WWII War Birds - pics and video

Big handsome bugger he was. And in Royal Navy warpaint, too!

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...aaaand with the French/Chadian Air Force:

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(Sorry for going off the reservation timeline wise here, guys.)
 
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Dark Alley Dan your not off the reservation timeline at all.
I believe the Skyraider's design was actually started in early 1944 or and the proto types first flew in early 1945. The aircraft was designed to do multi role functions and replace the Dauntless dive bombers as well as the Avenger torpedo bombers. They where in service from just after WW2 till the early 1980ies in various different countries. She was a hell of an airplane.

Jim
 
Horton 229
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The engineers from the Skunk works rebuilt the model in the first picture to test its Radar Signature. They where astounded at the stealth capabilities of this WW2 German design and commented that they assumed the B2 and other US aircraft had been pioneering.

There is a TV special on the entire building of the Scale Model.

http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/galleries/episode-hitlers-stealth-fighter/at/3942_hitlers_stealth_fighter-01_04700300-3747/

 
The Horten looks like a big ME-163 with all the extra junk hacked off. :)

Refueling a 163 was a tricky business. Two fuel components - "T-stoff" and "C-stoff". Each was stored, moved, and loaded in separate areas/vehicles/times.

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One of the two fuels - can't remember which one - was high-grade hydrogen peroxide. The other was nastier yet. It'd dissolve the unwary. Karl Heinz here must have not attended the safety meeting.
 
The Horten looks like a big ME-163 with all the extra junk hacked off. :)

Refueling a 163 was a tricky business. Two fuel components - "T-stoff" and "C-stoff". Each was stored, moved, and loaded in separate areas/vehicles/times.

One of the two fuels - can't remember which one - was high-grade hydrogen peroxide. The other was nastier yet. It'd dissolve the unwary. Karl Heinz here must have not attended the safety meeting.

T-stoff was the hydrogen peroxide (the oxidizer). The other, C-stoff, was a mix of methanol, hydrazine hydrate, and water (the fuel). Hypergolic propellants like these tend to be nasty stuff, still used in some rocket motors (especially in East Bloc nations and their client states). Remember the loss of the Russian submarine Kursk due to a fuel leak in its Type 65 torpedoes.
 
I live in the hope that someday we'll see a replica 163 perform at an airshow. Surely rocket technology has improved to the point where there's something smaller, as powerful, and half as dangerous...

There was a fellow who operated this replica glider version for some years in Germany. very cool, sure, but that takeoff would be a brilliant thing to see.

6_me1610.jpg
 
I live in the hope that someday we'll see a replica 163 perform at an airshow. Surely rocket technology has improved to the point where there's something smaller, as powerful, and half as dangerous...

There was a fellow who operated this replica glider version for some years in Germany. very cool, sure, but that takeoff would be a brilliant thing to see.

6_me1610.jpg
Its to bad that the Swastika is prohibited from being displayed on all WW2 military equipment in Germany.
 

For the same reason FW 189 was designed.It lost mainly due BMW 132 engines being is short supply and tricky handling at times(low speed characteristics).

FW 189 was much simpler,classic design just about any pilot was capable of handling.It was a very good choice and pilots very quickly found out that stall speed of FW is a lot lower that manual says-huge asset for observation plane.There were accounts of many partisan groups in occupied Poland,Russia and Yugoslavia describing "frame" as they called it,literally hanging over their heads like a balloon but too high to shot down with small arms fire.
 
Some additional info on the one recovered in Russia:

Survivors

One Fw 189 survives today. Its story starts on May 4, 1943 when Fw 189 V7+IH (Werk Nr. 2100), of 1./Nahaufklärungsgruppe 10, with V7 originally the Geschwaderkennung code for Heeres-Aufklärungsgruppe 32 based at Pontsalenjoki (due east of Kuusamo, and within the south-central area of modern Russia's Republic of Karelia) took off on a mission to photograph the Loukhi-3 airbase from an altitude of 6,000 m (20,000 ft), then to continue north along the Murmansk-Leningrad railway. Approximately 31 minutes after taking off, V7+IH was attacked by Lend-Lease-acquired Soviet Hawker Hurricane fighters. The aircraft dived to escape the fighters, but owing to damage already suffered, could not pull out in time, and it struck the treetops. The tail was torn off, and the crew nacelle left hanging upside down within the trees. The pilot, Lothar Mothes, survived but one crewman was killed in the crash and the third died from blood loss as a result of a severed leg. Incredibly, Mothes was able to survive two weeks in sub-zero temperatures, evading Soviet patrols while eating bark and grubs as he walked back to his base. Mothes spent the next nine months in a hospital recovering from severe frostbite before returning to the front line, eventually to fly another 100 missions.

In 1991, the wreckage of V7+IH was found in the Russian forest where it had remained for 48 years. The aircraft was purchased by a group of British aircraft enthusiasts and was shipped to the UK, arriving in the town of Worthing, West Sussex in March 1992. The Focke Wulf 189 Restoration Society was formed to restore the aircraft to flying condition. Her former pilot, Lothar Mothes, met up again with his aircraft at the 1996 Biggin Hill Airshow.

It was reported that this aircraft was acquired by Paul Allen’s Flying Heritage Collection however its current state is not publicly known.

I hope they have it, they restore it, and they fly the hell out of it.

B29, crash landed at Iwo Jima:

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