Anybody know what this is?
- Thread starter Pistolero
- Start date
Pistolero
Well-Known Member
We went to the one at Duxford, it is impressive. My wife's father flew P-51s out of a fighter base
about 2 miles away from the big fighter base at Duxford, now home of several museums
and their WW2 aircraft restoration facility. The two airports were so close that each one could
only use a traffic pattern on the opposite side to stay safe.
We went to his field too, Fowlmere, and the hangar and some of the Quonset huts are still there, although
rented out to hobbists and small businesses. The grass runways are shorter (one crossed a road,
closed 'for the duration') and only one is used now.
Yep, the Lanc is a later war design, the B-17 is prewar. And the P-47 was huge largely because of
the gigantic turbo charger in the rear fuselage. The exhaust went back, under the wing spars and
the pressurized air came back forward beside it, with intercoolers, to feed the engine. Made the
fuselage big for the 2-3 ft diam turbo in the rear, and deep because of the ductwork to and from.
The F6F and F8F had the same engine, but supercharged, smaller fuselages.
The four engine Lancaster was an improvement on the pre-war Manchester, twin engine - just scaled up once
they knew they needed more capacity.
Bill
about 2 miles away from the big fighter base at Duxford, now home of several museums
and their WW2 aircraft restoration facility. The two airports were so close that each one could
only use a traffic pattern on the opposite side to stay safe.
We went to his field too, Fowlmere, and the hangar and some of the Quonset huts are still there, although
rented out to hobbists and small businesses. The grass runways are shorter (one crossed a road,
closed 'for the duration') and only one is used now.
Yep, the Lanc is a later war design, the B-17 is prewar. And the P-47 was huge largely because of
the gigantic turbo charger in the rear fuselage. The exhaust went back, under the wing spars and
the pressurized air came back forward beside it, with intercoolers, to feed the engine. Made the
fuselage big for the 2-3 ft diam turbo in the rear, and deep because of the ductwork to and from.
The F6F and F8F had the same engine, but supercharged, smaller fuselages.
The four engine Lancaster was an improvement on the pre-war Manchester, twin engine - just scaled up once
they knew they needed more capacity.
Bill
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Bret4207
At the casting bench in the sky. RIP Bret.
My county is larger than RI or Delaware, my weekend patrol area was larger than the entire state of Conn.! People don't think of NY in those terms.
Our (NYSP) still does several EOD missions on WW1 and 2 munitions every year. Amazing some of the stuff people brought home wit them. A hand grenade you can kind of understand, but we;re talking artillery and mines!
There are a lot of history type videos on You Tube showing the progression of aircraft, vessels, tanks, etc prior to and durring WW2. What always amazes me is the huge number of aircraft that were under development at the same time. One needed aircraft might have 10 or 12 companies trying to fill that slot. And the companies might have 2 or 3 versions of the same airplane under construction at the same time, each being successively improved, and the gov't might end up taking an earlier version over a later one! It must have all made sense at one time...I hope.
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Pistolero
Well-Known Member
I've been reading Churchill's very long, six volume history of WW2. I have studied the war in the Pacific
a lot, especially the carrier and air war, my father was a WW2 USN pilot, just missed combat by a couple
weeks when they dropped the bombs. And also have studied WW2in Europe, been to many battlefields
and museums there.
