Picture of the day. (32 Viewers)

[Frog]

 

[Wurger]

A four-piper ...

 

[Greg Boeser]

I saw this photo in the North Carolina digital archives and the caption says this about it: "Black and white photo taken by Jesse Martin while stationed in Hawaii during World War II shows a plane in flight. The insignia on the left wing dates between June and August 1943. This was an experimental design to test if colour or shape was the most important visual clue. It was decided shape was the most important. The images are outline in red paint allowing their shape to be more defined."

View attachment 901997

The google says otherwise.
8th Air Force, 2BW, 389th BG, 565 BS

 

[MiTasol]

The google says otherwise.
8th Air Force, 2BW, 389th BG, 565 BS

Google is prone to AI hallucinations so the OP may well be correct.

 

[OldGeezer]

8th Air Force, 2BW, 389th BG, 565 BS

That started me hunting again, and lo and behold, the exact same photo appeared in a group around 2012, with an attribution like you say.

B-24 Liberator of 565th BS, 389th BG, 8th Air Force (2 of 2)

A B-24 Liberator of the 565th Bombardment Squadron, 389th Bombardment Group, seen from above.

www.historyofwar.org

 

[OldGeezer]

That started me hunting again, and lo and behold, the exact same photo appeared in a group around 2012, with an attribution like you say.

B-24 Liberator of 565th BS, 389th BG, 8th Air Force (2 of 2)

A B-24 Liberator of the 565th Bombardment Squadron, 389th Bombardment Group, seen from above.

www.historyofwar.org

And the fuselage "EE" didn't come in until mid-March 1944 according to this ( Aircraft ) which fits better with the model B-24, too. So almost nothing in the NC digital archive caption is right.

 

[Zippythehog]

B-29s at North Field Guam of 29th BG and 19 BG of 314 BW photo

No, piston engines of the day did not have EGT systems.

They did have exhaust gas analysers but those do not look like the normal probes to me and there was normally only one probe so I am not sure

Zippy it looks like a fire detection loop to my eyes, probably for detecting an exhaust overheat, but if it is a FD loop it would be attached to a warning light and horn, not a guage, as it is really on on/off type of switch, but I have never seen on mounted on a surface exposed to the external air flow. Usually they are in engine compartments, or accessory sections of nacelle's or wheel wells.

Here is a picture of a modern version on an A320 engine

View attachment 901917

I've seen fire loops on airplane powerplants. I understand their function, but why would you want a fire detector on the outside of an exhaust manifold?

 

[MIflyer]

Crew portrait of a USAAF Catalina crew assigned to the 5th Emergency Rescue Squadron operating from Halesworth in Suffolk, England the net

And that ain't a PBY. It's an OA-10. Here is another view of an OA-10. As you can see it looks quite a bit different at night. Official USAF photo.