I Started This Last Night..

CarMichael Angelo

my rearend will smell so minty fresh,
15 Year Member
Nov 29, 1999
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Birmingham, al
And it's still not finished. World of Warplanes download...(probably will cause my computer to crash)

I'm a WWII warbird guy. Between the different theaters and regardless of the side,...I like alot of them. It doesn't matter whether it's a fighter, bomber, or lowly cargo plane,...I find it amazing that these guys did what they had to do to fly them.
Like try watching one of the You tube clips of one of the training manuals that a B-17 bomber pilot had to do while flying that thing... (They are told to turn the turbo's off in pre-flight warm up,.how do you turn a turbo "off"?)


If you are into engines (and who here isn't) you owe it to yourself to go to one of the really good aircraft museums that are around the nation. The one in DC still being the best I've been to, followed up by the Pensacola NAS museum,...the engineers that designed these things were using multi-valve technology, turbocharging, and supercharging to eek out the power required to get the speed, and altitude required to be competitive and survive. The Germans, and Brits even used nitrous oxide as an oxidizer in select high altitude aircraft.

My fav bomber was the B17....loaded w/ 4 .050 cal machine guns in the nose, w/ twins in turrets on top and bottom, singles hanging out of the sides of the fuselage, and a twin set in the tail, they called this thing a Flying Fortress.
They would send huge formations of these planes... in the early years 300 at the same time, (sometimes counting up to as much as 1000 planes) to bomb targets in Germany. Routinely losing as many as 60 planes in one bombing mission. 600 guys that didn't come back...
Bomber_stream.jpg

Eventually,...they figured out how to fly these things in "boxed formations" so that they could defend the squadrons better,..making it very perilous for a enemy fighter to fly into the formation to attack it....
The Germans called the plane a fliegendes Stachelschwein (Flying Porcupine) and had to come up w/ an over head and behind attack procedure..
Bundesarchiv_Bild_101I-657-6304-24%2C_Luftwaffe%2C_Modelle_eines_Bombers_und_J%C3%A4gers.jpg


Not only did they have to survive the guaranteed fighter attack,..they had to fly through flak
B-17_Schweinfurt.jpg


And despite all of this, the planes were notorious for being able to withstand battle damage though,...and several of them defied physics..like this one
19430201AllAmericanB17inFlight.jpg

Hit by a german fighter that the crew "shot down," the entire tail section is almost severed. Yet this plane landed, and all of the crew got out.
1024px-B-17_Damage_Cologne.jpg

Or this one,..hit by debris...the Bombardier died, but the plane returned and landed.
If you haven't seen it before....The movie "Memphis Belle" was made in the 90's I believe,..and it's about having to survive 25 bombing missions in a B17.... Pretty decent effects,..great story...based on truth. I give it a :nice::nice::nice:

So,..On this Sunday....This is your little tidbit of WWII history on a Mustang website (while I still wait for the DL to complete).. The tie in being the use of advanced engine technology, and power adders over 40 years before the first multi valve engine made it into production in the automotive industry.


Now,....go work on your cars,...and try to figure out how to put a ball turret w/ twin .050's on your roofs so my thread won't get moved....
And if you ever talk to one of these old guys that flew these planes (if there are any left alive) shake that man's hand and thank him.
 
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Those where pretty cool, thanks for the history lesson, I think modern, lighter firepower should be used on the roof, they are pretty heavy, right? I don't want to put a big block and a blower in my car just so I can pick off an occasional prius or honda fit, and don't get me started on ammo storage,
 
Those where pretty cool, thanks for the history lesson, I think modern, lighter firepower should be used on the roof, they are pretty heavy, right? I don't want to put a big block and a blower in my car just so I can pick off an occasional prius or honda fit, and don't get me started on ammo storage,

Naaahhh,...it's gonna have to be period correct in order to keep the tie-in,..... that leaves you two choices: ( I have to keep this Mustang related)
P-51_Mustang.jpg


There,.....Mustangs in the thread,..Done!

Now,...where was I?......

30calsidesetb.JPG

The .030 cal being the lighter of the two,..you could feasibly fab up a similar mount using a hydraulic lift to move the weapon up and out through the roof so that you can still take the car through the car wash occasionally.

But,.....Nothing quite sends that same "You're really starting to pss me off" message quite like a pair of these:
Twin_M2HB_machine_gun.jpg


Now this is really gonna make a gi-honkin mess of anything that it's pointed at,..and granted, you are not gonna be able to conceal them,..But for absolute domination when in a potential road rage incident....having a pair of these on the roof of your LX maybe just the deterrent required to keep things from escalating.

Maybe you can have somebody like Dave paint them body color,.and they won't be as noticeable.:shrug:
 
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A couple dozen rounds from that thing to the side will send you careening into on coming traffic
They absorb their recoil fairly effectively, They are routinely tripod mounted by an infantry team, and fired in a seated position. (So bottom line,..they don't kick too much) I've shot one that way, and on a tracked vehicle while in the Army,.....every 5th round was a tracer. When you are spraying something down that is a 1000 meters away,..those tracer rounds would sometime hit something and ricochet straight up.....like little missiles going up into space.. But,...I'd imagine mounted on a car w/ a soft suspension, and both of those things breathing bloody hell...the car may tend to drift a bit....:rolleyes:

It always makes me laugh when I hear a movie reproduction of what they make them sound like to people that have never heard one..... (Way faster than the "thump,thump,thump" that it actually sounds like)
 
Back in 2012,...the city of Birmingham had an opening at our local museum of flight. It wasn't enough money (like high 20's) but I still wanted that job.

They were just starting to recover, and restore a Russian Hind D attack helicopter,..I wanted to be part of that too but I didn't have the flight experience that they wanted (if you can believe that) the job had a few ex-military retirees and active private pilots manning the staff, and that is what they were looking for...
 
The flying restoration was largely complete before I ever joined the Air Force. When it returned to Dover is when I happened to work on it. Back then we had a lot more people. Anyway, I volunteered with a few others to go out and help the museum restoration team, work on skin panels, touch-up, that sort of thing. So I installed a good portion of that hardware (them: we'll just get a bunch of young, dumb, Airmen to do it). hehe
 
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I ashamed to say fantasy of flight is 20 minutes from me and never went there. They still have a mustang show every year I think, I promise to go, I have been to several military museums around the state,
Vietnam Veterans hold a special place with me.
 
How much of these restorations are original parts? I always wondered this when seeing some before and after Restos of some of the heaps they pull out of the ground. I sometimes wonder if they salvage 2-3 parts, reproduce the rest and then send the original to the scrap yard.

Something like swamp ghost I'd rather see left alone and 100% original.

My understanding is they haven't pulled the Maid of Harlech out yet, but I almost wonder if it's even worth it. Not much is salvageable, and I'd hate to see the original parts scrapped for reproduction work
IMG_9583.JPG
 
Not yet, at least.

Only good as a static display really. And from what I was reading, the cost associated with recovering and preserving it to just sit on display is huge! Not in the best shape anyway.

But you gotta know it's bugging a few local enthusiasts who know there a p38 sitting on and English beach. Someone wants it

Someone spent millions to dig glacier girl out, so you never know. Only 20 or so exist todat
 
How much of these restorations are original parts?


Totally depends on the condition and significance of the airplane. Shoo Shoo Baby was mostly complete. It was sectioned to be transported in a C5. The worst part of the reconstruct was the result of the sectioning. They cut through spars and longerons. They even cut into the wing boxes. All of that had to be remanufactured. That was before my time so I'm not sure what the thought process was there. :shrug: