Greatest aircraft ever?

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but i'd take a Vulcan over a B-52...........

sorry i had to stop us agreeing on something, it's not good for our health........
 
Sorry guys, I like the look of the Vulcan but greatest aircraft of all time?.
I doubt it , apart from a show in the Falklands its combat record is nothing special indeed its service record as a whole is ok, but nothing special for a bomber , the only thing it has in it's favor is striking looks. I'm inclined to go with Evan,s selection of the DC3
 
I agree Trackend. The Vulcan is a good-looking airplane but I wouldn't consider it the best of all time. If you look at the C-47/DC-3, it was flown by a large amount of countries. In the US alone, it flew in WWII, Korea and Vietname and is still being used in civilian life to transport cargo in Canada, the northern US and central and south America. Ike called it one of the keys to vistory in WWII.
 
Eisenhower was right Evan if theres one plane that can be called war winning it s the DC3 even if it didn.t do the glamorous jobs 10,123 aircraft being produced for military use out of a total production run of 10,926 that record takes some beating.
At the peak of production 18.5 planes being built per day in two factorys thats what you call productivity and I believe 800 or so are still in service today. Thats some bird.
 
They were also license-built by the Japanese (before the war, they secured the license) and the Russians. I have seen widely varied numbers on the number that still fly, but I don't have an accurate account. I am currently working on a presentation for March 19 on the C-47 and Operation Varsity. I will see what other cool things I can find out about the Goony Bird.
 
sorry i was never making an argument for the vulcan being the greatest aircraft of all time, i was just saying that i'd prefer one to a C-47..............

and different people say different things, "Bomer" Harris said the lancaster was the greatest single factor in winning the war over germany, different people, different opinions................
 
Evan I sure would like to see one of your lectures
I'm the first to admit although interested in aircraft I am no expert by any means. So any information would be and is very interesting (that goes for all you fellas)
I have a question there seems to be vast amounts of information on all manner of aircraft much of it contradictory so how, when you're researching for a presentation do you filter the wheat from the chaff or do you (in the case of say aircraft production numbers ) correlate the figures then take an average?.
sorry if Ive gone off thread a bit lads
 
When preparing for presentations, I comb through the web and alot of books. When possible, I hit the national archives for records and in some cases, records from the manufacturer. The key to presenting useful information is to never take anything from a single source, no matter how good it appears. I have seen wide ranges of things, like surviving examples is a good variance. In those cases, I usually state that exact numbers are not known, but the estimates are between x and y.

I also have a great aviation library at my disposal at the museum, plus guys that flew and work/worked on the aircraft during and after the war. I always verify verbal facts though, because in some cases, you are hearing a memory from 60 years ago.

I am not an expert either, I learn as I go through each presentation. Whenever possible, I try to get someone who was involved with the aircraft to speak. One of my best guests was Don, who flew in the battles of Midway and Leyte Gulf. He is normally a quiet, unassuming man. Once he got talking though, it was truly amazing! He is also well organized and has folders from the different battles he flew in with pictures and unit histories. His records are a historians dream!
 
Thats very interesting Evan, thanks, especially about your guest speakers my father has several ship mates from his war time days that he corresponds with whom he saw action with and when you speak to them each fella has a had different war even though they may have been side by side obviously Items like there was fifty aircraft from so and so that flew in from the east are verifiable as I appreciate. But as you inter-mate there is no substitute for hearing the memories of the veterans that bring it to life my grandfather used to regale me with his reminiscences of the first world war and you could see the years fall away from him as he revisited places in his mind that I'm very glad I haven't had to go too. As you say it must be a historians dream if a chap like your guest speaker Don has kept logs etc of his missions although this seems to be more common among fliers than the other services. Harping on a bit about each chaps war being different I saw not long ago some veterans of D-Day and one marine who was On Omaha said as he ran up the beach he was saying the lords pray over and over out loud where as the guy next to him was shouting out every swear word he could think of I have always found little things like that say more about the people and war than just about anything.
Sorry if Ive prattled on guys but I must admit I find its the people who lived or died I find even more interesting that the machinery of war
Once again thanks Evan for your interesting reply to my question.
OK enough of my waffling guys back to the thread :)
Greatest aircraft ever still the Dakota come on you lot convince me otherwise :confused: or it's gonna be a tinfish from my old Stringbag straight up the PC for you blokes :D
 
Yes, trackend, it's the veteran stories that make it all very interesting. I found that if I just regurgitate facts and figures and development process of machines, the material is very dry. So I limit that info, just enough to tell the story of how the plane came to be before moving on to the stories of the people involved with the machines. Being able to have a vet on hand who is willing to speak about his experiences with the aircraft is the added bonus.

One of the interesting aspects of the latest presentation that I gave on the F4U Corsair was that the top three Corsair aces were also Medal of Honor recipients. I also printed out pictures of those guys and put the text of their MOH citations on the same sheet. Puts a more human element into the story.

I am with you on the Dakota/Skytrain. Without it, D-Day, Operation Varsity and a number of other inivasions would have been that much more difficult. If you guys haven't heard of Operation Varsity, do a google search and read about it. Sadly,it is one of the least heard of Operations of WWII, but it was the biggest and most successful airborne operations in history!
 
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