Aviation Geeks unite?! Anybody else care about planes here?

Designed by Barnes Wallis would later create the bouncing bomb used in the Dambusters raid and the largest single non-atomic bomb dropped in the war - the Grand Slam with the 10 ton Tallboy in between.

 

And the title plane of the wartime classic One of Our Aircraft Is Missing, which was shown on TV a lot when I was young.

If anyone is interested in US airlines, Rod Serling's brother Robert wrote a number of great histories on individual carriers: Continental, Eastern, American, TWA, Western etc. I acquired used copies of most of these out-of-print books over time, but now I find that most of them are available as e-books for under $5. Also recommended by Serling is When the Airlines Went to War, the story of how US air carriers and their civilian personnel were "drafted" in WW2.

 

People probably don't think of airlines doing much during the war because they're generally associated with civillian activities.

I was reading the wiki entry on the PBY Catalinas a while back and found out that QANTAS flew some for operations during WW2 but then once the war was over they had to destroy the aircraft under the terms of the agreement.

 

I'd recommend anyone who thinks that to read Ernest Gann's account of how he almost crashed into the Taj Mahal with an overloaded C-87! Fate Is The Hunter, pp. 257-260.

Wow, interesting.

 

@Santaman I'll confess, the Vickers Wellington has never shown up on my radar; thanks for the heads-up.
Early aviation was replete with such aviation innovative deadends; Here one of my favorites:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boulton_Paul_Defiant

 

remember that one - putting a power turret in a fighter wasn't really a good move.

Though a refresh read on the wiki makes it even worse, slow because of the turret but no forward firing guns!!

the aircrew should have been awarded medals for going into combat in one.

Same for those who flew the Blackburn Roc

You really have to wonder about the people who gave the order to put these aircraft into production.

 

^^It did turn out to be a reasonably effective night fighter (they did end up building a 1000+). Never understood the no-forward facing gun thing.

 

Yeah that was a strange concept but they tried everything those days, that they omitted the forward gun was a bad idea indeed, but I guess weight issues and the like played a role.

 

The Wellington was the Bomber Command workhorse of the early war years. Though often overshadowed in retrospect by the four-engine heavies, the Wellington was well remembered by Britons of the era as the first bomber that really took the fight to Germany itself. The Blenheim was used more in the tactical role, the Whitley was obsolescent and the Hampden had a lighter load and fewer numbers. More Wellingtons were built than any other British multi-engine type, and IIRC equipped more Bomber Command squadrons than anything but the Lanc.

 

many moons ago, my dad asked my great uncle about the Wellingtons being better to fly than the Lancs. As the my great uncle (who received the DFC) flew the latter, the answer was tad biased

 

A cancelled project... I actually visited the plant white it was in the early days of work.. XCor Lynx

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XCOR_Aerospace
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XCOR_Lynx
Have a picture of the mockup on my phone somewhere..

 

Weight? (ninja'd)

 

I wondered about that.

From what I could find, the .303 machine guns used on British fighters weighed about 14Kg which doesn't sound like much but once you add in the ammunition, support mechanism, feed mechanism etc you'd adding on pretty quickly.

or they simply didn't think it was needed.

 

re: the defiant and weight.
It was a quad-gun turret. I dunno, maybe two forward and two in the turret instead?

 

Wonderful!

Plus it was a powered turret, so electrical motors and components.

Maybe 2 x .303 wasn't considered enough punch? One thing I was always struck by when I was young was the size difference between the .303 and the US "fifty cal."

But yeah, no forward-firing MG had to be a great frustration for a pilot. The US Navy's SBD dive bomber had two .50s in the cowling for shooting up targets, but early in the war that also enabled carriers to use them as "fighters" in low-level CAP for low and slow torpedo planes, so the Wildcats could stay up high.

 

Slow.. that reminds me of this little gem, trhe Fairey Swordfish
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairey_Swordfish
It outlasted all the aircraft designed to replace it and did a lot of damage, not bad for an obsolete biplane, they nicknamed it stringbag because like a shoppng bag it would carry any kind of equipment that could physically fit the aircraft.

 

Lockheed Martin SR-71 Blackbird! most of my interests in planes came from Transformers. I was interested in powered paragliding...but I don't think I could go through with it.

 

Its most famous attack is a classic intersection of my aeronautical and nautical interests. Of course, Jimmy Horton skipped that part.

 

Hi. Fan of aviation here. I know this is a drone but wow



Almost like the real thing

 

Designed for a spec that they could be catapulted from a battleship with floats and a 750kg torpedo load! That takes some lift!

UK developments between wars are fascinating, with RAF control of the Fleet Air Arm and all that.

But Sink the Bismarck, another old movie I caught as on local TV as a kid, did give the Swordfish their due. I was young but I knew biplanes were a WW1 thing, and I was really fascinated because they looked so old fashioned for WW2.

Speaking of the Bismarck chase, I have to mention that the battleship was located by a RAF Catalina flown by "technical advisor" (wink wink) Ens. Leonard "Tuck" Smith USN.