Historic Aircraft from back in the day

The AD-6 . A bad ass...

Got to see this beauty fly at the Dyess Air Show this past weekend. It was an awesome sight 😎

My youngest son will be stationed at Dyess when he finishes tech school next month. If you guys get stuff this cool, I just might have to come visit him during air show weekend next year...🤔

I believe it's usually every other year at Dyess, alternating with the Abilene Regional Airport. Every time we have been, at either location, we have really enjoyed it. 

The previous time at Dyess we saw both an F-22 and an F-35 flight demo. This year the highlight for us was the B-29 (Doc) and a B-25 (Devil Dog). 

Of course, the B-1s sound awesome and never disappoint 🙂

Hey, that's  Doc...restored/maintained here in Wichita.  I saw them doing touch and go's at ICT a week or so ago.  It's a damn beast.

And a beauty! I believe it is one of only 2 air worthy B-29s in the world, which is amazing. 

A skyraider loaded with napalm. 

Talk about neckburn.

🤣😂🤣

Alright, here we go. I'll post up the ones I already posted in the d day thread and then ad a few more in subsequent posts. 

These are from a collection of pictures from my late uncle who served in WW2 in the south Pacific. He was a radio/engineer type. This is my uncle on my fathers side, a separate post is made in the d-day thread about my uncle on my mothers side for clarity.

I retook this one to hopefully get rid of my creepy reflection. 

See the bombs?

I assume the Himilayas

Look at all the crosses

Awesome stuff, Sandberm!

More X-15 stuff

I recently got to spend some time talking to someone that worked on the A12-Avenger AKA "Flying Dorito". I didn't really know anything about the aircraft, but damn, the thing is pretty impressive. Apparently several were built and operational. The wings were built in 2 separate facilities and the final assembly was in Tulsa. From what I understand, there was supposed to be shared tech from the B-2, and the Air Force was unwilling to share, which caused delays and probably some issues with meeting requirements. Dick Cheney killed the project and it has been tied up in litigation for years. The plane was supposed to be carrier based. There are unconfirmed reports of it flying over Abilene and Wichita.

I worked on that project in Ft. Worth General Dynamics. 

It had a few problems... Way behind schedule. Grossly overweight, and way-way over budget. 

It was cool to work on it though. 

I've been following numerous aviation sites on X.

I could flood this thread with the outstanding photographs of old warbirds.

That's awesome! It feels like there is a lot more to the story of this aircraft. The guy I spoke to put hands on it as well. 

"Flying wing". 

Like operational jet fighters, ejection seats, nosewheel steering, ballistic missiles, guided bombs, orthopaedic surgery, and a buncha other shit.... all German inventions and technology from WW2. 

Horten 229,  like many other advanced aircraft and concepts, came too late, the prototypes flew in 1994-45 and then the war ended. 

Look familiar? The B-2 is the direct descendant of these things. 

There's one left, it's in the Smithsonian display hangar at Washington Dulles airport. Note how the swastika was slapped onto the rear fuselage, because it didn't have a tail. 

Horten Ho 229 - Wikipedia

After the war, the US and Britain continued development of many advanced German technologies. Both countries built flying wings too, and the  B-2 is the result of that. The Brits had to shut down many such progeammes because of the crushing war debt they owed the USA. Technology that created the X-1 that Chuck Yeager flew, was transferred from Britain -- look up MILES M.52. 

Miles M.52 - Wikipedia

I met the test pilot who flew the M52 several times in London about 8 years ago. A WW2 Royal Navy pilot named Eric "Winkle" Brown, who was Britain's eminent test pilot, and later did an exchange tour at Edwards AFB . He flew with Yeager and all those guys. He was the M.52 test pilot and was upset till the day he died about losing the project when they had attained M.96 or something. The Britiish government covered it up, but he has (had) evidence that the project was transferred to the USA as war debt payment. Yeager went Mach 1 a few months later. 

His autobiography is "Wings on my Sleeve" -- great book. 

Eric Brown had studied in Gernmany before WW2, in fact he got stuck there on 1 September 1939 and was arrested by the Gestapo and dumped over the border into France on the 3rd, just before Britain declared war on Germany. Close escape, or he would have sat in a POW camp for six years.  

He was fluent in German, and after the war was tasked with interrogating Goering and other Nazis. He was also Britain's "repo man" and collected German technology at the end of WW2 and moved it to England. He was on the ground in Germany in April 1945 and told us stories of driving onto operational L:uftwaffe bases and negotiating the equipment transfers with the COs, while aircrafty wrere taking off and landing from combat sorties alla round him. Surreal!. 

He flew hundreds of German aircraft back to England in 1945, including 13 Me 163 rocket fighters -- UNDER TOW -- another tailless design. DANGEROUS plane, most blew up as soon as the power was put to it, due to the volatile rocket fuel of the time. 

He was a small guy, but needed a big wheelbarrow to carry his balls.....

The Brits and Americans got all the good stuff before the USSR could get any of it, which is why the West had a technological advantage all through the Cold War. Still today, really -- I was in and around, and flew, Russian aircraft a lot 30 years ago, and believe me -- Russian technology is primitive.  The USSR, and Russia today, is all about quantity over quality. Read up on "T-34s against Panthers and Tigers", you'll get the idea. 

Interesting shit.  

The HO 229 at Dulles

John Nortrup started on this in ‘38…

How did they control yaw in that thing...throttles?

Bumping to keep this thread from ending up like this bearcat...

The B2 has split rudders at the wingtips, so I’d assume Jack Northrup had designed something similar for the N-9M (original flying wing in 1942) and the YB-49. 

We were at a horse race in the Black Hills last month, when the lady was out on her day two loop I decided to visit Ellsworth.  Was happy to see one of my favorites when I was a kid. 

Also cool to see, growing up on the north side of Boston I spent a lot of time riding on former NIKE bases that littered the ear coast. 

Then there was the staggering size of the 52, dwarfing the B1, after starting at the 111 which is not a small plane. 

 

And of course, while I was off goofing around, the lady cleaned house.  

https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/19930086261/downloads/19930086261.pdf

Read up on “spoilers” for the full explanation 😂

S.A.C. …

Bitches!!!

lol. 

Hey man, I was there for the aardvark.