As I mentioned next week in my talk on reversible time... (08/07/90)
From: "As I mentioned next week in my talk on reversible time..." >Here are the other reasonably modern (i.e., postwar) transport designations >that I know of. The gaps are presumably designs that never made it into >production. Ahem... you forgot on of the best workhorses ever introduced.. the C-47 Dakota, AKA DC-3. The c-47/DC-3 has never suffered a structural failure due to either an engineering or construction flaw. And people have run into mountains with these things! There was an article in Popular Mechanics about this bird. One pilot was flying through a storm and shaved off six feet or so of his wing by running into a mountain, and was still able to land. Go read about it yourself, if you don't believe me... July 1978 issue. As was mentioned before, they have actually a towed glider C-47 with another C-47. >I doubt that the Chinese or the AVG saw many Zeros since it was the Japanese >Army airforce that fought in the skies. What they fought against were Nates >and maybe Oscars if they were unlucky. The Nate is a fixed gear monoplane that >was very maneuverable but certainly was no Zero. The Oscar was the Army >counterpart to the Navy Zero but more maneuverable. The confusion may be >due to the Zero notoriety among Allied airman and is analagous to the land <battles in Western Europe where every German tank encountered was a Tiger! Yep. You're absolutely right. It was the Oscar and not the Zero. Basically the same thing, though, except one was modified as a carrier based plane. Served as escort to the Betty bombers, etc. in China. Why didn't I remember that...? >Also where do you get the idea that the P40 was nose heavy. It may look >heavy because of the large cowl that housed the cooler but I don't think >that it was nose heavy. I got that from Gen. Chennault's battle tactics. He said it was nose heavy, so I believe it. It does have a rather large cowl, half of which is an air intake for the cooling system, but the engine itself was also big. I't not just an optical illusion, it really is heavier on the nose, which made it a good fighter for what the Tigers used it for - guerrilla air strikes. They were vastly outnumbered and were expected to cover the Chinese Army, the Burma Road, the Hump, and repel Japanese bomber strikes over the cities. Quite a big job for one small rag-tag group of volunteers, but they did it, and set records in the Pacific Theatre for kill ratios. Pappy Boyington first flew with them before he went to the Navy. The shark design on the nose was drawn from a Walt Disney cartoonist whose name escapes me at the moment. He was killed in action. Any remember his name? >Why not? I'd think that would be an advantage, since no oil, smoke, etc. >would be blown over the windshield and canopy. True, but think about the propellor shaft under the seat, and the pistons, ect in the back seat.. I'd be nervous, especially of that shaft.. :-) ----- >>P40: Warhawk, Kittyhawk, Tomahawk; Curtiss, methinks. >>*** Yep. Two P-40's got off the ground from a field (Which one? it is the >>*** field a few miles away from Pearl. Begins with a W...) and shot down >You're thinking of Wheeler Field, outside the town of Wahiawa. There were >lots of P-40s lined up in neat rows when the Japanese attacked, but I believe >that the two planes that managed to get airborne were from Dillingham, an >outlying airfield near Haleiwa on the North Shore. Yeah! That's it! but I thought the two P40's took off form Wheeler? I know their birds were lined up in nice, neat, vulnerable rows like the battleships, but I thought that they took off in the midst of the bombing raid. >NASA is using an F-106 (a two-seat B model) for the lightning studies, not a >102. I don't believe that there are any airworthy F-102s left. :-( Ok. Where is the crow pie? :-) Larry AYDLETT@UNCG.BITNET AYDLETT@STEFFI.ACC.UNCG.EDU