Rusty's Naval/Military History thread

[Lord Avalon]

The F-5 Phantoms made the most smoke by far.

The Phantom was F-4. The F-5 was Freedom Fighter (A/B) or Tiger II (E/F).

I grew up in suburbia, so didn't have lots of planes flying overhead (and those that did were very high), but I do remember in my youth a large plane flying overhead seemingly low that was extremely loud. At first I thought it was a 747, as initially I thought it had four engines, but it wouldn't have been that loud. Upon further inspection I could make out the dual setup of the engines and realized it had eight and was a B-52.

[Rusty Edge]

OOps! 

It was correct in my head.... thanks for pointing that out!
 I hate when I'm reading a book and it has an error like that in it.

I never saw a B-52 in flight. That must have been awesome....

[Lord Avalon]

I didn't get to see it too long, due to the trees around the neighbors' backyards, but it was flying lower than other planes I had seen before, and with eight engines did make an impression that stuck with me. It was a loud, low, rumbling sound.

[Rusty Edge]

Well, that last book was "US PBY Catalinas of the Atlantic War" by Ragnar Ragnarssen
There isn't much else to tell. It didn't say much about more than a few rescue operations. The book didn't even have a conclusion, it just went to appendices. Basically a reference for model makers and historical fiction writers. I can't show you the photos.

I found this picture of the original bow gun. To operate it, the gunner was supposed to open the hatch and stick his head through the "hood"  in front of the pilot and co-pilot. Not very practical, besides being not enough gun for WWII.

[Buster's Uncle]

The gunner must have had some impressive goggles to do that at all.  Good way to lose a head, too.

[Rusty Edge]

Well, it goes to the evolution of aviation. That and the term "Flying boats" might have influenced their thinking in subtle ways...

For example, in WWI, bombers looked like this.

[Rusty Edge]

The first flying boats were open cockpit.

The PBY design of 1930-31 ( this is a later picture ) looked like this- 

[Buster's Uncle]

And they invented closed cockpits for a reason.

[Geo]

There was quite a difference in speed and manoeuverability between WWI -and WWII  aircraft. But totally enclosed cockpits likely became a necessity once aircraft could climb to high altitude (above 10,000 feet/3000 meter).

[Buster's Uncle]

Yes.

[Rusty Edge]

The gunner must have had some impressive goggles to do that at all.  Good way to lose a head, too.

Their major concern was that the hatch didn't tear lose when they flipped it open, and fly into an engine or the cockpit. Or pull the gunner out of the plane.  I have no idea how they would get them closed again.

The PB2Y had a cruising speed of 118mph/ 149 mph max.

The PBY5A, it was 125mph/ 196mph max.

Slow by airplane standards. It was built for endurance. The beauty/virtue was it's ability to stay airborne over 24 hours or travel over 2500 miles.

[Rusty Edge]

When I was looking for this last photo, I came across a discussion on a WWII flight simulator game forum. There was a rumor of Black Cats being included. Some people were excited, others were unimpressed.

Then it dawned on me that as one of the first planes to have search radar ( makes sense for a patrol plane, doesn't it? ) and radio altimeters, the Black Cats were very much like the original stealth "fighters" in Desert Storm. Nobody knew they were there or what they were until stuff started to blow up well behind the front lines. Short of lighting up the sky all night, there's no defense. It doesn't matter if it's slower and less maneuverable than other aircraft if it can  ambush them on the ground.

[Buster's Uncle]

Rusty, I just invited a military history buff here, and used you and this thread as bait - cross your fingers, 'cause molly is cool...

[Rusty Edge]

That's welcome.

Currently I'm reading a book about the British RAF - De Havilland Mosquito.

 I had a German- born uncle. His parents were killed in WWII. He was inducted into the Hitler youth and spent time in church steeples spotting and reporting aircraft overhead. It was cool to see his guidebooks/ notebooks. No, he wasn't a Nazi. He thought Hitler was crazy.
He had a life-long interest in airplanes, ( magazines, models, books, etc. ) although he was terrified whenever he flew. He was the first person to tell me that the  Mosquito was the best plane of the war.

I later came across some comment by Goering to that effect.

They built them out of plywood, and they were very fast. So far I've mostly been reading about photo recon missions. This version was unarmed, and usually carrying fuel where bombs might be.  Sometimes they flew at tree-top level, but not in France because there were too many high tension wires.

If they were flying at altitude they would try to fly somewhere around their ceiling of 28-30 thousand feet. They would go as high as they could without leaving a contrail. That would put them above anti-aircraft fire. The trouble is that in that thin air, the Focke-Wulf 190, which had a more efficient super-charger, had more power and speed. So the Mosquitos could avoid them by diving to a lower altitude where they were faster.

Bf 109 Messerschmitts presented another problem. They were slower than Mosquitos in level flight, but they were faster in a dive. Had the Germans paired their two primary fighters together, they could have intercepted whether they stayed at altitude or dived. Yeah, I know it's not practical to have multiple aircraft from a maintenance standpoint.

By 1944 the mosquitos had a new problem- jets. The Me-262 was about 100 mph faster. The tactics in that case was to maneuver. In driving terms, the jets couldn't corner with the Mosquito, they would slide instead. This would allow the Mosquito to get on their tail after they passed, and scare them away.

These photo recon crews would get major adrenalin rushes when they made it back to Britain alive.

I've got a lot more to read in this book.

[Buster's Uncle]

Goering had reason to know his planes, as I'm sure you know.