Yesterday's Weapons Forums

I have absolutely no clue what any of these missiles are, but the whole group all together made for an interesting photo...


coldwar.jpg [ 67.95 KiB | Viewed 14069 times ]

Many years ago I attended the Dayton Hamvention and a few of us went to Wright -Patterson for the museum tour. Veeeeeery interestding! There were three or four of those things laying on the ground out near the XB-70. I wonder if they are the same ones?

At 6'2" and 340 pounds I am not exactly the runt of the litter, I remember getting into the B-17 they had on display there. Tight fit hardly describes it, getting through the bulkheads was a real problem. It made me think those guys had to be a little bit smaller than me to be to be useful in those things.

Thank you for sharing the photo ... cool perspective!

You got into the B-17…you must be special…. I've only heard stories about it.

Best Regards,

Mark

The balcony at the missile bay has a very good view of the cold war hanger…. Eee Gads, I've been to the museum a few too many times.

My Dad remembers when B-36s were stationed at the base. I'd love to see one fly. I grew up with B-52's overhead. C-17s just aren't the same.

BTW, I've spotted a huge error in the Korean exhibit if I ever get to show you around. Let's say, I spotted the first president of Korea's signature on an artifact they never mentioned as such. They somehow knew they had it though. I'm not impressed with the curator after that one. Neither were the Koreans walking by it.

Oh, they had a Marine carrying a M1917 and called it a 1903. I did have them correct that one.

Nice pictures by the way. I did interview one of the people in the holocaust exhibit that lives around here locally. His family saved 30 Dutch Jews from the nazis. I used to work at his tool shop.

Best Regards,

Mark

Oh, manage to hit your head on the B-29 during a walk through? Ah, memories…...

i got to tour the inside of "aluminum overcast" when she was here on tour , i agree you need to be more my size to be at all comfortable , my father was about same size as me , he was 5-8 & 130 in the mid 40s when on saipan , still felt the B-29 was really tight and they were fairly large compared to the B-17s ,

i agree its less than impressive when your touring a museum and such blatant errors hit you square in the face , you would think getting it 'right' would be important to curators

Buddy's Father flew B-24's off of Saipan during the war. He even picked up a type 38 carbine the day it was declared secure.

Type 38 carbines are rather sweet as far as carbines go. 6.5mm Japanese has a low recoil so the carbine is pleasant to shoot, not a monster.

I wish they could get more Soviet aircraft into the museum, but another hanger is in the works. The presidential (Air Force One collection) more or less has dibs on space. I think they had a mock up in the lobby.

Sometimes the winter lecture and movie series is interesting to attend. That would be quite a trip for you though. I did attend the big B-25 fly in about a year ago. 20-30 of them flew in and were parked off to the end of the Museum. I've seen WWI planes land on the grass out front until one flipped over while landing. Oooops.

Best Regards,

Mark

Somebody better take pictures of the Italian WWII fighter for Nebhogger. Ah, its a piece of art.

...did that a couple years ago...

....theres more,but here's a small"re-run"...


IMG_1275.jpg [ 1.43 MiB | Viewed 14033 times ]



IMG_1280.jpg [ 1.97 MiB | Viewed 14033 times ]



IMG_1283.jpg [ 1.77 MiB | Viewed 14033 times ]

I keep staring at the radiator/cowling, or both? The open cockpit was an Italian favorite from what I read. I think they later put a Daimler Benz inline engine from a ME-109 on the airframe and they got some very good performance out of her. Thankfully, Italy was broke and production of the engine was poor at best.

I do love the paint scheme, which looks very out of place in the museum as brown camouflage paint jobs aren't real common.

Hope Nebrhogger is looking at this.

Best Regards,

Mark

Back when I was a young kid I watched the B-36s fly over and the had a very different sound to their radials. Found out they used a 4 row engine. It was a much smoother sound as opposed to B-17.

Rad

The Italian camo scheme was called "sand and spinach". They had a few decent aircraft designs but crappy engines. Same for their tanks - they were always underpowered.

Decent Fiat trucks, though. While researching a passage for the next book, I found the DAK really liked Italian trucks. Like when the Brits were advancing, DAK went over to the Italians - pulled guns and stole all their trucks in which to bug out.

With allies like that, there's little need for actual enemies.

