Assembly Ships

"ttyymmnn" (ttyymmnn) 10/15/2015 at 09:48 • Filed to: planelopnik, planelopnik history, wingspan

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During WWII, the Allies carried out strategic bombing missions with hundreds of aircraft in the sky. In order to get the bombers into formation, retired aircraft, called assembly ships, were painted with gaudy patterns unique to each group and fitted with lights and pyrotechnics to make them easily visible in the air. After the bombers formed up and turned for the the target, the assembly ship would return to base.

Jcarr > ttyymmnn 10/15/2015 at 09:58

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This is awesome! How have I never heard of this before? Any surviving examples?

ttyymmnn > Jcarr 10/15/2015 at 10:06

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I just stumbled upon this last night. I had never heard of them either. As to any existing ships, I doubt it. There are so few these days I would think there would be modern photos all over the place.

Viggen > ttyymmnn 10/15/2015 at 10:19

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Note the lack of armament too. Sorry but if I was flying one of these and had to go as little a distance as Dover I’d still want some guns onboard. Let alone possibly going to France.

ttyymmnn > Viggen 10/15/2015 at 10:24

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I imagine you would have been surrounded by a lot of .50 caliber machine guns. But you also would have been the most visible member of the herd.

T5Killer > Jcarr 10/15/2015 at 10:37

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None Surviving. The aircraft selected for this mission were already “war Weary” meaning they had tons of combat flight hours and major repairs done so they were nearing the end of their service life.

MonkeePuzzle > ttyymmnn 10/15/2015 at 10:53

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huh, who knew!? very interesting

Brian, The Life of > ttyymmnn 10/15/2015 at 10:59

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This is fucking fascinating! I knew nothing about this practice.

ttyymmnn > Brian, The Life of 10/15/2015 at 11:08

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I just learned about it myself last night. It had never come up in any of my readings. I guess back then it was nothing special, just an expedient, creative way to solve a problem.

You can tell a Finn but you can't tell him much > ttyymmnn 10/15/2015 at 14:22

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Am I the only one thinking this?

RallyWrench > ttyymmnn 10/15/2015 at 14:30

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Wow, that’s fantastic! It’d be incredible to see one airborne in such livery today.

ttyymmnn > You can tell a Finn but you can't tell him much 10/15/2015 at 14:35

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Not enough stars. That was a favorite in our house when our boys were young. I hadn’t thought of it, but that’s brilliant!

You can tell a Finn but you can't tell him much > ttyymmnn 10/15/2015 at 14:37

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I may have read that a few times in the past year or three. Z-o-0 zoo is the first word the Finnlet learned how to spell.