Recent content by fannum

I wouldn't think that the flags and airplane image were related in any way. Flags may indicate either origin or market, or both just decorations.

My immediate thought was the Capelis which had a short, sad life until it became an over exposed RKO movie prop. John Wayne made it famous. It seemed everywhere in movies, early TV and models. I know of at least two balsa, one cast metal, and a couple early plastic toys, the latter appearing...

It's amazing how invulnerable the J8M is, and how instantly effective it and the Zeros are against the usually sturdy B-29s and P-51s. Also, those A6Ms seem to have gained magic superchargers to operate so effectively at those B-29 altitudes. Wow!

I'm late to comment on this thread and am surprised that no one seems to have mentioned range and altitude advantages of larger area wings, especially high aspect ratio. Here are some thoughts to broaden the discussion. Note that most bombers and all transports utilize that layout. Early war...

Gawd, I love that there are minds here so willing to devote so much energy to determining earthshaking concepts as important as what the real definition of "is" is!

C'mon guys ... MASS produced, large cabin. There's an order of magnitude of complexity vs. a tiny crew cabin ala Ju86, Wellington V/VI experiments. The 307 by no measure qualifies as mass production, as they were hand built, and never well developed, constantly troublesome with LIMITED...

Invariably, the second to the table reaps the richest rewards. 1 - I'm old enough to have traveled the country and crossed the Pacific in '48 in an unpressurized C-54/DC-4 and C-47s/DC-3s. Remember NO mass production pressurized large cabin preceded the B-29, and that alone made travel without...

Again, anyone who claims an absolute (first, fastest, best, etc.) is only fodder for a bar fight. I'm sure it's been covered elsewhere, but there are over 80 humans who traversed the Atlantic by air before Charley. (most in dirigibles or island hoping seaplanes.) He deserves all the acclaim as...

(I'm sure this has been covered before) OK all you Kansans ... What is this? The big clue ... the national insignia! That's People's Republic of China. The aircraft is a Chinese adaptation of a Russian copy of the Boeing B-29. Due to fuel or battle damage over Japan, four B-29s landed in...

Bill Barnes Silver Snorter!

Verifying on Wiki is like taking a consensus from the Happy Hour bar gang. Even when they cite references, they're usually second or third sources.

This discussion has had odd twists. Let me add a few others. About the only B-26 novel I've run across is Walter Lasly's TURN THE TIGERS LOOSE, a story of the combat crews who fought as Night Intruders in the Korean war. Senior NASM curator, Maj. Bob Mikesh was one of those pilots, and we...

Throughout its service life, the B-52 fleet went through countless updates and mods, and replacement parts had to be matched not just to the model (ala B-52A, B, C, etc.) but the production block # and often the a/c serial #. Even then, techs had to compare parts as record keeping often lagged...

Phenolic sheets were used as insulators in pre-'60s electronics, even inside vacuum tubes. Also, Bakelite panels/moldings and thin wafers of ceramics. Often times components and soldering posts would be mounted on those insulator sheets, and if someone got ham handed soldering to a post, those...

I realize this site is the home ground of parsers and nit pickers, but take into account that the B-52s have had at least five major overhauls, affecting all structure and systems. It's like George Washington's hatchet ... the handle's been replaced 11 times, and the head 3, but it's still the...