B-36 = six turning and four burning. SW

A Lt. Col I once knew had the privilege to walk thru "Shoo-Shoo Baby" on display in the WWII hangar. We civilians don't get such chances. I did walk through all the "Air Force Ones" several times already. I think there are 4-5 of them in a hangar on base. Oh, Shoo-Shoo Baby is scheduled to be replaced by the real Memphis Belle. I knew a guy who helped restore her and they are still working on her.

I was a kid back in the seventies and I only remember walking through the B-29, which you still can to this day. I remember the original building on the other side of the airfield and when the new museum only had two hangars. I pretty much visit it once or twice a year. Each plane is a piece of art to me.

Unfortunately, all the really weird stuff is on base and you have to sign up for the bus ride over. I've noticed several one of a kind prototypes just taking up space, but it is good to know they are inside from the elements.

My child hood memories are B-52's doing touch and goes on the main runway. My house was in their flight path most of the time. I actually liked the sound and if I'm at an air show with one in it, I get that warm fuzzy feeling again.

The 1200 horses on the Wright Cyclone on the B-17 has a pleasant noise. I must admit I do like the sound of pistol engines on aircraft. I have heard aircraft engine sounds coming out of racing boats around here. They were Allisons and Merlins for the most part. The Allisons with superchargers sounded like jets on water. The stacks off a Merlin were rather loud. You can't hear those any more since all those engines were burned up by racing.

Dayton has a huge history of aircraft behind it. Air Force One occasionally comes in for maintenance. If there is a huge storm down south, all the airfields, USAF and Navy send their stuff up here. I've seen a P-3 Orion once. Turbo props have a distinctive confusing sound. The USAF Museum is a bit better than the Smithsonian in my opinion. I do miss the real Wright Flyer.

Best Regards,

Mark

BTW, yeah, Italian aircraft engines were mostly radial and not the best. I can imagine the Germans taking anything that worked. Even the Brits took Italian tanks when they could, not that they were great though. Most German divisions still used horses, so anything working that used gas or diesel was a big plus. It costs more logistically to feed a horse than to fuel a truck when transporting per pound.

I too wonder why Malta wasn't assaulted, but the airborne division was bled white at Crete and its advantage of surprise would have been minimal at Malta I would guess. That and they never neutralized the fighter cover for reasons that escape me. Malta has always been a tough nut to crack.

I have not been to a tractor pull at the county fair in a long time. But, years ago there were a number of Allisons and Merlins installed in unlimited class tractors. Yes, when those turbo got spun up there was some real noise and smoke, not to mention red stacks ... and the ground really shook!

A couple of years ago there was a B-17 touring the countryside and for $300 you could get a ride. I had brought my bombsight with to donate, in case they needed one for the plane, but, alas, there was one installed. I was too broke for the ride, but, I went to the ended of the runway and parked just to hear the sweet sound of those radials at full power.

That reminds me, I was on my way home from a prairie dog expedition in South Dakota back in the early '90's and a semi rig passed me near Kadoka, SD. And to my suprise it had a disassembled P-47 on the trailer and a couple of engines. I did not realize that they had two rows of jugs and were 18 cylinders! I pulled up alongside the trailer and looked her over pretty good, then pulled up as far as the cab and gave the drive a "thumbs up", which brought a big smile to his face and then fell back and took up the rear guard position in the escort. I was really hoping he would pull over for fuel somewhere, but, no such luck. We parted company at the MN #13 & I-90 junction near Albert Lea, MN. It was a real thrill to see a P-47 even on a trailer because I knew someone was going to get the ol' girl back in the air!

All three of my mom's brothers were in the military and Uncle Melvin flew F-51's for the Army Air Corps during the war running shore patrol out of Pennsicola (sp?). Somewhere I have photos of him and a few of his buddies and their planes. I will have to look for them and scan a few to post here.

Mark, I can't help but wonder what you are writing a book on and what you have written in the past?

No book, but I have a masters degree, so I learned to write very fast,…or else. I've been pouring over books on WWII aircraft for some time and noticed its all in the engines. Blessed be our engineers and supercharged radial engines.

I do live near Dayton, so its in our blood over here. Some people around here never been to the museum actually.

Best Regards,

Mark

BTW, the computer had two submits in line for some reason and I hit the submit button twice to get out of it.