Recent content by mstennes

Heck they used them well into the 80’s. The last operator (the name slips me by) operated a few of them out of Moses Lake, Wa. He finely had a sale of everything remaining in the late 80’s, early 90’s?

Thanks everyone, and the plot thickens.

There is a ongoing debate on another web site and this is my go to for accurate information and facts, this was taken of the OP’s grandfather in North Africa sometime between 1942 and 1943. I know not allot to go on. Here’s the photo.

The Thin Man (gun type) was a British design but for what ever reason (I can’t remember the exact reason now) it was deemed to have design errors and was redesigned into the Little Boy which also was a gun type. While the Thin Man would have fit into the Lancaster, it was also deemed to have to...

No, the Lancaster could not have done what the 29 could and did. It had neither the range or the bomb bay size. The British did push the Lancaster to carry the atomic bomb the only problem was it was pushed to carry the Tall Man which was a gun type like Little Boy, the problem was it wouldn’t...

Didn’t the British do that 1000 plane raid to show Hitler that the RAF was not down to almost zero planes? It also was made up of pretty Much anything that would fly that far and overall it was a nuisance bombing and moral builder not unlike Doolittle’s raid on Tokyo.

I also read that they would land behind the intended target, so often the would have to bomb from behind, which placed them in AAA flying over and then back.

I have read that as well, but I always thought it was limited to 1000 pounds total and could only carry a 250 pound bomb on the wings? I also read that it was not a good ground attack platform for the same reason, and that the empty shell casings from the 20’s would hit the bombs so deflectors...

I know they retired their F-86 chase planes, I’m not sure about their T-33’s. I do or I’ve heard they are looking at T-38’s as a replacement.

The Martin Mars and Catalina’s were converted to water bomber use.

I agree, the F-86, if I remember right the F-86 and MiG-15 were both based of the Messerschmitt P1101. We did get the prototype and made complete copies of the plans but under the Potsdam Agreement they went to the Russians.

The problem with that though, those were silverplate addition B-29’s. While the airframe was basically the same minus the gun and turrets, the engines had numerous modifications on them to correct the known issues of the Cyclones in the standard B-29’s.

For me, The 2800 series in a radial, but the Packard built Merlin in a inline. Packard corrected some of the Rolls Royce Merlin issues. The Wright 1820’s took the war to Berlin, so there is that, and many of them came back missing cylinders yet still ran and returned their crew safely. There is...

The B-26 ended up having a great career and safety record after Martin made some changes and pilot training was increased. That was the plane that started my dads army air corps career.