Recent content by Dana Bell

Nah, it's from and original 4x5 Kodachrome transparency... Cheers, Dana

Sorry to ask, but was that last series a case of "tit for tat?" Dana

Book: History of Aviation by Aaron Speys... Cheers, Dana

Saturday, 4 July, Virginia... Cheers, Dana

The 1940 movie Flight Command featured a Navy squadron called the "Fightin' Hell Cats" with an appropriate insignia on their Grumman biplanes. After the film was finished, the real Navy squadron petitioned to keep the fake marking as their own, but was turned down by BuAer. Anyhow, Grumman had...

I ran down that photo back in the 1970s - those are actually all Army Air Forces aircraft at the Tucson Mod Center. The white ones are wearing one of the Army's anti-sub schemes of OD and white, a scheme applied in spring 1943. By autumn the Army was able to pass the ASW mission to the Navy...

Actually, Doolittle was in England as head of the Eighth AF; the photo was from 6 July 1944. Cheers, Dana

The US Navy developed a rubber paint to prevent retracted black tires from disrupting the effect of undersurface camouflage. It browned with age and wore poorly, so it was very rarely used. Cheers, Dana

Hi Skywalker, VT-5 suffered no combat losses during the missions against the Japanese, but once they were back on Yorktown they were subject to the same exhaustion as the rest of the crew on the combat-damaged carrier. It seemed wiser to rest weary, stressed crews, replacing them with fresh...

Hi Skywalker, It wasn't just the planes - the Yorktown crews were roughed up by the actions during the Battle of the Coral Sea. Saratoga's crews, including VT-3, had seen minimal action at that time, and were pretty fresh, so they were among the units before heading to Midway. Cheers, Dana

Basically Flash Dance with F-14s - what's not to love! Cheers, Dana

Beyond the distinctive physical layout, the date makes this a Y1B-17. By February 1938 the Boeing 299 was already crashed, and the only YB-17A wouldn't fly for another two months. I believe Sabrejet is right about the serial - of the 13 Y1B-17s built, the first went to Wright Field (note the...

Freeman listed the color as dark purple in one of his books. Here are some earlier observations: Posted to HyperScale, 8 November 2003>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> The whole "plum" P-47 story surfaced here on HyperScale on November 17, 1999. Gregg Cooper posted the following (retyped by me, since I only...

The Brodie system was tested on at least one LST during the war - I don't remember what the main problem was, but the concept was abandoned. The US Navy's standard recovery techniques were: AFFIRM - ship at anchor, aircraft taxis up and is hoisted on board BAKER - ship floating free, aircraft...

If the suggestions that the two aircraft collided during an AR mission, one of the two aircraft wasn't a simple KC-135. The electronics and reconnaissance 135s are equipped to receive fuel, but the vanillas are not. I suspect we have a lot more to learn about this sad loss. Dana