The Churchill books provide a new perspective on the very, very early planning needed for crucial pieces of
equipment like the LST, Land Ship Tank, which Churchill and others envisioned (he was a visionary, not a
technical guy) as a critical need for the eventual re-invasion of the continent. In 1939 and 1940 he was having
people start out with initial designs of the LST and the US started building them in huge quantities so that
we would have a lot of them in the south Pacific and in Europe to load tanks and trucks directly from a ship to
a beach. Amazing ships, and not something that previously existed or could have been created in a year. It took
a LOT of long range vision to get that stuff thought up, then engineered and finally build and debugged in
large numbers. And big bombers, and a lot more.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landing_Ship,_Tank
We built so much stuff in such a hurry, it is still just amazing. We had over 100 aircraft carriers at the end of
WW2, thirty of them were the biggest, newest, fastest in the world, Essex class, the other 74 were smaller light
and escort class carriers. Nine were the "light" carriers, the Independence class, built on light cruiser hulls and able to
keep up with the fast big Essex carriers, but a lot smaller. The smallest escort carriers were for shore bombardment
support and to transport "reloads" of replacement aircraft for the big carriers - aircraft were expended at a prodigous
rate in that war, and they needed regular replacements, carried to the battle front on small, slow escort carriers, about
12 to 20 knots maximum, depending on the specific merchantman hull and powerplant they were built on.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independence-class_aircraft_carrier
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escort_carrier
Amazing history. In WW2.
And I am not surprised at the stuff brought home. The good news is that it almost never causes problems
by just blowing up, thankfully.
Butler County KS is just under 1500 square miles, Los Animas County, Colorado which we drive through going
to our southern Colorado vacation home is just under 4,800 square miles, over 100 miles wide and about nearly
50 miles north south. Conn is 5500 square miles. RI is about 1200 sq miles. County sheriff has a LOT of territory
to cover. Fortunately, most of Los Animas County is thinly populated farm and ranch land.
And you are right, Brett, I never thought of NY state as having counties anywhere near that size.
Bill
a lot, especially the carrier and air war, my father was a WW2 USN pilot, just missed combat by a couple
weeks when they dropped the bombs. And also have studied WW2in Europe, been to many battlefields
and museums there.
The Churchill books provide a new perspective on the very, very early planning needed for crucial pieces of
equipment like the LST, Land Ship Tank, which Churchill and others envisioned (he was a visionary, not a
technical guy) as a critical need for the eventual re-invasion of the continent. In 1939 and 1940 he was having
people start out with initial designs of the LST and the US started building them in huge quantities so that
we would have a lot of them in the south Pacific and in Europe to load tanks and trucks directly from a ship to
a beach. Amazing ships, and not something that previously existed or could have been created in a year. It took
a LOT of long range vision to get that stuff thought up, then engineered and finally build and debugged in
large numbers. And big bombers, and a lot more.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landing_Ship,_Tank
We built so much stuff in such a hurry, it is still just amazing. We had over 100 aircraft carriers at the end of
WW2, thirty of them were the biggest, newest, fastest in the world, Essex class, the other 74 were smaller light
and escort class carriers. Nine were the "light" carriers, the Independence class, built on light cruiser hulls and able to
keep up with the fast big Essex carriers, but a lot smaller. The smallest escort carriers were for shore bombardment
support and to transport "reloads" of replacement aircraft for the big carriers - aircraft were expended at a prodigous
rate in that war, and they needed regular replacements, carried to the battle front on small, slow escort carriers, about
12 to 20 knots maximum, depending on the specific merchantman hull and powerplant they were built on.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independence-class_aircraft_carrier
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escort_carrier
Amazing history. In WW2.
And I am not surprised at the stuff brought home. The good news is that it almost never causes problems
by just blowing up, thankfully.
Butler County KS is just under 1500 square miles, Los Animas County, Colorado which we drive through going
to our southern Colorado vacation home is just under 4,800 square miles, over 100 miles wide and about nearly
50 miles north south. Conn is 5500 square miles. RI is about 1200 sq miles. County sheriff has a LOT of territory
to cover. Fortunately, most of Los Animas County is thinly populated farm and ranch land.
And you are right, Brett, I never thought of NY state as having counties anywhere near that size.
Bill
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Bret4207
At the casting bench in the sky. RIP Bret.
Bill, for reference, my weekend patrol area covered all of St Lawrence, Franklin, Clinton, Essex and the northern half of Hamilton Counties. Roughly 8500 sq mi, and one guy covering it for CVEU. That wasn't every weekend, but enough that you got used to spending a Sunday morning driving 3 hours at Mach 3 to get to a serious accident involving a tractor trailer. Not fun, but the OT was great!
