airplane in flight. It was at Boeing for the 50th anniversary of the B-17 and the guys that flew it there were a blast. They had a water cannon in the nose and acetylene machine guns in the package mounts on the side of the fuselage. They got the interest of a bunch of seersucker suited Boeing execs who were told that they had to stand directly in front of the airplane to get the full effect of the acetylene fake guns. They then got hosed down by the water gun in the nose. I damn near wet my own pants when they did it. That was the day that I got my ride in " Worry Bird". What a great day !
Bob

 

I must have missed it, Art Vance? How? PM if you would rather.....................................................

 

I just read the NTSB report. This is terrible!!.

Scud running. I don't know how many times I have heard the same thing about others that have gone down. Damn it!!

I am very sorry for the loss of your friend Steve. My condolences.

DJ

 

It was sent to me by another Fchatter. It doesn't say much more than what you already said. I'll see if I can PM it to you.

 

Steve,
PM sent with the link to the NTSB site.

It appears to be a preliminary report. Maybe more digging or more time will show a more detailed report.

 

Where's the raquet?

 

My favorite, Italian/Brazilian actress Morena Baccarin,
Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

Sparky, and others. Here's some pix that are hot off the press. I work in a TV station here in Little Rock, Arkansas. One of our photographers is over at my hometown of Hot Springs, Arkansas where they are apparently having some sort of fly-in at the airport that I mentioned earlier where I saw the F8F years ago. Our photographer was sending back some video of the B-17 and the B-24 landing. I grabbed a videotape and started recording so that our electronic graphics guy could grab some frames so that I could post them. Sorry about a little quality loss from the roundabout way of getting them available for posting. You guys can probably tell us about the specific planes. I haven't even had time to call upstairs and find out exactly what is going on over in Hot Springs this weekend.
Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

For some weird reason, I had to resize these 80%.
Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

Still more.
Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

A few close ups of the B-24. I'm not familiar with this one. Ten or so years ago, I saw "Diamond Lil", the cargo version of the B-24 that the Confederate Air Force flies. But who is running this one? What is it's history?
Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

The B-17 taxis in. In the second pic that I posted, you can see quite a bit of smoke when the tires touched the runway. It floated back up in the air a little after that, then touched back down. It must be a little windy in Hot Springs today. The only B-17 that I ever saw in Hot Springs was a water bomber back around 1979 or 80. The one that landed today looks like it's restored to full combat mode.
Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

Collings brings their birds through Arlington Wa. every couple of years. I have seen the B17 and B24 do numerous flyovers, what a sound!

I think it was Collings that brought a Spanish built, post war version of an HE111 one year. Originally built as a CASA 2.111 cargo transport and then converted to German military configuration for display. Ironically the post war version ran upright Rolls V12's due to a shortage of the inverted BMW (?) V12's that military versions used.

I thought that it too crashed last year or the year before. Hopefully I am wrong.

Edit; Correction, It was a Confederate Airforce aircraft and it crashed in Cheyenne, 2003. Lost it's left engine on approach. Too bad.

 

Looking at the photos of the Collings Foundation B-17 and B-24 brings back a ton of memories for me. it's too bad that they painted the B-17 incorrectly. I imagine they were trying to match the color of the original that appeared in National Geo. many years ago that showed the O.D color as a faded and weathered finish from several years of sun and hard duty. They should have done it like their B-24 and painted it the correct O.D. finish but without the shine. I flew in both of those birds way back when and I thought then as I do now that the B-17 was a better airplane. It wasn't as fast and couldn't carry the same payload nor as far as the B-24 but it was solid and reliable.....and it didn't catch on fire when somebody sneezed.
Sorry as hell to hear about Vance.

 

...inverted, fuel injected Mercedes Benz 601, V12's.

 

Spasso senior here. I have often wondered how the Daimler Benz DB 601 produced so much horse power when they were running on 87 octane fuel. I saw one at the NACA labs at Langley and they were crude and rather clunky to look at but one of the engineers said, " You should see the inside !" They had a magnesium block and other parts and were fuel injected. I guess they put out a bit more poop than the Merlins that replaced them on the Casa/He111 that crashed. Two great engines.