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Originally posted by out2theblack:

Out of the 'Black' , into the Blue...Mini-B2 coming soon , to a 'theater' near You...

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Originally posted by dreamtrove:
I'm outclassed

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Originally posted by Fremdfirma:

At least it's not a refit of the Me-163 Komet.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messerschmitt_Me_163

Oh, get this, heard it from a procurement specialist earlier when discussing some Bell 206's someone might be needing - apparently one of the reasons the F-22 was shitcanned was that halfway through the freakin trials, they discovered the freakin thing wasn't waterproof.

D'oh!

Power is kickin in and out up here due to high winds, so I gotta pop the breakers to protect my equipment, seeya.

-F

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Originally posted by piratenews:

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Originally posted by Kwicko:
Oh, agreed, O2B. It just seems that there are an awful lot of people who are convinced that EVERYTHING "modern" had to come from the Nazis. Seems to me that it's quite likely that Northrop and Horten were drinking from the same well. I believe Horten proposed the idea of the all-wing aircraft FIRST, which caused Northrop to prick up his ears and get interested. Sometimes different people in different parts of the world hear some of the same stuff, and start thinking in remarkably similar directions.

...And while nobody associated with the design of the 229 has ever said it was DESIGNED with stealth ideas in mind, the method of construction and its lower cross-section DID give it a smaller radar signature, but from what I've read, not much was really known about that at the time, other than in a "Hmmmm... whattaya know about that?" kind of way. It was about 20% less visible on the Chain Home stations than a Messerschmitt Bf-109. I don't think it was INTENDED to be stealthy, but I don't doubt that Northrop noticed the reduced visibility to radar when he started flying his own all-wing designs.

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Not every bit of high-tech originated with the Nazi's . Some folk believe that the best bits came from the 'space aliens'...

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Originally posted by Kwicko:
Good info. If memory serves, and for those old enough to remember, Col. Steve Austin becamse The Six Million Dollar Man after crashing an experimental lifting body. Seems like that was the first place I remember hearing the term.

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Originally posted by Fremdfirma:

Y'all should try playing SWOTL/SWON, I think you'd enjoy those.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_Weapons_of_the_Luftwaffe
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_Weapons_Over_Normandy

You can get the latter for PS2 or Xbox cheap, as well.

I like SWOTL cause it's one of the few games which gives you the opportunity to fly a B-17, which provides a different aspect to things, cause you begin to appreciate the iron nerves that had to take, especially if you run the Bloody Half Hundred mission.

So far though, no decent sim for a Junkers JU87B, alas.

-F

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Originally posted by Kwicko:
I got a kick out of the "Secret Weapons..." games.

IL-2 Sturmovik: Birds of Prey has a decent JU-87B in it.


I know an old guy who was friends with my dad, who flew Martin Marauders in WWII (B-26). They had a short wing and a high stall speed, and a LOT of them were cracked up on landing because they needed to land at a higher speed than most other bombers of the time. He piloted the buggers, and lived to tell the tale. Good man, and some damned funny stories to tell.

He told me about his flight having to escort a damaged B-17 back across The Channel before D-Day. They got back okay, with the Marauders flying escort for the Seventeen, and once they got back, the crew just left the damn lummox on the end of the runway and hitched a ride back to their base. George said their mechanics got busy on the plane, got it all patched up and tip-top again, only the AAF never sent anyone to pick it up. Seems they didn't keep great track of their equipment back then...

So here's these young guys with access to a B-17 and all the fuel they can burn. He said they were all over England in that bugger, picking up ladies for rides, hopping to Ireland for whiskey, and so on. And once France was cracked open, they could hop over on furlough for some wine, women, and song. He said they kept that damn beast all through his tour, and it was still there when he finished his missions and shipped back stateside.

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Originally posted by dreamtrove:
argh

some image on this thread is too large. Post a smaller one, please, and link to the larger one, so I don't have to try to read the thread in 4 point type. Thanks

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Originally posted by Fremdfirma:
Whoops, double tapped the rocket pack, on that one.

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Originally posted by out2theblack:

It's funny how some good airplanes acquire a bad rap...The B-26 was one of those , although when crews were training on them in Florida , there was a saying ,
" One a day in Tampa Bay ". One of the nicknames for it was 'Martin Murderer'.

Many folk don't realize that in WW2 , there were 2 airplanes designated 'B-26'. Of course that became confusing...The other one was the Douglas Invader , which was subsequently re-designated 'A-26' in recognition of its 'close-air support' ground attack duties...