Churchill, there was an interesting man. I started "A History of the English Speaking Peoples" through my local library but they wouldn't let me renew
a book more than twice, some rule they had, as though there were dozens of people just waiting to get their hands on Volume 1 of that tome! I can only imagine what his WW2 books must be like. We, as Americans, tend to have forgotten that it truly was a "world" war. I don't think there was much of the globe that wasn't involved. (I have an ex-BIL who goes on and on about the glory of Ireland, even though he's mostly French, and I always throw Ireland in WW2 at him!) I don't think we give credit to many parts of the world that were involved and in the midst of the fighting, but that no one made movies about, so it may as well not have happened. Lets face it these days many people in the US know about Pearl Harbor and the bombs, D-Day, and maybe the Battle of the Bulge, but that's about it. Our collective memories get shorter and shorter, and since people don't read
anymore...
Somewhere in my vast collection of books I found in dusty old 2nd hand stores (they call them antique stores now) is a thin book written by a guy who was a Marine in WW1 and the Banana Wars into WW2. He writes about making amphibious attacks using a ships boat, I think he called it a whale boat, as a landing craft. His recollection of trying to off load what amounts to small cannon and the heavy parts of the early machine guns under fire or even simulated fire was decidedly unpleasant. Of course having the bow drop on any landing craft post 1941 was probably just as bad, but at least there was a little armor on a Higgins boat. The older stuff was wood and rowed by sailors! Not at all a fun exercise I imagine. Things like landing craft or the mobile docks and bridges they came up with really made a huge difference. For that matter, you look at armor at the start of WW2 and then see what it was like 5 years later, a world of difference. If Hitler hadn't poke Stalin with a stick, his tanks would have controlled all of Europe. Sure am glad both he and Japan ran out of supplies!
Churchill, there was an interesting man. I started "A History of the English Speaking Peoples" through my local library but they wouldn't let me renew
a book more than twice, some rule they had, as though there were dozens of people just waiting to get their hands on Volume 1 of that tome! I can only imagine what his WW2 books must be like. We, as Americans, tend to have forgotten that it truly was a "world" war. I don't think there was much of the globe that wasn't involved. (I have an ex-BIL who goes on and on about the glory of Ireland, even though he's mostly French, and I always throw Ireland in WW2 at him!) I don't think we give credit to many parts of the world that were involved and in the midst of the fighting, but that no one made movies about, so it may as well not have happened. Lets face it these days many people in the US know about Pearl Harbor and the bombs, D-Day, and maybe the Battle of the Bulge, but that's about it. Our collective memories get shorter and shorter, and since people don't read
anymore...
Somewhere in my vast collection of books I found in dusty old 2nd hand stores (they call them antique stores now) is a thin book written by a guy who was a Marine in WW1 and the Banana Wars into WW2. He writes about making amphibious attacks using a ships boat, I think he called it a whale boat, as a landing craft. His recollection of trying to off load what amounts to small cannon and the heavy parts of the early machine guns under fire or even simulated fire was decidedly unpleasant. Of course having the bow drop on any landing craft post 1941 was probably just as bad, but at least there was a little armor on a Higgins boat. The older stuff was wood and rowed by sailors! Not at all a fun exercise I imagine. Things like landing craft or the mobile docks and bridges they came up with really made a huge difference. For that matter, you look at armor at the start of WW2 and then see what it was like 5 years later, a world of difference. If Hitler hadn't poke Stalin with a stick, his tanks would have controlled all of Europe. Sure am glad both he and Japan ran out of supplies!
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Pistolero
Well-Known Member
Actually, AFAIK the Higgins boats had no armor at all, totally wood, unless you count hiding behind the engine.
CORRECTION: the Higgins boat ramp was steel, but I don't know if it would stop bullets, maybe it would. The sides were plywood
and the rear, too.
