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In 1965 an incredible stunt was pulled by a Soviet pilot named Valentin Privalov, who managed to fly his MiG 17 jet fighter under a bridge on the Ob River in Western Siberia.The event was described by witnesses who claim this actually happened, even though the credibility of the photograph depicting the flight has often been debated for being edited.Nevertheless, the story remains. It was a sunny day, on 4th of June 1965, when Privalov flew under the central span of the Communal Bridge in Novosibirsk. The riverbanks were filled with people on vacation and officers from the nearby base, strolling and enjoying the sunshine.All of a sudden, a silver jet in the sky was performing the acrobatic. Everyone was amazed. It was an act of magnificent skill since the jet was never before seen performing a flight with such accuracy.It was reported that Privalov did this on his own initiative, and without any orders whatsoever. The hotshot pilot wanted to pull this stunt for personal glory and to exhibit his flying skills. The crowd gathered on the bridge started to applaud spontaneously, but Privalov’s superiors weren’t so happy. He got a suspension.This almost cost him his career in the Soviet Air Force. He was threatened with disciplinary action, but the Minister of Defense himself, Marshall Rodion Malinovsky, saw the stunt as an advertisement of the military. The people were in awe. The word soon spread all over the USSR, and it soon evolved into a legend.Privalov was sent to the elite Moscow squadron stationed at the Kubinka military airfield. The airfield is home to the aerobatic team “Swifts” and “Russian Knights,” and Privalov joined their ranks.The photograph started circling the internet recently. It found its way through various Russian-language forums to worldwide attention. The origin of the photo is disputable, but it seems that the event depicted on it isn’t.Various reports confirmed that Privalov flew under the Communal Bridge, which is 120 meters wide between its pillars and 30 meters high. He was flying approximately 700 miles per hour.​
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Grizzly Adams said:
The last one is the Gee Bee racer, just enough airplane attached to an engine , that it would fly. :)
Grizz
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Delmar Benjamin and Steve Wolf built a flying replica of the “R2” in the early 1990s and Benjamin flew it in airshows until 2002. I saw it preform at Oshkosh a few years in a row. He would do a knife edge pass down the field with the nose high enough to keep from augering in. It was quite a sight.
 
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I read a good book on the women who flew aircraft across the pond during WWII.

It wasn't unusual for them to be handed the handbook, given minimal time to familiarize themselves with the type and off they went.

Sort of like teaching someone to drive saying - "That's the clutch and them's the brakes ....".
 
Sharps '74 said:
I read a good book on the women who flew aircraft across the pond during WWII.

It wasn't unusual for them to be handed the handbook, given minimal time to familiarize themselves with the type and off they went.

Sort of like teaching someone to drive saying - "That's the clutch and them's the brakes ....".
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yes - its pretty bloody amazing what those women accomplished ... with very little fanfare! My mother was at Biggin Hill in the ops centre. She went there after some of the previous crew had been killed in an air raid. It was no ‘biggy’ from her perspective. I spent a few years of my youth in the UK in the ‘50’s and ‘60’s .... virtually every adult had significant wartime experience of one sort or another ... it was all just sort of ‘carry on’ mentality. No one felt sorry for themselves.
 
HuskyDude said:
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Flying different aircraft without training was not difficult, for a good pilot. By "flying" I mean flying an empty plane from A to B, not actually being able to use the airplane.

All they had to know was:

how to start the engine. There were several different engine systems and once they knew them, any airplane they got into would fall into a category they knew. (A rotary is different than an inline. And there are electric starters, inertia starters and shotgun starters.)

They had to have an idea of the take off speed, the flap and gear down speed and the stall speed. They probably had a note book, handbook or cheat sheet with these basics.

There are also minor details than can be critical in a strange plane (Don't ask me how I know.) When the engine quits because it is out of gas, you have to find the fuel tank selector lever so you can switch tanks. Preferably not in the dark, at low altitude, on the final approach.
 
Cant comment on the ease of learning to get off the ground and back on it again (although I guess they all come down eventually).... but these ladies were flying across the North Atlantic without GPS and in brand new aircraft that were put together by ‘Rosie the Riveter’ under wartime conditions. I have observed fulltime RCAF crew get nervous when the couldnt find the Pas when flying from Fort Churchill to Winnipeg in a North Star..I imagine getting caught in a storm while trying to find the Irish Coast wasnt a picnic.
 
AP said:
Cant comment on the ease of learning to get off the ground and back on it again (although I guess they all come down eventually).... but these ladies were flying across the North Atlantic without GPS and in brand new aircraft that were put together by ‘Rosie the Riveter’ under wartime conditions. I have observed fulltime RCAF crew get nervous when the couldnt find the Pas when flying from Fort Churchill to Winnipeg in a North Star..I imagine getting caught in a storm while trying to find the Irish Coast wasnt a picnic.
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Flying the Atlantic to deliver new airplanes was Ferry Command. I have read a couple books about them. Some were bush pilots who could fly and navigate.

My comments were more about the women who delivered new airplanes around North America and around Great Britain. They got to fly different airplanes every day.

I think I have only flown 5 different models of airplane as pilot in command. For all but one time, I had someone check me out, first.
 
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Thanks for the info Ganderite .... I didnt realize that there were apparently no women flying/ferrying aircraft from North America to Europe during the war.... and apparently Hap Arnold stopped the only one that was planned before it could leave Goose Bay.
 
AP said:
Thanks for the info Ganderite .... I didnt realize that there were apparently no women flying/ferrying aircraft from North America to Europe during the war.... and apparently Hap Arnold stopped the only one that was planned before it could leave Goose Bay.
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British and Canadian air force used Ferry Command to get planes across. Getting home was the difficult part.

The Americans would train up a squadron of pilots with new airplanes and then fly them themselves to England. The Yanks were prepared to face heavy losses doing this, but the young pilots and navigators had no problem - except with bad weather sometimes. Gander was very prized as a weather forecasting resource for the flight.
 
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