Picture of the day
- Thread starter jwhc
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Thanks..very interesting
No idea, I can't see enough of the bullet's circumference to say how many grooves it has, but it looks like maybe 5 groove (?). I'm only going by the plaque I read on this display in Canberra in May of this year when I was there. If it's wrong, it would not be the first time a war museum messed something up.
I went to see Dunkirk last night and it made me look up this guy. He was genuinely b@dass, though in the movie you don't really find out much about him and he's treated rather as a secondary character.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Lightoller
This dude survived the Titanic as one of the few officers to do so, rose to Commander in WW1, commanded a warship, sunk a u-boat and was decorated for gallantry, all before he did anything at Dunkirk. Few will live as noteworthy a life.
This is him on the right:
And here's the yacht, which is still afloat, that he piloted at Dunkirk:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Lightoller
This dude survived the Titanic as one of the few officers to do so, rose to Commander in WW1, commanded a warship, sunk a u-boat and was decorated for gallantry, all before he did anything at Dunkirk. Few will live as noteworthy a life.
This is him on the right:
And here's the yacht, which is still afloat, that he piloted at Dunkirk:
Dark Alley Dan
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
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A life well lived, Captain Lightoller. And a very British one as well. Victoria would have been proud.
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So you're the Tupolev Design Bureau. You have an idea for a carrier-based ASW / torpedo bomber / attack aircraft with a honking great turboprop midships, attached to a prop in the nose via a long shaft, a la the P-39. It's the Tu-91, and it looks like this:
(Yes, not your prettiest design, but "needs must" and all that.)
The question arises - will the layout work? What about vibrations and noise? Do we really want to sit crewmwmbers behind something that makes all the noise there is, an engine and prop setup that makes the "Harvard Growl" sound subtle and stealthy? Better test it out. But how?
Well, the Yanks were kind enough to "donate" a number of B-29s during the Great patriotic War. Tupolev fired up the photocopier and manufactured them as the Tu-4, the Soviet Union's first real strategic bomber.
And such a design lends itself to flexibility. And so, this monstrosity:
According to Wikipedia, the aircraft showed solid performance and would have been a very credible scrapper, but in a visit to the Tupolev Steam Works, Kruschev ridiculed it, the feckin' peasant. All work on the design was cancelled shortly after.
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So you're the Tupolev Design Bureau. You have an idea for a carrier-based ASW / torpedo bomber / attack aircraft with a honking great turboprop midships, attached to a prop in the nose via a long shaft, a la the P-39. It's the Tu-91, and it looks like this:
(Yes, not your prettiest design, but "needs must" and all that.)
The question arises - will the layout work? What about vibrations and noise? Do we really want to sit crewmwmbers behind something that makes all the noise there is, an engine and prop setup that makes the "Harvard Growl" sound subtle and stealthy? Better test it out. But how?
Well, the Yanks were kind enough to "donate" a number of B-29s during the Great patriotic War. Tupolev fired up the photocopier and manufactured them as the Tu-4, the Soviet Union's first real strategic bomber.
And such a design lends itself to flexibility. And so, this monstrosity:
According to Wikipedia, the aircraft showed solid performance and would have been a very credible scrapper, but in a visit to the Tupolev Steam Works, Kruschev ridiculed it, the feckin' peasant. All work on the design was cancelled shortly after.
Aircraft interned in Switzerland during WWII.
List of American bombers:
http://swissinternees.tripod.com/aircraft.html
from:
http://swissinternees.tripod.com/
Personal connection, one our female shooters at our Swiss Rifle Club father was a black American airman from New York Interred in Switzerland and married a Swiss woman, moved to New York and later on to Montreal. Weird to hear her try to speak Swiss German with a brooklyn accent.
List of American bombers:
http://swissinternees.tripod.com/aircraft.html
from:
http://swissinternees.tripod.com/
Personal connection, one our female shooters at our Swiss Rifle Club father was a black American airman from New York Interred in Switzerland and married a Swiss woman, moved to New York and later on to Montreal. Weird to hear her try to speak Swiss German with a brooklyn accent.
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Still alive
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The Swiss may have had the 4th largest Air Force in Europe in WW2 without lifting a finger! Nice trade: fondue and Swiss chocolate for a B-24/17!
The Russians had the Petlyakov Pe-8 (TB-7) Long-Range Strategic Heavy Bomber Aircraft before WW 2.
https://www.militaryfactory.com/aircraft/detail.asp?aircraft_id=1146
https://www.militaryfactory.com/aircraft/detail.asp?aircraft_id=1146
I believe that the aircrews were interned for the duration of the war.
Well, the Yanks were kind enough to "donate" a number of B-29s during the Great patriotic War. Tupolev fired up the photocopier and manufactured them as the Tu-4, the Soviet Union's first real strategic bomber.
And such a design lends itself to flexibility. And so, this monstrosity:
According to Wikipedia, the aircraft showed solid performance and would have been a very credible scrapper, but in a visit to the Tupolev Steam Works, Kruschev ridiculed it, the feckin' peasant. All work on the design was cancelled shortly after.
What still baffles me to this day is why the Soviets would "intern" American planes and aircrew that landed in Soviet Far Eastern territory due to damage from planes and flak over Japan. Both were fighting the Axis at the time - although the Sovs had not yet declared war on Japan. Aircraft were being supplied to the Red Air Force after flying through Canada and Alaska, it would've been VERY easy to send American planes and aircrews back to US soil the same way.
I wonder if there was any social interaction between the Axis and Allied flyers?
Still alive
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Good question! Don't know much about this aspect of WW2. Didn't Northern Ireland do the same thing?
Switzerland sounds like as good a place as any to wait out the war.
There was a good movie about that based on a true story. An RCAF pilot and a Luftwaffe pilot (an aristocrat) dueled it out, succeeding in disabling both aircraft. They bailed out and were captured by Free Irish. They had separate encampments, but were able to meet socially in a local pub.
They struck up a friendship with an Irish bar girl, and the Canuck won her heart. Both pilots managed to escape and rejoin their units. In the meantime, the girl gave birth to a baby fathered by the Canuck.
The father was subsequently killed in combat, the Luftwaffe pilot survived the war and returned to marry the girl and raise the child as his own. If it isn't true, it oughta be .....
Still alive
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I saw that short movie on YouTube. I think it was called The Duel or something like that. The capture by the Free Irish was the twist at the end. That movie had nothing about the relationship aspect. Unless there was another movie on the same subject?