It is hard to imagine one guy patrolling 8500 sq miles! Seems kinda hopeless, no kind of quick response
possible except by a lucky coincidence. Three hours to get to an accident, wow. I fully understand that you
weren't who set it up that way, but seems way beyond "stretched a bit thin".
I found the paperback full set of Churchill on WW2 on eBay for $16 shipped, seems a bargain. Not a quick read.
And as near as I can tell, the Russians killed far more Germans than the USA, Britain, France and all that thrown
in together. The Battle of Kurk had 30,000 tanks. That is difficult to grasp. I doubt that the entire planet has
30,000 battle ready tanks on the whole thing, today. Any number of top German aces on the Eastern Front had
200 and 300 kills. The Russians built 36,000 Il-2 Sturmovich ground attack aircraft. We gave them a heck of a lot
of B-25s and P-39 Aircobra, which they really liked because it had a 37 millimeter automatic cannon firing thru
the spinner and would tear up a German tank or halftrack really well. We sent them quite a few Sherman tanks, too.
Bill
CORRECTION: the Higgins boat ramp was steel, but I don't know if it would stop bullets, maybe it would. The sides were plywood
and the rear, too.
It is hard to imagine one guy patrolling 8500 sq miles! Seems kinda hopeless, no kind of quick response
possible except by a lucky coincidence. Three hours to get to an accident, wow. I fully understand that you
weren't who set it up that way, but seems way beyond "stretched a bit thin".
I found the paperback full set of Churchill on WW2 on eBay for $16 shipped, seems a bargain. Not a quick read.
And as near as I can tell, the Russians killed far more Germans than the USA, Britain, France and all that thrown
in together. The Battle of Kurk had 30,000 tanks. That is difficult to grasp. I doubt that the entire planet has
30,000 battle ready tanks on the whole thing, today. Any number of top German aces on the Eastern Front had
200 and 300 kills. The Russians built 36,000 Il-2 Sturmovich ground attack aircraft. We gave them a heck of a lot
of B-25s and P-39 Aircobra, which they really liked because it had a 37 millimeter automatic cannon firing thru
the spinner and would tear up a German tank or halftrack really well. We sent them quite a few Sherman tanks, too.
Bill
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RBHarter
West Central AR
If you can find "stuka pilot" it is a great book . It also gives a glimpse into the Eastern front collapse from the field . The writer/biograghee had 500 tank kills and 38 (I think) air to air kills for his Ace status , a pretty big accomplishment in a JU88 Stuka , one was a P47 he took down with the 20mm cannons . At one point he had been hit with a 20mm AA round and was scrambled his crew helped him into the cockpit with his foot bleeding in his cast .
He flew his first sorte about 15 minutes into WWII in1939 and surrendered to Allied troops the morning after VE in Italy . His remaining command followed his lead in a total of 5 Fw 190s instructed to ground loop as they came under 50 kph to insure damage enough to render them unfliable , just in case heir Furor changed his mind . 4 of them ground looped off the runway with power on and damaged the wings , engine and empanage enough ......the last guy just rolled out and gently into a runoff cut engine cut and all but stopped nosed into the berm . The author laid into him about orders and protocol and being under his command until about 5 seconds after the rescue hatch opened and the pilots girlfriend emerged . The assult stopped with something like well hell you couldn't leave her there for the Russians I guess and since we're surrendering I won't have your butt today .
Good book well crafted . True accounts .
Bret4207
At the casting bench in the sky. RIP Bret.
One guy specializing in just Commercial Vehicles patrolling 8500 sq mi. not just one Trooper patrolling that area. Sorry if there was a misunderstanding. When I had that area I wasn't shagging larceny complaints and domestics, just doing heavy trucks.
