Plane of the Day

[San Bernardhinault]

Plane of the Day

antoine polus wrote: The DC-3

It will fly in all conditions, it can land anywhere and it will last forever. They are still in commercial operation today, 81 years after the first one was built. The saying is that the only replacement for a DC-3 is another DC-3.

Also, I think we're more than 70 years since the last one was built, yet they're still flying. It's an amazing piece of machinery.

[Sits]

Plane of the Day

Like many, we have a large print of this framed on the wall:


I've often wondered what the plane is, so having manoeuvred the subject onto the 20s-30s it's time to find out. .

So it's a Lockheed Vega, and here one is in Braniff colours:


As a footnote, is it possible the expression "the B-line" originates from Braniff?

[Logan Mountstuart]

Plane of the Day

Pure 50's killing machine. Get up. Kill. Get down. All over in minutes. Hate the sentiment. Admire the beauty.

[Sits]

Plane of the Day

Ah, the Lightning. It's always tricky isn't it, admiring killing machines for their beauty. I suppose the need to harness speed, power and manoeuvrability naturally leads to the highest denominators currently available. See:

[Femme Folle]

Plane of the Day

The majestic Cessna 152 (that's me in 1985-ish)

[ursus arctos]

Plane of the Day

You go, girl.

I seem to have missed this thread, though I doubt it will surprise anyone that I am a huge fan of the Pan Am Flying Boats



and still hope that such aircraft may return one day to their spiritual home at the Marine Air Terminal at Laguardia

[WOM]

Plane of the Day

You and me both. I read Ken Follett's Night Over Water simply because it was set aboard a Clipper.

This is neat.

http://www.lougopal.com/manila/?p=1463

[treibeis]

Plane of the Day

slackster wrote: As a kid, sitting on Southend seafront, I used to see these magical Carvair's to-ing & fro-ing from the local airport. You can stuff your Jumbos.

[IMG][/img]

Many years ago, my then-girlfriend’s sister dumped her five-year-old kid on us for a weekend. Neither of us had spent any amount of time with children since our own respective childhoods, so we were a bit apprehensive about it all.

We spoilt the kid rotten, of course. Trip to the zoo, pizza, ice-cream, cinema, sweets, chocolate – you name anything non-parents think children like, we paid money for it. If somebody had said “Buy the kid a bouncy castle, they only cost ten grand”,I’d have gone straight out and bought one.

Shortly before handing him back to his mother, we asked him which bit of the weekend he’d liked best. “The bit when that big plane that looks like a whale flew by”, he said.



Ungrateful little bastard.

[Crusoe]

Plane of the Day

I know it doesn't really count as a plane as such...

[WOM]

Plane of the Day

Was that real, or is it one of those doctored airplane photos that appear in chum sections?

(Number 17 is a shocker!)

[San Bernardhinault]

Plane of the Day

Those Soviet ground effect vehicles were definitely real. But didn't really "fly".

I always wondered what happened with them on rough seas - if the air pocket collapsed and they crashed (or splashed). And if that's why they only ever existed on the Caspian.

[blameless]

Plane of the Day

Seeing this on the BBC website made me think of this thread:

Antonov An-225 Mriya touches down in Australia

[ad hoc]

Plane of the Day

I'm just about to board an Embraer whatever the fuck that is

[Sits]

Plane of the Day

Just did a long haul flight and part of my viewing was the doco about the final flight of this beauty. Bit of a tearjerker:

[Sits]

Plane of the Day

Fancy losing a few hours?

[San Bernardhinault]

Plane of the Day

Today's Plane of the Day is the Madras Maiden. A B-17G, and one of only 10 currently left flying.



Mrs SB discovered earlier this week that the Madras Maiden was going to be flying out of Gillespie Field, the airfield which is about 3 miles from my house (which results in me staring out of my office at all the little buzzy Cessnas that fly out of there when I'm meant to be working).

Not only was she flying, but it turns out that she was taking passengers, and Mrs SB decided that was going to be my birthday treat.

Absolutely fucking fantastic, too. A half hour flight over San Diego. About 30 seconds from take-off we were allowed to unbuckle and walk around. Stick our noses out of a hole in the top (which I think on most models was covered in glass). Hang around in the cockpit. Climb down into the nose and look out of the glass in the bombadier's spot.

Fantastic, but also pretty scary - the walkway over the bomb bay was about 9 inches wide. And if you (or anything) fell on the bomb bay doors, they'd open. Because they were designed to open if a live bomb fell from its holder, to make sure it didn't explode inside. And the rear wheel was fully exposed, and there were many gaps leaving open stretches between you and the ground (like, for example, around the belly-gunner's turret).

Fun for half an hour, but also cramped, bumpy, rough, loud, hot. I can't imagine flying a 6 hour bombing sortie in one of these things, being shot at!

Here's the view from one a side-gunner's perch.

[Sits]

Plane of the Day

That's epic SB, what a gift. Trip of a lifetime, although as you say, I imagine 30 minutes is about right!

I've just realised how old that must be - 75+ years, it's ridiculous. Powered flight was only about 30 years old.

[Sits]

Plane of the Day

I may have bored the board with this before, but this is from 1981. A mate's Dad worked at Heathrow and got us in one day. For those who like to know, this is G-BOAA which made the first commercial flight (IIRC) and we were allowed on board (stationary I hasten to add). The photo isn't what it was 36 years ago:

[Sits]

We were lounging on the deck this morning and saw a distant plane leaving a vapour trail. As I often do I speculated where it was going from and to. Then we wished there was an app whereby you point your phone at a plane and were told what it was.

There is: Flightracker24. I'm sure many people knew this anyway. This has spawned a simple guessing game, obviously. Pick of the day since was the Singapore Airlines Christchurch to Singapore. That's quite a slog.

[Sits]

I’ve mentioned elsewhere on OTF that my son’s gf works for the Australian Capital Territory’s Ranger Service at the Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve south of Canberra. The reserve is home to a number of highly vulnerable species and is severely threatened by bushfires now. An evacuation has been under way, and yesterday son’s gf was on a flight accompanying an estimated 30% of the remaining global population of Brush Tailed Wallabies out of Tidbinbilla to a destination in Victoria.

Their transport was a RAAF C27 Spartan:

[Sits]

[Sits]

[Sits]

[Sits]

Over the last couple of weeks I’ve got used to the fact that if I hear a big plane overhead, it will be the UPS 747 from Honolulu. Literally the only long haul flight we’re seeing.

[WOM]

UPS has one of the three largest fleets of 747s still flying, at 28.