Picture of the day

Dieppe, some short time after the raid:

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Ah, a shiny Thud. America's largest single-crewed aircraft ever. Saw one in Seattle a couple of years ago. It's the size of a goddamn house and goes really, really fast. It is the ultimate in big dumb horsepower.

I know it'd cost a bundle to do it, but I'd love to see one flying again. Ninety-five remain alive... All we need is a billionaire with a sense of humour.
 
diopter said:
Some pictures I took at Plattsburg.

Sad in a way.
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It is indeed, mate. I find air museums a bit melancholy. Here are these magnificent things, designed to fly ferchrissakes, and make noise, and move, and be alive, and they're just sitting, dead, inert, voiceless. It's like taxidermy.

It's sadder yet if you can get inside one. They still smell like old airplanes. You get the sense they want to go, but their time has passed, and so they sit. They're denied their purpose. I like air museums a lot, and visit every single one I can, but I've come to think of them less like zoos and more like mausoleums. You can see the thing, but not what it does. Breaks my heart.

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Dark Alley Dan said:
It is indeed, mate. I find air museums a bit melancholy. Here are these magnificent things, designed to fly ferchrissakes, and make noise, and move, and be alive, and they're just sitting, dead, inert, voiceless. It's like taxidermy.

It's sadder yet if you can get inside one. They still smell like old airplanes. You get the sense they want to go, but their time has passed, and so they sit. They're denied their purpose. I like air museums a lot, and visit every single one I can, but I've come to think of them less like zoos and more like mausoleums. You can see the thing, but not what it does. Breaks my heart.
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Amen to that. I feel the same way when I see a thoroughbred mainline steam locomotive rotting in a park or when I see pics of the RMS Queen Mary and the SS United States sitting forlorn and (in the case of the SS United States, weather beaten) permanently moored to a dock.

Brookwood
 
Dark Alley Dan said:
Ah, a shiny Thud. America's largest single-crewed aircraft ever. Saw one in Seattle a couple of years ago. It's the size of a goddamn house and goes really, really fast. It is the ultimate in big dumb horsepower.

I know it'd cost a bundle to do it, but I'd love to see one flying again. Ninety-five remain alive... All we need is a billionaire with a sense of humour.
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Payload and power which is all a result of only one thrusty engine.
 
grelmar said:
Tupolov TU-2-Sh.

TU-2 with 88 PPSH's mounted in the bomb bay at a 30 degree forward angle, set up to fire at the same time in a 6248 round burst in 4 seconds.

"Hey, Fritz, mind if we mow your lawn?"
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There was a discussion about this plane some 2-3 years ago on one of Russian modeling forums.If I understood it correctly that idea was tested successfully in 1942 on SB-2 bomber with battery of DT machine guns.

Problem was whole thing was cooked up and tested without blessings of proper authorities and number of officers involved was degraded for "improper use of VVS equipment" or something like that.

Idea seeped up to Tupolev later on and his team tried it on TU-2.

As I recall Germans and Brits also tried that idea but abandoned it.
 
In the 20s a similar airplane the Larsen JL-12 mounted 28 downward firing Thompsons with 100 rd mags. When the guns were fired they Jammed on their spent casings.
 
From what I read, the idea was terrible because SMG's have a terribly short range by aircraft standards and using the system, which could fire all of 1 pass for a few measly seconds before returning for a multi-hour reload session, required an extremely low and slow pass directly over a target making it a dead duck for not only flak but anybody within small arms range since that was the range of the SMG's effective range themselves.
 
Chuck3436 said:
From what I read, the idea was terrible because SMG's have a terribly short range by aircraft standards and using the system, which could fire all of 1 pass for a few measly seconds before returning for a multi-hour reload session, required an extremely low and slow pass directly over a target making it a dead duck for not only flak but anybody within small arms range since that was the range of the SMG's effective range themselves.
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This, and there was another key problem...

They did test it, and it proved dangerous for the aircraft and crew without anyone firing back. All that brass flying around caused most of the guns to jam - the PPSH is an open bolt gun, with so many in close proximity it was pretty much inevitable that they kept catching each other's spent brass in the chamber.

Also, the brass would get caught up in the slipstream and gum up everything in the plane - including the control surfaces.
 
Japanese Vickers Crossley Armoured Cars in China.

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That's a lot of turret for something that light. Bet it was a treat whippin' around corners.

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It would appear the Vickers Crossley had some international sales. Are these lads Russian?

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I'm guessing this lot is in Spain...

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English...

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Somewhere in Bleedin' Africa...

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Someplace with more trees...

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...and a survivor at Bovington.

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Portrait of Captain Edward Camden: Volusia County, Florida, April 1917. "He put on his Civil War veteran's uniform and tried to register for the draft on the first day of World War I."
 
Every November, I start thinking about my relatives of a particular age who served in the Colonial wars, and I mean everyone of them served.

 
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