Russia is a great example of the modern US forgetting it wasn't just us fighting WW2. China is another. They didn't call it a "world war" fer nuthin'! And how many Americans realize Great Britain had food rationing into the 1950's! Almost 10 years after VE-Day they were still on rationing so they could feed the parts of Europe that the Allies and Axis destroyed.
Russia is a great example of the modern US forgetting it wasn't just us fighting WW2. China is another. They didn't call it a "world war" fer nuthin'! And how many Americans realize Great Britain had food rationing into the 1950's! Almost 10 years after VE-Day they were still on rationing so they could feed the parts of Europe that the Allies and Axis destroyed.
Early Higgins were wood, a design from La from the 'marsh' boats. Later were steel (good example is at a park in Ne.). Victory ships were first ones done 'assembly line' technique unfortunately the steel used (and welds) fractured in cold weather of the North sea. Stories of Churchill's WWI Turkey attack were interesting from the strategy point of view, very poor planning. Brits were pretty obstinate early on, finally learned their lesson. He bore the brunt of the responsibility but the real problem was the lack of target surveillance. Russia & Germany actually were supposed to be allies but Hitler turned. you want some good reading, study the 'unionization' of Europe/Russia/China. Very interesting stuff and quite different from the US. Used to be lots of good books on air aces, battles, etc. from WWI & II, mostly destroyed now. Civil war stuff mostly gone now too. Shame, good reading. Food rationing in EU after the war? Yup, here too. Same as after the Civil War, land & farmers are in bad shape. Not like TV that you turn on & off.
Yes, west Ny looked like west Ks first time I visited there. Pa about the same.
edit:
Savo island.
coral sea.
Interesting when you have no clue as to what is going on.
We need this guy flying for US.
Yes, west Ny looked like west Ks first time I visited there. Pa about the same.
edit:
Interesting when you have no clue as to what is going on.
We need this guy flying for US.
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fiver
Well-Known Member
I dunno I think I took a flight just like that into Williston one time during a tornado.
we bailed out of there and ended up landing in another one in Dickinson.
we run out of fuel just before touchdown [but had plenty of full barf bags on board] and rolled across the grass just about to the terminal and departed the plane post haste In a hail storm.
we bailed out of there and ended up landing in another one in Dickinson.
we run out of fuel just before touchdown [but had plenty of full barf bags on board] and rolled across the grass just about to the terminal and departed the plane post haste In a hail storm.
fiver
Well-Known Member
yep, the pilot pretty much dead sticked it the last half mile or so to the ground fighting the swirling winds.
we bailed from Williston because he couldn't even keep the plane lined up with the runway, he did an almost touch and go there, then throttled out of it [sounded like at 110%] and banked hard left trying to gain altitude. [the wind shear was far too much to land the plane, I think he later said something like 36 knots]
after we somewhat zig-zagged our way down from there to Dickinson trying to avoid more weather and being thrown around some more by the wind he had burned up his reserves.
not uncommon to fight head winds where we would leave Rock Springs and stop in Casper to top off so we could make the trip to North Dakota on a good day.
there were several times where up or down drafts would just shove the plane up or down 5-600 feet then slam it to a halt so hard dust would fly out of everything. [and lunch would generally depart a few passengers]
we had a few guys leave the crew or quit the company just so they didn't have to make the flight anymore.
the thought crossed my mind several times.
we bailed from Williston because he couldn't even keep the plane lined up with the runway, he did an almost touch and go there, then throttled out of it [sounded like at 110%] and banked hard left trying to gain altitude. [the wind shear was far too much to land the plane, I think he later said something like 36 knots]
after we somewhat zig-zagged our way down from there to Dickinson trying to avoid more weather and being thrown around some more by the wind he had burned up his reserves.
not uncommon to fight head winds where we would leave Rock Springs and stop in Casper to top off so we could make the trip to North Dakota on a good day.
there were several times where up or down drafts would just shove the plane up or down 5-600 feet then slam it to a halt so hard dust would fly out of everything. [and lunch would generally depart a few passengers]
we had a few guys leave the crew or quit the company just so they didn't have to make the flight anymore.
