Piston Age Warbirds!
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From: Big Bear CA. 6,800 elev. Mountain Retreat.
Piston Age Warbirds!
I second what willowbilly3 said .
dabshr<=> Yeah, that's loss to aviation history, the HE-111. Hope the pilot had time to bail,<>I'd love to wrench on a C-47, one of my favorite planes. Nice C-130.
dabshr<=> Yeah, that's loss to aviation history, the HE-111. Hope the pilot had time to bail,<>I'd love to wrench on a C-47, one of my favorite planes. Nice C-130.
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From: Perkasie, Pa.
Piston Age Warbirds!
Anyone who wants some excellent pictures of the planes flown by the "greatest generation". try www.ghosts.com they have awesome pictures an calenders. I've been getting pictures from here for years, they are worth the look.
Post Fiend
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From: Black Hills of SD
Piston Age Warbirds!
I have seen pictures and footage of B-17s so shot up it is just amazing they could still fly. I have heard stories of them coming in with half of the tail shot off or even part of a wing missing. One of the most heroic stories though was about a B-17 coming in all shot up bad. When she came to a stop and the rescue crew got to the crew a minute later they found the whole crew dead. Don't you know that boy landed that plane as he was drawing his last breath. Kinda chokes me up a little.
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From: Big Bear CA. 6,800 elev. Mountain Retreat.
Piston Age Warbirds!
There's a story of a B-17 that landed with the wing blown off from the outboard engine out. That's at least half a wing, was the port wing...
Sometines a whole stabilizer would be blown clean off and still return. They don't make 'em like that anymore.
<><><>
Cool, another vintage aircraft sight for my favorites.
Sometines a whole stabilizer would be blown clean off and still return. They don't make 'em like that anymore.
<><><>
Cool, another vintage aircraft sight for my favorites.
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From: Western Slope, Colorado
Piston Age Warbirds!
The EAA AirVenture Oshkosh Air show in Wisconsin is a great place to see these planes, I use to attend regularly about 25 years ago, camped at farm adjacent to airport. With a flight line pass you could get a very good look at all kinds of aircraft. I am not sure about now but then it was the busiest airport in the world for the 10 days of the show.
This years registered aircraft:
Seaplanes, 129 - the second highest ever registered at the EAA seaplane base.
Warbirds, 405
Ultralights and light planes, 357
Homebuilt, 825
Vintage, 1,224
http://www.airventure.org/2003/news/wrap-up.html
If you like aircraft and get a chance this is the show to go to!
Wes
This years registered aircraft:
Seaplanes, 129 - the second highest ever registered at the EAA seaplane base.
Warbirds, 405
Ultralights and light planes, 357
Homebuilt, 825
Vintage, 1,224
http://www.airventure.org/2003/news/wrap-up.html
If you like aircraft and get a chance this is the show to go to!
Wes
Last edited by RockyMtnF250; Aug 20, 2003 at 04:36 PM.
Laughing Gas
Joined: Jul 2003
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From: New England
Piston Age Warbirds!
WW2 planes are cool! I was at an ANG airshow a few years ago, and there was a flyby of a P-47D & an F4U Corsair (painted as Pappy Boyington's "Lucybelle", complete with upside-down kill flags). All I can say is WOW! TWO 2500+HP radials at full-blast...incredible. The 2 best American fighters of the war.
On the obscure, total-oddball end of the spectrum, anyone ever heard of a Swordfish?
Sad factoid: there is exactly ONE Fw-190 left in the world, & it isn't airworthy.
On the obscure, total-oddball end of the spectrum, anyone ever heard of a Swordfish?
Sad factoid: there is exactly ONE Fw-190 left in the world, & it isn't airworthy.
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Joined: Jul 2003
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From: Upstate NY Rochester
Piston Age Warbirds!
Thanks bigdmizer! A great site! Hey ironbelly are you going to share?
Yeah. my ole man was a tailgunner and was shot on two different missions. Once through the back and once was a riquochet of the foot of the turret, and got him just above the naval. He was P.O.'d because they couldn't complete those two missions.
Yeah, I'd have to say, he was a strange old bird!! He's gone now, but he sure left his mark! Up in the sky and on land! HEE HEE!
Talk with you guys later....
Yeah. my ole man was a tailgunner and was shot on two different missions. Once through the back and once was a riquochet of the foot of the turret, and got him just above the naval. He was P.O.'d because they couldn't complete those two missions.
Yeah, I'd have to say, he was a strange old bird!! He's gone now, but he sure left his mark! Up in the sky and on land! HEE HEE!
Talk with you guys later....
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From: Oak Harbor WA
Piston Age Warbirds!
Quote from Jarlaxle
"On the obscure, total-oddball end of the spectrum, anyone ever heard of a Swordfish?
Sad factoid: there is exactly ONE Fw-190 left in the world, & it isn't airworthy."
