Planes
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@JC p 38s were involved in the NZ navy dramatically shortening the war in the pacific.
There used to be P38 sitting next to a hangar at Nadzab (Lae) in PNG. It was supposed to be repaired but I don't know what happened to it. Cool machine.
Of the 10,037 planes built, 26 survive today, 22 of which are located in the United States, and 10 of which are airworthy.
It does remain a demanding aircraft with numerous crash incidents; several of the surviving planes have been rebuilt many times.
This is a shame:
One historic note was that in 1948, representatives of the then-new country of South Korea attempted to purchase the brand new P-38L Lightnings stored in the Philippines (approximately 100 aircraft). Instead, the USAF persuaded them to accept AT-6s modified to griound attack role as well as worn out P-51D Mustangs; the brand new P-38s were destroyed.
Adrian Warburton flew a p 38 called an F5B
The tl;dr version of his career is , awesome pilot but given an obsolete piece of shit to fly . He bitched about it and was sent to Malta where it became obvious he was a brilliant if extremely eccentric airman . Was given a F5B reconnaissance version with a camera which was a stripped out hot rod with no weapons because it would be able to outrun anything the Germans had . Eventually his luck ran out and was shot down and killed not too long before D-Day
The long version is waaaaaaay better and he deserves a movie made about him
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Sorry to hijack this thread back to Erebus from those beautiful planes above, rented the ‘Erebus Operation Oversdue’ doco lastnight on iTunes.
First of all, a brilliant watch highly recommended. Secondly what a fucking travesty those guys sent to retrieve the bodies had to wait so long to get recognised for their work.
Wasn’t until 2007 they were shown any recognition, they came home from their 2 weeks of hell and were basically ignored and shunned. You can see they are still effected to this day (was filmed in 2014 I believe)What a cluster fuck of a mess this disaster was
The writeup that Stuart Leighton did for the Erebus website is pretty good. Poor bloke.
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The A-36 Apache was a way of getting the Mustang into the USAAF when there wasn’t funds for a new fighter and the British couldn’t afford any more . It still had the Allison engine which was better at lower altitudes ( the Allison versions are preferred for air racing) after the poms fitted a Merlin and Packard made them under licence that pretty much killed the Apache .
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My favourite part of the Black buck raids in the Falklands
The Vulcan was the only RAF plane that had the range and payload to make an attack, but it would need refuelling. A lot of refuelling. And if one thing was known about Vulcans, you don’t refuel them in mid-air. Most of the equipment in the surviving aircraft for refuelling had been removed. Military scrap yards were searched to find missing pieces, one vital piece turned up being used as an ashtray in one of the mess halls. Then the crews had to practise, not only refuelling but low-level precision bombing.
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For all you aircraft-heads, a visit to RAF Duxford is a must.
Not only do you see some great museum pieces and aircraft history, but you can walk thru the restoration hangers and watch them actually restoring some really famous aircraft. On one shelf they had box after box of genuine RR Merlin engines...
And the walkway and entrance to the USAF Museum section is both moving and shocking.
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Pilots love 4 engines, as do fuel companies and engineers. Accountants not so much.
Knew a BA captain quite well in the late '90's- early 2000's who flew 747's. Raved about them and how strong they were.
Once, after a couple of bottles of wine, I asked him how confident he was if things went really wrong. His answer was "as long as I have an engine, tailplane and one and half wings I'm fine"
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@Victor-Meldrew said in Planes:
Pilots love 4 engines, as do fuel companies and engineers. Accountants not so much.
Knew a BA captain quite well in the late '90's- early 2000's who flew 747's. Raved about them and how strong they were.
Once, after a couple of bottles of wine, I asked him how confident he was if things went really wrong. His answer was "as long as I have an engine, tailplane and one and half wings I'm fine"
Here’s what Moody said:”Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. We have a small problem. All four engines have stopped. We are doing our damnedest to get them going again. I trust you are not in too much distress.”
Read more at https://www.businessinsider.com.au/captain-announcement-after-all-four-engines-failed-2013-2#YeGIFjieAh1WwQFe.99 -
Pretty harrowing listening to the guys who had the fun task of collecting the bodies (parts) from the crash.
The term body grease is used a bit, plus they had to fight off local birds who kept trying to eat the dead.
Sounds like no one knew what they were doing, just something that had never happened before in our historyI worked with a guy who did mountain rescue and was later involved in the rescue/recovery. He had worked in the Antarctic on a number of tours and used to love telling us tales of his exploits - which were pretty true.
But from what I've heard, he has never, ever talked about Mt Erebus
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@Victor-Meldrew said in Planes:
For all you aircraft-heads, a visit to RAF Duxford is a must.
Not only do you see some great museum pieces and aircraft history, but you can walk thru the restoration hangers and watch them actually restoring some really famous aircraft. On one shelf they had box after box of genuine RR Merlin engines...
And the walkway and entrance to the USAF Museum section is both moving and shocking.
You’re right it’s awesome.
If you are ever in the area there’s a Rolls Royce dealer in Great Dunmow in Essex, P&A Wood. They are the only outfit in the UK authorised to repair Rolls Royces and Bentleys (mostly pre-German). They have some amazing old cars there and are happy to give you a tour of their Showroom and the car hospital out the back where they often have everything from old 60s Phantoms through to leather bodied racers from the 20s and back to the beginnings of RR and Bentley. Anyway their original owners were two brothers, one (Paul) who did the coachwork and sales and the other (Andrew) who did the mechanicals. And Andrew is (was? they’d have to be pretty elderly now) an aero engine nut. He had a fully restored Merlin on a stand in the main showroom and was working on a radial BMW out the back. They gleamed and looked like beautiful sculptures. I could have stayed there all day.
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@jegga My old neighbours were on that BA flight. There was a story published in Readers Digest in which they were quoted.
There’s a short book about it . It mentions one old duck was reading a book , heard the announcement and went back to reading the book because she didn’t want to die without finding out what happened in the end .
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An ex Tornado guy has brought all the bits from various sources, and set up the sim. It's a no visual sim, just the cockpits (was always night IMC ) used mostly for emergency training but some other stuff, too. He's added a VR headset to it, so you can have a play.
Nice bloke, written a good book too, for spotters rather than general public