the thought crossed my mind several times.
fiver
Well-Known Member
the bad part was we would get off the plane and throw everything into a truck or micro-bus and go straight to location for 12 hours [or back to the yard before driving 3 hours home after a 12 or 24 hour shift] many times I was physically exhausted by the short flight.
that particular flight, plus the long drive we were making during the week took it's toll on us [we were working 21-22 hours a day including 7+ hrs of drive time] a few days later we almost killed 6 guys when they all fell asleep driving back from location and flipped their Tahoe.
that particular flight, plus the long drive we were making during the week took it's toll on us [we were working 21-22 hours a day including 7+ hrs of drive time] a few days later we almost killed 6 guys when they all fell asleep driving back from location and flipped their Tahoe.
I worked hours like that too. I knew I was in trouble later in the week when nodding out at the wheel going to work not trying to get home after work. Was times I would be driving home, turn down my street and look at a car going the other direction and realize it was me going to work.
Ian
Notorious member
I did that sort of thing for about the last six months at Boeing to get a one-off build finished on a NASA contract. Worked two shifts and sometimes half of the third just to keep the next team of monkeys from undoing what we'd sorted out the shift before. "Global Collaboration" was a huge mess, language barriers, consulting engineers in all time zones, union conflicts, too many chiefs and not enough Indians, tons of engineering problems, conflicting orders, ego wars, etc. etc. One of the other special builds guys brought his RV to work and parked it in the far back corner of the 6500-space parking lot so we could get a shower and a few hours rest without having to drive 2.5 hours round trip to work every single day. I was so burned out when that mess was over that I changed careers and vowed two things: Any future employment would allow me to be home every single night of the year, not be more than 50 hours a week EVER, and would not involve flying in company aircraft. That decision ended my days of making real money, but I couldn't care less about that....some things are just not worth it.
Pistolero
Well-Known Member
I have had to land a Cessna 150 at Douglas for fuel and when I called the Unicom asking for
the winds, got "40 gusting 50". That is knots, so add 15%. And about 35 degrees off of the
only runway. Landed on one wheel with enough bank angle in to hold the crosswind that just
a few seconds before touchdown glanced out at low wingtip to see HOW low it was, hoping the
wheel would touch before the wingtip...had plenty of clearance. Taxied in dragging brakes and
at significant power to keep lots of air over the tail so I could still use rudder and elevator effectively
to control it. I stayed at that power while my wife got out and CHAINED it down, they didn't use
roped for tiedowns in Douglas. Light aircraft in heavy winds and high density altitude is not a lot
of fun.
Hit the left roll stop on the Long EZ one day on approach to Pinedale in pretty turbulent weather. That
was a real eye opener to hit full left aileron when trying to fly level. Only for about 1 second, than back
off and then the other way to hold things reasonably level. Made a perfect touchdown, very smooth
both of those, but there is a hell of a lot of large, coarse control movement going on.
Bill
the winds, got "40 gusting 50". That is knots, so add 15%. And about 35 degrees off of the
only runway. Landed on one wheel with enough bank angle in to hold the crosswind that just
a few seconds before touchdown glanced out at low wingtip to see HOW low it was, hoping the
wheel would touch before the wingtip...had plenty of clearance. Taxied in dragging brakes and
at significant power to keep lots of air over the tail so I could still use rudder and elevator effectively
to control it. I stayed at that power while my wife got out and CHAINED it down, they didn't use
roped for tiedowns in Douglas. Light aircraft in heavy winds and high density altitude is not a lot
of fun.
Hit the left roll stop on the Long EZ one day on approach to Pinedale in pretty turbulent weather. That
was a real eye opener to hit full left aileron when trying to fly level. Only for about 1 second, than back
off and then the other way to hold things reasonably level. Made a perfect touchdown, very smooth
both of those, but there is a hell of a lot of large, coarse control movement going on.
Bill
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