A Fairey Swordfish was a Royal Navy biplane torpedo bomber used during WWII. It was responsible for damaging the Bismark ('41) and for sinking 3 Italian battleships at Taranto ('40)
There are more than 1 Fw-190 "Butcher Birds"
There is one Fw-190A (that I know of, it is either restored or under restoration), and an Fw-190D-9 (at Wright Patterson), and a D-13 (at Champlin - Arizona) aka "Langnasen Dora"
None are in flying condition at the moment (that I know of)
Sidenote on German fighters:
The last original flying Me-109 was destroyed in 1997 at an air show in England. The pilot (an air chief marshall) walked away from the crash. The plane took 15 yrs to restore and was the last German built Messerschmitt.
There is also only 1 Me-110 "Zerstorer"
"On the obscure, total-oddball end of the spectrum, anyone ever heard of a Swordfish?
Sad factoid: there is exactly ONE Fw-190 left in the world, & it isn't airworthy."
A Fairey Swordfish was a Royal Navy biplane torpedo bomber used during WWII. It was responsible for damaging the Bismark ('41) and for sinking 3 Italian battleships at Taranto ('40)
There are more than 1 Fw-190 "Butcher Birds"
There is one Fw-190A (that I know of, it is either restored or under restoration), and an Fw-190D-9 (at Wright Patterson), and a D-13 (at Champlin - Arizona) aka "Langnasen Dora"
None are in flying condition at the moment (that I know of)
Sidenote on German fighters:
The last original flying Me-109 was destroyed in 1997 at an air show in England. The pilot (an air chief marshall) walked away from the crash. The plane took 15 yrs to restore and was the last German built Messerschmitt.
There is also only 1 Me-110 "Zerstorer"
Post Fiend
Joined: Feb 2000
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From: Kansas
Piston Age Warbirds!
The link for the F 82
http://home.att.net/~jbaugher1/p82.html
I did a search on the best fighter plane of WWII.... That picked up a bunch of hits. Everybody has a favorite and they are not in agreement.
The biggest thing the FW 190 had going for it was that it was not built in a factory. Many of it's componets were built in homes. Things like rudders, elevators, wings, etc. That is what they had to do during the allied bombing. The FW 190 was a good plane. I'd take a Typhoon.
http://home.att.net/~jbaugher1/p82.html
I did a search on the best fighter plane of WWII.... That picked up a bunch of hits. Everybody has a favorite and they are not in agreement.
The biggest thing the FW 190 had going for it was that it was not built in a factory. Many of it's componets were built in homes. Things like rudders, elevators, wings, etc. That is what they had to do during the allied bombing. The FW 190 was a good plane. I'd take a Typhoon.
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Piston Age Warbirds!
i guess some one like me wasnt in change in germany after ww2....
i cant bring my self to throw away any thing... there must have been alot more german fighters left over... those things were such beautiful/terrible machines at the same time...
StomP
i cant bring my self to throw away any thing... there must have been alot more german fighters left over... those things were such beautiful/terrible machines at the same time...
StomP
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From: Big Bear CA. 6,800 elev. Mountain Retreat.
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From: Texas, just south of NY c
Piston Age Warbirds!
The one aircraft that I considered to be as "cool" to look at as the P51 mustang was the P63 air cobra. It seems this aircraft was shipped in large numbers to the russians. I believe it had the engine mounted in mid fusaliage(sp) directly under the pilot . The drive shaft that connected the engine to the Prop also functioned as a single 20 mm cannon. Performance wise the P63 was the equal to the mustang as i thimk that it had the Merlin engine in the later production runs. It also had a nose wheel instead of being a tail dragger like the mustang. Not many of them around today. sk
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From: Oak Harbor WA
Piston Age Warbirds!
skuteman -
The engine was mounted directly behind the pilot in the P-63. P-63's were shipped to the Soviet Union, but most of them sent were the older P-39's. The P-63 wasn't that great an airplane, it was slower than the P-51, and had a shorter range. Thats why they weren't produced in great numbers.
stomp
There aren't really that many German planes around. After the war, we destroyed them from the air, then we bulldozed and burned them. The few we kept have either been in a museum, or lost. I should add that at that stage of the war, aluminum was becoming ever more scarce and they substituted steel (particularly the Me-262). They turned into rust buckets within 10 years.
The engine was mounted directly behind the pilot in the P-63. P-63's were shipped to the Soviet Union, but most of them sent were the older P-39's. The P-63 wasn't that great an airplane, it was slower than the P-51, and had a shorter range. Thats why they weren't produced in great numbers.
stomp
There aren't really that many German planes around. After the war, we destroyed them from the air, then we bulldozed and burned them. The few we kept have either been in a museum, or lost. I should add that at that stage of the war, aluminum was becoming ever more scarce and they substituted steel (particularly the Me-262). They turned into rust buckets within 10 years.
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From: Texas, just south of NY c
Piston Age Warbirds!
thanks for updating my data base. Maybe they were putting the Allison engine's in instead of the merlin. i was trying to remember but it seems the Allison's were around 1100 Hp at the outset of the war. Or, altleast the ones being installed into the P40's. The other German aircraft that never got much respect because it was so slow was the Stuka Dive bomber. It sure killed alot of russians during hitlers party in russia though. thanks , sk