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u/waldo--pepper

r/WeirdWings r/WWIIplanes r/WW2Photographs r/WorldWar2 r/RedLetterMedia r/chilliwack
▲ 38 r/WWIIplanes

French Friday: (Wednesday edition.) I am travelling for the next week or so and I am not sure how well connected I will be. Here is a Morane M.S. 406 showing "her clean aerodynamic lines" with radiator dangling low.

This is interesting.

Morane-Saulnier M.S.406 In British Service.

Hopefully, I’ll be away from a proper computer on September 16, too. Time away from a computer is a rare precious thing! Perhaps someone else can post something a little Gallic for us all that day.

u/waldo--pepper — 1 month ago
▲ 93 r/WWIIplanes

French Friday: Using whatever concealment is available a Morane-Saulnier M.S.406, and what looks to be a Potez wait.

When translated the original caption appearing in L'Aéronautique of June 1940 was ...

>"Frontline aviation, a field weapon ... Single-seat fighter and light twin-engine aircraft of the French Air Force on a 'field' of the front."

>"L'aviation du front, arme de campagne … Monoplace de chasse et bimoteur léger des Forces aériennes françaises sur un « terrain » de l'avant."

The Armistice would be signed on the 25th later that same month that this edition was published.

u/waldo--pepper — 2 months ago
▲ 108 r/WWIIplanes

Catching no wire!

An F6F lands without tail hook aboard USS YORKTOWN (CV-10) during strikes on the Bonins, 24 July 1944. Pilot was Lieutenant H.J. Mueller. Note smoking tires, under full braking strain, and deck crewman ducking at left.

From here.

u/waldo--pepper — 2 months ago
▲ 142 r/WWIIplanes

French Friday: Bloch MB.162 Developed in the 1930s, this four-engine, long-range aircraft completed its first flight in June 1940. A single prototype was built.

As France collapsed following the May 1940 invasion, the airplane was ferried to Bordeaux to evade advancing German forces. Following the Armistice, German forces captured the aircraft and utilized it for transport and was last based at Kinow June 1944. Its ultimate fate is unrecorded, though it is presumed to have been destroyed during the final stages of the war. The intended production model, the MB.162 B.5, had been planned to enter service in 1941 as a fast, heavy bomber. It was never produced.

https://www.dassault-aviation.com/en/passion/aircraft/military-bloch-aircraft/mb-162/

https://histaviation.com/bloch_mb_160_162.html

u/waldo--pepper — 2 months ago
▲ 525 r/WWIIplanes

A little surprise at my very tiny local airshow this morning. From the Erickson Aviation Museum. This lovely old girl made an appearance.

These details are from the Erickson Aviation Museum website. She ...

>... is an A-24 Army Banshee delivered in January 1943 and used as a gunnery target tug at Lakeland Air Field in Florida. Later declared surplus, it was employed as a mosquito control sprayer by the City of Portland from 1958 until 1965. It was sold to the museum in 1994 and restored to an SBD-3 as it appears today.

https://ericksoncollection.com/our-aircraft/sbd-dauntless-a24

u/waldo--pepper — 2 months ago
▲ 82 r/WWIIplanes

Design Analysis No. 8 The Lockheed P-38 "Lightning" Twenty five pages on the plane. In Aviation Week August 1944.

Starting on page 63 of the PDF (page 123 of the document). Not the greatest resolution, but it is readable. Available for free at this link at The Internet Archive.

https://archive.org/download/Aviation_Week_1944-08-01/Aviation_Week_1944-08-01.pdf

The parent page if you want another format like EPUB.

https://archive.org/details/Aviation_Week_1944-08-01

If you are a super geek or a huge fan of the airplane this might prove to be worth your time.

u/waldo--pepper — 2 months ago
▲ 244 r/WWIIplanes

At the Flying Heritage Collection in Everett WA January 15, 2019. Sadly they no longer fly the aircraft in their collection. But it sure was nice while it lasted.

u/waldo--pepper — 2 months ago
▲ 16 r/WWIIplanes

FYI: At the Internet Archive. A collection of Flugzeuchhandbucher awaits you.

If you are a nutcase like I am this is a directory listing of plenty of Luftwaffe manuals that you can download for free from the Internet Archive.

https://archive.org/download/flugzeuchhandbucher

If you are using a pc and if you want them all easily, you may want to consider using a download manager like the open source jdownloader2. That way you can select which format you wish. PDF or EBUB and download the bunch with only a few clicks.

Or pick and choose the handful you may want and do it by hand. There is a danger. You may learn a thing or two. : )

reddit.com
u/waldo--pepper — 2 months ago
▲ 49 r/WWIIplanes

What is this antenna on the port wing of a Ju 88? I have a theory but I am not sold on it due to lack of evidence. The picture appears in an old issue of Flypast, and nowhere else I can find. FWIW Flypast says it is a Ju 88R2 of ZG 1.

Things that it cannot be/that I have (pretty firmly) eliminated from contention.

It cannot be FuG 221 Freya-Halbe. The antenna of that unit looked different. They were less complex, simple rods. And I have a picture of Freya-Halbe installed on a similar aircraft. And lastly Freya-Halbe was not used operationally due to doctrinal conflicts withing the Luftwaffe.

It cannot be FuG 221a Rosendaal-Halbe. The antenna for that unit was centrally mounted. (This is mentioned in the Gebhard Aders book History of the German Night Fighter Force on page 126).

It cannot be FuG 227 Flensburg 1, which has a similar antenna. But it is on the other/starboard wing.

Been scratching my head for a while now. Let me know what you think, or better yet if you know.

u/waldo--pepper — 2 months ago
▲ 155 r/WWIIplanes

An Albacore will have to do as I have never been able to find a picture of a Swordfish with a bicycle strapped to it.

It was often done that the pilot would strap his bicycle to the airplane to make life ashore more convenient. This is mentioned many times in the memoir of Charles Lamb, To War in a Stringbag.

Strapping a bicycle to a Swordfish is also mentioned in this Smithsonian Magazine article.

Britain’s Desperate Response to U-Boats.

u/waldo--pepper — 2 months ago