Aviation Geeks unite?! Anybody else care about planes here?
- Thread starter { Emilia }
- Start date
The Blue Angels follows a similar pattern, flying seven different aircraft models before switching to the F-18s in 1986.
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Edit to add: And my condolences to the aviation family of the Snowbirds
Same.
Yeah. On the change to A-4's and T-38's: I had a friend who had an airshow program from the '60s, and it had a little graphic proudly showing how six Blue Angels F-4s used a whole semi tanker of fuel for one airshow. Not a big selling point in the '70s oil crunch!
Sad for them.
I did not know they lost another aircraft last fall.
As is well known, when Ronald Reagan was shot in March 1981, Vice President Bush was on a trip to Texas and had to fly back to Washington in Air Force Two. IIRC in the '80s the older (707) VC-137s 970, 971 or 972 were often used for the vice president, while the newer 26000 and 27000 were used by the president. As a kid, I remember seeing a photo of VP Bush exiting the plane, and noting that the stairs looked quite short. A great piece about the assassination attempt by the Dallas Morning News says that Air Force Two that day was a 707 with four engines. I think it was probably one of the (DC-9) VC-9Cs. Anyone have better information on that?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_C-9
It says that: VC-9C (AF serial number 73-1681) is on display at the Castle Air Museum in Atwater, California and was used by Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton.
So it indeed could have been that one.
It says that: VC-9C (AF serial number 73-1681) is on display at the Castle Air Museum in Atwater, California and was used by Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton.
So it indeed could have been that one.
@J.T.B. Not finding a lot of info on AF2 really. The second image in the DMN article lets you count most of the steps and the count is similar to the count in this Nixon image of him leaving SAM 26000.
Good work! Yeah, I think I was wrong. The a/c in the B&W photos appears not to have blue in the color scheme, it looks like the plain white with gold cheatline that was applied to non-presidential aircraft during the Carter administration. In other photos it looks like the anti-glare black on the nose lines up with the edges of the cockpit windows, which it doesn't on the VC-9. There was just something about the angle of that photo, I guess, that made me think it was a smaller plane all these years. Also it was dark and from the angle the Boeing nose wasn't as noticeable.
The B's were 707-120s and the C's (26000 and 27000) were 320s, which explains the difference in range. According to this great command history, of the VC-137B's only the 970 had a stateroom, so I'm pretty sure now that's the one that was Air Force Two that day :
It looks like it had gotten its blue back in this '82 photo:
In original VC-137A form with MATS paint:
Just rewatched the 1939 Howard Hawks classic Only Angels Have Wings. It's about air mail pilots flying for a tiny line in South America in the '30s. It has some model photography which looks OK for the time, but there are some great aerial sequences with a Pilgrim 100.
We've always heard about Gone With the Wind, Stagecoach, The Wizard of Oz, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington etc., but this is another truly great movie from that year.
We've always heard about Gone With the Wind, Stagecoach, The Wizard of Oz, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington etc., but this is another truly great movie from that year.
Hmm, looks more like a C-8 than a Pilgrim.
C-8
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairchild_71
The cockpit of the Pilgrim is set higher than the row of windows of the passenger compartiment.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairchild_100
I could be mistaken though.
C-8
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairchild_71
The cockpit of the Pilgrim is set higher than the row of windows of the passenger compartiment.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairchild_100
I could be mistaken though.
Nice detective work there. Also more aircraft more fun. 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtiss-Wright_XF-87_Blackhawk
This one is also interesting looking pity they scrapped them.
It was the tail wheel in the landing picture you posted that sent me looking, since it didn't match any version of the two other planes listed.
At any rate it's a great movie if you're interested in that period. The pilots all wear guns, as air mail pilots were required in the US as well. In case somebody tried to rob the mail, I guess. In one part flying over a high mountain pass they put rubber tubes in their mouths to suck oxygen from a tank!
A short piece on the aerial photography:
A short piece on the aerial photography:
Now to take off with a tail dragger, you actually have to push the stick forward a tad to level out— then pull back, right?
The camera brings to mind a question I often have about how much on-the-spot tech solutions get invented by production crews only to be forgotten once the film wraps.
