Historic photos from the web

[evangilder]

I stumbled on a couple of places over the web this weekend and grabbed some really cool photos. Here are a few of them. Installment #1 Allan Haines Loughead (January 20, 1889 – May 26, 1969). If the name looks vaguely familiar, he was one of the founders of the Loughhead Aircraft Manufacturing Company, which would later become the Lockheed Aircraft Corporation.

 

[Crimea_River]

Interesting. Thanks for sharing.

 

[Gnomey]

Interesting find Eric! Looking forward to more.

 

[evangilder]

I hit the mother-lode of stuff over the weekend. I will post some more this evening.

 

[Airframes]

Good stuff Eric, and I never knew that's where the 'Lockheed' name originated !

 

[Aaron Brooks Wolters]

I know this doesn't mean much but Mr. Loughead died exactly one month before I was born. Cool find Eric, can't wait to see the rest!

 

[evangilder]

The Blue angels, Thunderbirds, Snowbirds, Red Arrows, etc are cool, but you haven't seen anything until you have seen a demonstration team with 4 C-130s! They were the Four Horsemen. A brief history is below:

Four Horsemen was the US Air Force aerobatic display team.

The team's history begins in early 1957, when four C-130A Hercules air-crews decided to try formation flying, while their air dropping mission was canceled during the heavy winds at Fort Campbell, Ky. The pilots of this airplanes were Captains Gene Chaney, Jim Aiken, David Moore and Bill Hatfield.

First the team was named Thunder Weasels from the combination of Thunderbirds and the weasel from the squadron patch, but at last the pilots choose Four Horsemen after the Coach Knute Rockne's legendary backfield on Notre Dame's 1924 football team.

The first public demonstration was in front of 314th Troop Carrier Wing at Sewart Air Force Base in Tennessee, while the Four Horsemen pilots delivered the new C-130 to this airbase.

Soon after this demonstration the Tactical Air Command gave the team an official statute of aerial demonstration team.

The team don't have permanent C-130 assigned to them and flew different airplanes from the airbase.

The team's crew included two pilots, a flight engineer and a scanner. The navigator's seat sat empty during the shows. The crews came from within the squadron, and the Horsemen pilots tried to fly with the same flight mechanics when possible.

The Four Horsemen demonstrate the short range take off in diamond formation. Because of the downwash from the propellers, each of the following aircraft flew slightly higher than the one in front. Each pilot would try to fly right 'on top of the bubble.' The slot airplane would be the highest in the formation. The Four Horsemen flew in close formation about 10 feet. After the demonstration all four Hercules aircrafts landed in diamond formation.

In the spring of 1960 all team's pilots were dislocated to other airbases, and this was the end of that unique aerobatic team.

 

[vikingBerserker]

I've never heard of the, great post!

 

[RabidAlien]

Holy crap....Thunderbirds/Blue Angels, I've seen, and their formations are impressive. But doing that with Herky-birds???? That's frikkin awesome! WTF was the AirForce thinking, getting rid of something like that? Imagine the world of hurt for Spooky's could bring, flying in formation...

 

[Airframes]

They must have really been something to see ... and hear ! Bring 'em back, I say !

 

[nuuumannn]

Terrific! Never heard of them before and wish I had seen them! Would have been great. Early model C-130As in those pictures, by the looks of things. Great find!

 

[evangilder]

When I read about them, I thought it was a great idea. It was never officially sanctioned by the USAF, unfortunately. Here is a short video of them doing their work.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvvoKch5gAI

 

[Shinpachi]

An awesome thread

 

[Gnomey]

They would of been quite something to see for sure!

 

[Aaron Brooks Wolters]

Very cool find Eric! The last break they did was spectacular!

 

[pbfoot]

Thats really cool

 

[evangilder]

One of my favorite bombers from the past, the Convair B-58 Hustler. Here's a trivia bit about the B-58: Singer John Denver's father, Colonel Henry J. Deutschendorf, Sr., USAF, held several speed records as a B-58 pilot.

 

[mudpuppy]

Thanks for posting those of the B-58. That looks like a fighter jet that grew 2 sizes too large and had to start carrying bombs.
Funny thing for me is how small the wheels look; with the weight of the craft and what I'm assuming is high speed/stress of landing I would just expect something more...'beefy'.

Derek

 

[evangilder]

I agree, Derek, and the landing gear was problematic with the Hustler. But a mach 2 bomber that looks like that is just too cool.

 

[herman1rg]

Hmmmm Large Aircraft displaying in formation..........discuss (and post pics if you have any)