The Invader was elegant and , for a 'bomber' , it was beautiful...It ended up flying in Korea and Vietnam , also .
http://a26invader.tripod.com/
Our hangar-mate is a retired airline pilot , who owns an Invader , a Lockheed T-33 , a North American T-28 , and I forget what else...He started his own 'air museum' and takes 'donations' and gives flights...One day my MD friend and myself were out to fly his Lake amphib , and we saw the Invader taxiing up to the gas pumps...The FBO owner is a fellow named 'Bill C.' , and my MD friend remarked ,
" I'll bet Bill gets a hard-on every time that thing comes over for fuel ! "

Then we went inside the office , and could see the Invader , black and shiny , right in front of the big plate-glass windows...


Bill C. was standing in front of the windows , a hand thrust in each hip pocket , jingling his change ! It was all we could do not to split our sides , and we had some big laughs about it afterward...

Anyways , SWOTL always puts me in mind of a bit of speculative fiction known in the modelling community as "Luft '46" , which refers to what history might've been like if the Luftwaffe had gone on for another year or so...

If one googles that term , a metric crapload of nifty stuff shows up...

Here's a vid that is apparently created in the Stormovik game , with a Horten 229 jet , and a rather too-brittle B-17 :

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Originally posted by Kwicko:


Yessir, plenty of people called the Marauder the "Widowmaker" because of how she treated so many of her crews, but the guys who learned to fly her right just loved her. Tough birds.

And I *LOVED* the Invader. Beautiful, tough-looking plane. Absolutely looks like it was designed around the biggest, most powerful engines they could find (like a Corsair was, which is why they had to give it the inverted gull wing, just to make extra ground clearance to swing that giant prop!), with just enough of a fuselage to stuff some bombs, guns, and a few crew into. Wicked bastard of a plane.

My older brother got to go up in a B-25 Mitchell a few weeks ago. He's doing some high-end patterned concrete work for a fella down in San Antonio who owns a few birds and an awful lot of cars (including a new Ford GT and a Lamborghini Gallardo). Anyway, he was talking to my brother, and warbirds came up, and he mentioned he had the Mitchell, and offered my bro a ride. He's still grinning like a kid over it.

I've been in and around warbirds most of my life, but never got to go up in any of them. :( My dad worked at a Cessna dealer to pay his way through flight school, and just down the way was Charlie Day's Aircraft Refinishing, who did a ton of paintwork for the old Confederate Air Force back in the day. So when something interesting came in, he'd take us down and get the crew to let us check 'em out. Crawled all through "Fifi", the world's only flying B-29 Superfortress, been in "Diamond Lil", at the time the world's only flying B-24 Liberator, been in Bell Aircobras and even a Twin Mustang (now THERE'S an odd duck!)



Seen a few Hispano-Suiza Me-109 copies, and even their version of a Heinkel He-111.

Good times, great planes.

By the way, O2B - I spy a Curtiss C-46 behind that Invader, don't I? :)

Good talkin' about a common interest for once, instead of fighting...

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Originally posted by Kwicko:
... nuclear weapons, which were being researched and actively pursued by not only the U.S., but by Germany and Japan as well, because they all had access to the same physics papers where the idea was first laid out.

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Originally posted by citizen:

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Originally posted by Kwicko:
... nuclear weapons, which were being researched and actively pursued by not only the U.S., but by Germany and Japan as well, because they all had access to the same physics papers where the idea was first laid out.

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And the UK. The Manhattan project was a combination of separate UK and US projects, and was in fact a joint project between Canada, Australia, the US and the UK.

That fact seems to be swept under the carpet in US history books, much like the involvement of British and Canadian troops at D-Day...

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Originally posted by Kwicko:
Hadn't heard of the LC-126c - but HAVE heard of the Cessna 195. Beautiful planes.

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Originally posted by Fremdfirma:

Yanno, embarrassing or not, that conversation was just too funny to not share, so imma try to paraphrase it from memory, best I can.

Somewhere over backass of nowhere, USA, circa noon.

Frem: Larry ?
Larry: Ayuh ?
Frem: I gotta pee.
Larry: So ?
Frem: So ? I gotta pee.
Larry: Whadda ya want me to do about it, pull over ?
Frem: So find somewhere to land.
Larry: Isn't anywhere, our nearest strip is our refuel, so hold it for 44 minutes.
Frem: Improvise.
Larry: Hell no, this plane cost more than my house, and it ain't your chainsaw powered dominator, I can't just plop down in some yahoos cornfield, I actually do need a strip with this monster.
Frem: But I gotta pee.
Larry: I gave you two bottles didn't I ?
(I wondered why one was empty...)
-F

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