BOTSWANA F-5A

Thanks guys - that was a fun trip!

Hi,
My name is Peter Pyper and I live in Finland. I am trying to solve an aircraft identification problem. Google Earth has pictures of Kasane Airstrip Botswana and Francistown Botswana airstrip.
On both of these can be seen what would appear to be Vampire aircraft. However they could also be Cessna 337 as the wing span and length is almost the same. I personally doubt that they are Vampire aircraft, as I think the Botswana airforce has F5A jet aircraft. Anybody able to solve this problem please?

Peter Pyper said:

Hi,
My name is Peter Pyper and I live in Finland. I am trying to solve an aircraft identification problem. Google Earth has pictures of Kasane Airstrip Botswana and Francistown Botswana airstrip.
On both of these can be seen what would appear to be Vampire aircraft. However they could also be Cessna 337 as the wing span and length is almost the same. I personally doubt that they are Vampire aircraft, as I think the Botswana airforce has F5A jet aircraft. Anybody able to solve this problem please?

Click to expand...

They're Skymasters, I was there a few years ago and I didn't see any Vampires.

More Lightning triva:

My dad was in charge of one of the Lightning Simulators at Coltishall back in the old days, and the switch from 'instrument only' to 'visual' was accomplished using a moving map with tiny models of the surrounding area and a camera which projected onto a screen in front of the cockpit.

Now, as you know, pilots don't care too much about crashing sims, but it caused a problem as the camera would actually crash into the map and snap off or break the tiny houses etc.. So an interlock was devised to stop you hurtling headfirst into the ground, which produced the most strange effect - you would apparently be doing Mach 2 straight down, but then stop and 'hover' 100 feet above the deck... it was pretty funny...

8)