WWII War Birds - pics and video

[Dark Alley Dan]

The CANT Z506 floatplane. Italian ingenuity:

Big ol' girl for a floater:

There's still one left:

 

[Ganderite]

A good looking plane.

I wonder if they could feather the middle engine for long range patrol purposes?

 

[JR Hartman]

built by the same folks that brought you the Carcano LOL!

no, it looks like a nice big plane. floats look very good, more modern than many of its era.

 

[Dark Alley Dan]

And in case the Italians got you there too soon, you could always fly via Tante Ju's webfooted sister:

Seriously, how damned slow would that be? Faster than a boat, sure, but not by much...

 

[JR Hartman]

maybe slow but those things were very reliable from what I remember reading.

 

[Arloashean]

Not as slow as this... (pre WWII)

Caproni Ca.60.

This is real, no kidding.

 

[wbaad]

And in case the Italians got you there too soon, you could always fly via Tante Ju's webfooted sister:

Seriously, how damned slow would that be? Faster than a boat, sure, but not by much...

Wayy faster than a boat my friend

 

[Donny Fenn1]

Wayy faster than a boat my friend

Reminds me of the guys that developed the DH Beaver when questioned about the slow speed of the plane.
"It only has to be faster than a dogsled"

 

[Sharps '63]

I think I saw this being flown by Yosemite Sam in a Bugs Bunny cartoon ......

Not as slow as this... (pre WWII)

Caproni Ca.60.

This is real, no kidding.

 

[Dark Alley Dan]

The Martin B10 was a prewar design. Faster than the fighters of the time, it was well and truly obsolete by the time the baloon went up. Here in Dutch markings:

Also available on floats, for the nautically inclined:

Postwar with Argentina:

One left, at the USAFM in Dayton:

 

[donor]

A good looking plane.

I wonder if they could feather the middle engine for long range patrol purposes?

Yes,they could but it wasn't done as normal procedure.
In patrol versions engines used were a bit smaller,less powerful than in torpedo/bomber versions.Turning one off didn't save much fuel and it put more strain on 2 working ones.

That info comes from modellers publication so take it with grain of salt

 

[bigedp51]

DOMBROWSKI-SEDLITZ HELICOPTER
As World War Two loomed on the horizon, a number of the more progressive thinkers on the Polish general staff realized that mobility would be a great factor against the German Panzers if fighting broke out. This meant rapid movement of their elite cavalry and horse-drawn artillery-faster than even the Polish railway system could carry them. Finally, a design submitted by the famous Polish aero firm of Dombrowski-Sedlitz was settled upon, a secret helicopter-autogiro machine powerful enough to lift a mounted cavalry battalion of five 85mm artillery pieces and caissons. However, its 6000-hp diesel locomotive engine, coupled with the riveted, sheet-iron construction of the fuselage, left the Dombrowski-Sedlitz weighing a hefty 56 tons. This gave it barely enough power to lift itself into the ozone, much less its pay load. What's more, the engine took up so much room that the only remaining space was consumed by the pilot and three mechanics it took to operate the craft while in flight. This handicap, plus a vexing tendency for the machine to break its manual, nonsynchro, three-speed transmission-leaving the propellers powerless-forced its grounding after two flights. Minus its wheels and propellers, it presently powers a Ferris wheel and merry-go-round at the People's amusement park in Bydgoszcz

 

[Arloashean]

Designed by World War I aviator Konstantin Kalinin with a wingspan greater than theB-52 and a much greater wing area, the K-7 was one of the biggest aircraft built before the jet age. It was only one engine short of the B-52 as well, having the curious arrangement of six pulling on the wing leading edge and one pushing at the rear.
The K-7's very brief first flight showed up instability and serious vibration caused by the airframe resonating with the engine frequency. The solution to this 'flutter' was thought to be to shorten and strengthen the tail booms, little being known then about the natural frequencies of structures and their response to vibration. On the eleventh flight, during a speed test, the port tail boom vibrated, fractured, jammed the elevator and caused the giant aircraft to plunge to the ground, killing 15.
The K-7 was yet another example of the aviation policy dictated by the infant Soviet regime, which believed that the way to impress the rest of the world was to build aircraft bigger than anyone else's. On its first flight, on August 11, 1933, the pilots reported that they were generally content with the way the huge aircraft handled, except for the instability and vibration, which was found to be caused by the small-diameter propellers and ungeared engines. The aircraft test flights over Kharkov generated huge interest.

 

[Dark Alley Dan]

I remember that series of drawings - National Lampoon? MAD Magazine?

 

[bigedp51]

I remember that series of drawings - National Lampoon? MAD Magazine?

Playboy magazine

 

[Dark Alley Dan]

Polikarpov I-153:

Four survivors, three of which fly!

 

[Dark Alley Dan]

Her younger sister, the I 16 "Rata":

Surprisingly, several are still flying. They're just so goddamned cute. Like a cartoon bulldog.

 

[Sharps '63]

Vying with the Brewster 'Buffalo' for the being the ugliest, tubbiest fighter aircraft of WWII.

 

[Dark Alley Dan]

OK, let's nail that down.

Examples please of the ugliest fighter, bomber, etc. of WW2

Examples of "tubbiest" (shortest length-to-wingspan ratio)

Bring examples, and then we'll vote.

For ugliest, I vote the French Amiot 140 family of barn door bombers:

It is as if a Paris city bus crashed into a greenhouse, then sprouted wings and flew slowly away.

Struts, wires, supporting beams, all straight lines and drag-inducing crap.

Ghastly. The next gen Amiot were very, VERY pretty aircraft. It would not be in a French engineer's mind to allow an ugly thing to continue to exist unimproved.

Tubby? How about the Wildcat?

It's as tall as it is long. Looks like a fat man in tight pants.

 

[Sharps '63]

The Grumman 'Wildcat' was the monoplane version of it's USN biplane ancestors, also stubby/tubby aircraft.

The descendants of the mid-wing 'Wildcat', the low-wing 'Hellcat' and 'Bearcat', were similarly made compact for ship stowage.