Recent content by Barrett

It's REAL easy to fill in the dialogue: "WHAT'D YOU SAY?" "WHAT?" (Based on several hundred hours around radial engines, though I never-ever stood that close to a whirling prop!)

As fighter aces secretary I dealt with about half of the 400 members we had in the 80s. I already knew Rex Barber from Oregon and was friendly John Mitchell. Tom Lanphier not so much......................... But in discussing memorabilia for display at the Champlin Fighter Museum, John said...

We published Randy's memoir, Fox Two, at Chasmplin Museum Press in 1984. By far our best seller. One thing I remember was difficulty getting it stocked at the NAS Miramar base exchange because JANE FONDA VIDEOS TOOK UP SHELF SPACE. Those navy wives... Those who knew him better said Randy was...

Counterfactuals can be fun (Corsairs!) but they're irrelevant to reality. Amazon has lots & lots of books on the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, with nearly all the aviation aspects from the Israeli perspective. When I was secretary of the American Fighter Aces Assn I got to know Rudi Augarten, who...

TBF/TBM Avengers were ditched safely, by far the best known being this from three years ago. Although it's as much a forced landing as a ditching: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2021/04/17/air-show-plane-makes-soft-water-landing-near-patrick/7272849002/ Wartime pix:

Excellent resources, ThomasP. Thank you, sharing with several colleagues. The "crew dogs" flying B-52s were REAL cranky about SAC Omaha dictating tactics, which were largely unimaginative and therefore predictable. Additionally the "doomsday" ECM options were not allowed, lest the Soviets...

There is no single source. Combining the Army, Navy, Marines and Coast Guard in one data base would be a job for Tom Cruise & Mission Impossible.

Strong arguments. FWIW: Years ago I wrote about the three essential aircraft in winning the Pacific War. In order of appearance: The SBD, without which, 1942 would not have been possible for the United States. The F6F, which destroyed Japanese Airpower (nearly as many credited kills as all AAF...

The topic is A LOT like some Quora Questions intended to provoke WHY DO YOU ASK? responses. How anybody could consider the 29 a failure is beyond reckoning.

Impressive video but typically atrocious audio. I hit MUTE in about 4 seconds flat!

Got my attention. Strategic Air Command is a movie I will always watch despite the saccharine Stewart-Allison romance angle. the aerial photography is superb. Our ranch was on the low-level route between Fairchild AFB, Washington, and Mountain Home, Idaho. Among my earliest memories are...

Wildcats snacked on Petes. The diners I knew best in that regard were Joe Foss, Jeff DeBlanc, and Bill Leonard.

Some tremendous info. Thank you gents. Ref. the 262 as a dive bomber, note the reference here (search for "dive"): The German Jet Me-262 in 1944: A Failed Opportunity – Part I As I-we have noted, the airframe was far too slick for the mission. Critical Mach was c. .85, and without dive...

Here I am at the back of the cyber classroom again! The figure of 138 aerial victories for SBDs that I cited in my first book (1976!) was from the postwar Naval Aviation statistical summary. That was of course before the internet, but at one time semi-recently Naval History & Heritage...

In the early 70s my father and I, with some like-minded friends, restored an A-24B to SBD-5 status with some help from Douglas Aircraft. Our plane's front cockpit was intact with original instruments. They worked properly in flight. We looked far afield for other parts sources but the closest...