Airplanes and such

[gweimer]

I finally got a day off of work, and decided to actually leave my apartment.  I took a short day trip to the Air Force Museum, and took a few photos.

http://s19.photobucket.com/user/gweimer/slideshow/Airplanes%20and%20such


Among the more interesting aircraft were this WWI bomber.  The back of the seats are the fuel tanks.
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F-82 (aka Twin Lightning)
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Kamikaze trainer
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And a really big Sikorsky for you helicopter fans.
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[the mojo hobo]

It is an interesting place indeed. It's been a few years since I've been there but what really impressed me was the XB-70 Valkyrie.

[Pilgrim]

I remember touring the Confederate Air Force museum when it was in Galveston.  I was always surprised that the WWII fighters were so big and the bombers so small.  Seemed like there should have been more size difference. 

We had the good luck to be present when they wee wheeling a B-17 back into the hangar, so we got nice and close.

[rahock]

The Yankee Air Force Museum is a few miles away from me but I've never been there. I understand the Yankees had much better planes than the Confederates and that's why they won the Civil War .
Rick

[nofi]

please, the war of northern aggression.

[uwe]

The Yankee Air Force Museum is a few miles away from me but I've never been there. I understand the Yankees had much better planes than the Confederates and that's why they won the Civil War .
Rick

Those Confederate submarines could just not stem the tide.

Am I right in assuming those Kamikazes weren't built to last?

[uwe]

please, the war of northern aggression.

Wasn't that the Second Idependence War? That kinda confeddi bombed.

[TBird1958]

Wasn't that the Second Idependence War? That kinda confeddi bombed.

I don't know if you're interested but when you visit Seattle the Museum of Flight on Boeing Field is very good - Don't know if Edith will want to walk amongst aircraft for a day  

[rahock]

please, the war of northern aggression.

I would have bet the plantation that you would respond with that line . You have no idea how many times I have borrowed that quote .
Thanks Tom.
Rick

[gweimer]

Those Confederate submarines could just not stem the tide.

Am I right in assuming those Kamikazes weren't built to last?

That was the Kamikaze trainer.  I figured the humor wouldn't be lost here.  There must have been at least one practice run before the real mission.   

[uwe]

The practice run dive would most likely replace the mission, am I not right? 

Classic example of a military tactic that was of little technical use, but of great psychological value both for the home front and against the enemy - I understand that the suicide concept of the Kamikaze was more unsettling (= alien) to US Navy men than the actual damage they did.

A couple of years ago I saw a then current Japanese (TV?) movie about Kamikaze pilots (never intended for release in the west and for good reason too, keep on reading) - it told  a story of women and girls that grew up in WW II in a village where Kamikaze pilots were trained, handsome young men with a sense of fun and duty. Onne of the very aoung ones falls in love with one of the pilots, but she is too young for him and of course he has greater sacrifices to bring for the Tenno. There was a second plot within the movie, one woman still living today - never married of course - and still holding up the heritage and history of those "fine young beautiful and honorable men", little shrine with artefacts/momorabilia from them and all. And then there is this horrible Japanese-kitschy scene towards the end of the movie where she walks as an old lady in a park - yes, cherry blossoms - at night and the glowworms around her take the shape of those pilots and wave her and she reminisces how she "never met finer men in my whole life". 



I was amazed how unreflected the whole thing was - unthinkable that a German post-war movie would portray German soldiers of WW II as good spirits who did the right thing honorably. Even where no personal guilt would be attributed, it would always be pointed out that their cause was utterly wrong. There was zilch of that in the Japanese movie.

[Highlander]

... There must have been at least one practice run before the real mission.   

Nope, they just told them it was...

I'd love to see the Valkyrie... some sad f*** was selling components from the crash-site of the second one on greedbay a while back...

If Uwe goes to the Seattle museum I want to see a pic of the pair of you in front of Alpha-Golf... I was one of the sad buggers that was at the end of the runway watching her last flight out to JFK, and coming back the next day... she used to sit in the hanger in bits-and-pieces when I was there, perpetually the source of spares in the early days...

There is a museum in Germany where you can get on a Concorde and a Tu144, both sitting at jaunty angles on the roof, like giant models, which in reality now, is what they are...

[uwe]

Oh yeah, you mean Sinsheim, on the A6 Autobahn between Frankfurt and Stuttgart. To my chagrin I've never been there (Edith always wants to go, she likes airplanes and airports, due to my job and frequent travel I can't stand airports anymore!), but you can see those two icons of pre-oil crisis fuel wasting from the Autobahn too:

[Highlander]

One of the gents on the 230 Sqn committee I'm in regular touch with always signs himself off with whatever city he is in around the world as he's in the airfreight industry... if it's Wednesday, it must be Sao-Paolo...

There must have been a world of difference between the pilots of "busses" and Concorde/Ski and that much travel I do not envy you for... the joys of being a specialist and doing your work diligently ... 

I have that pic of myself in the pilot seat (but parked) from when I worked on them (pointy things) but an ex work comrade had a similar one of himself out in Germany running a full throttle engine test on an RAF F4, blue flames and all, with a suitable manic grin whilst sitting at the controls... his fave aircraft to work on were your "Widowmakers" though, and anyone who has heard the howl of their engines would understand that, if they were on the "inside" of the biz...

Tu144 was very much a He and Concorde very much a She, with Him being much bigger and faster, but not capable of going the distance... NASA paid to keep one of them flying for test purposes but even that one sits corroding on some forgotten corner of a field... they scrapped most of those, at least the ones that didn't end up in fields...

[uwe]

The Concorde is visually the better design, the Tu144 though it came later speaks a more Flash Gordon design language.

When I was a child I thought supersonic passenger flight would be standard by 2012. I also thought/was sure cars would fly by then. I mean Fantomas could already do it in the sixties - with a French car which wasn't very reliable per se.



And never bothered to think there might be something like an internet.