This Date in Aviation History: November 24 - November 27

"ttyymmnn" (ttyymmnn) 11/27/2018 at 12:35 • Filed to: wingspan, Planelopnik, TDIAH

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Welcome to This Date in Aviation History , getting of you caught up on milestones, important historical events and people in aviation from November 24 through November 27.

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A US Navy Grumman F9F-2 Panther of fighter squadron VF-71 flies over Task Force 77 in 1952 during the Korean War (US Navy)

November 24, 1947 – The first flight of the Grumman F9F Panther. The turbojet engine first appeared over the battlefield of WWII with the Messerschmitt Me 262, and the British soon followed with the Gloster Meteor. America’s first operational jet fighter, the rather disappointing Bell P-59 Airacomet, took its maiden flight in 1942, but never made it into battle. The jet engine was clearly the power of the future of aviation, and the US Navy fielded its first jet fighter with the Vought F6U Pirate, an abysmally underpowered and underperforming fighter that turned out to be an unqualified failure. Grumman, which had provided some of the best naval aircraft of the war, turned their sights on a jet-powered carrier plane with a four-engine night fighter, the G-75, but ultimately lost out to the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . So, Grumman abandoned their early attempts and focused instead on an entirely new, single-engine day fighter that received the internal designation G-79.

Two Grumman F9F Panther prototypes in flight in 1948. The front Panther is the XF9F-3 with an Allison J33-A-8 engine, the rear plane is a XF9F-2, powered by a Pratt & Whitney J42-P-6 engine, a licence-built Rolls-Royce Nene. Note the lack of wingtip fuel tanks. (US Navy)

The new fighter, now designated XF9F by the Navy and given the nickname Panther following Grumman’s !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , had straight wings like other early jets of its era, and the engine was fed by air intakes in the wing roots. Since early attempts at jet engine manufacturing in the US were not producing sufficiently powerful engines, the Panther was equipped with a !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! turbojet, built under license in the US by Pratt & Whitney and given the US designation J42. In a nod to the short range of the early, thirsty jet engines, permanent wingtip fuel tanks were added to the prototype to increase fuel capacity, which had the serendipitous benefit of increasing the Panther’s roll rate. Though still under development, the Panther was cleared for carrier operations on September 1949, and the decision was made to replace the original J47 with a more powerful Pratt & Whitney J48, another license-built Rolls-Royce engine based on the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! .

Armed with four 20mm cannons and hardpoints for 2,000 pounds of bombs or rockets, the Panther entered service with the US Navy and Marine Corps during the Korean War, becoming the most widely used Navy fighter and ground attack aircraft of the war. Over the course of the conflict, Panthers flew more than 78,000 sorties and scored the Navy’s first air-to-air kill of the war when a Panther downed a North Korean !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! piston-engined fighter. But the straight winged Panther proved no match for the swept-wing !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! fighter, so Grumman developed a swept-wing variant of the Panther which was known as the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , though it shared the F9F (later F-9) designation. From 1949-1955, the F9F served as the first jet aircraft to be flown by the US Navy !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! demonstration squadron, and nearly 1,400 Panthers were produced for the Navy and US Marine Corps, as well as an export version that was sold to the Argentine Navy. The US Panthers were retired in 1958, but the Argentine fighters served until 1969.

F9F-5 Panthers flown by the US Navy Blue Angels demonstration squadron. The Panther was the first jet flown by the Blue Angels, serving from 1951-1954. (US Navy)

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(Author unknown)

November 25, 1940 – The first flight of the de Havilland Mosquito. The !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! was founded !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! in 1920, and quickly made a name for itself with the development of innovative and advanced aircraft of all types. By the 1930s, the world’s fascination with air racing reached a fever pitch, and the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! from England, to Australia, billed as the world’s greatest air race, presented an opportunity for de Havilland to showcase their knack for building light yet powerful aircraft. To save weight, their entry, the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , featured a wooden frame covered with spruce plywood, and the team of Comet pilots were the outright winners of the race with an elapsed time of just 71 hours. De Havilland further refined their wood-working skills with the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , a four-engine passenger plane with a pioneering monocoque fuselage constructed from a sandwich of two pieces of plywood encasing a layer of balsa wood, creating a very strong, yet very light, aircraft.

A de Havilland Mosquito IIF of No. 456 Squadron RAAF in flight. A wartime censor has scratched out the wingtip antennae of the Airborne-Interceptor radar. (RAF)

In 1936, the British Air Ministry issued Specification P.13/36 calling for a twin-engine medium bomber that could carry 3,000 pounds of bombs, and aircraft designers replied with traditional heavy bombers such as the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . But de Havilland believed that a lightweight, simple design could carry the same load at even higher speeds, perhaps even outpacing modern fighter planes. The idea was similar to the German !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!!   concept, which proposed that fast medium bombers would be capable of outrunning enemy fighters and would not need defensive armament or extra crewmen.

Drawing on its previous experience with the Comet and Albatross, de Havilland made their new bomber out of wood, which provided a strength to weight ratio that was as good as !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! or steel, and also preserved metals in a time of war. They also followed their design ethos of putting the most powerful engine possible with the lightest airframe possible. Powered by a pair of !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! engines, the Mosquito made its first flight just 11 months after detailed design work began, and further tests proved that the “Mossie” was indeed as fast as promised. Its top speed of 392 mph outpaced the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! by 3o mph, though it was twice as heavy and twice as big, and was one of the fastest aircraft in the world at the time.

Forty Canadian-built Mosquitos were flown by the US as the F-8. (NASA)

Even though the Mosquito showed promise, and certainly lived up to its billing as a fast bomber, some in the RAF were hesitant to accept such a radical aircraft. So the Mosquito was initially adopted for reconnaissance missions to test its mettle, then developed into a high-speed fighter with the addition of forward-firing armament. Ultimately, the Mosquito proved to be a jack of all trades for the RAF, fulfilling the roles of reconnaissance, bomber, fighter, night fighter, trainer, torpedo bomber and target tug, and the “Wooden Wonder” ended the war with the lowest loss rate of any aircraft in the RAF Bomber Command. Over 7,700 were built before production ended in 1950, including over 1,100 in Canada, and the Mosquito served the air forces of 21 countries. Forty Canadian-built reconnaissance Mosquitos were flown by the US Army as the F-8. The Luftwaffe was so impressed with the British Schnellbomber that they named their own all-wood !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! the Moskito , perhaps in homage to the brilliant de Havilland design.

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November 25, 1940 – The first flight of the Martin B-26 Marauder. During World War II, large, four-engine strategic bombers such as the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! ranged the skies over Europe and the Pacific, dropping huge loads of bombs on both civilian and military targets. But not all missions required the biggest bomb load possible, and there remained a need for a smaller, twin-engine tactical bomber that could attack targets at lower levels and with greater accuracy. In 1939, the USAAF issued Circular Proposal 39-640 that called for a new high-speed, twin-engine bomber with a top speed of 350 mph that could carry up to 2,000 pounds of bombs at a range of 3,000 miles. In July of that year, the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! proposed their Model 179 to fulfill that requirement, and, with all out war looming, the new bomber was accepted before any prototype flew, and the USAAF ordered 201 aircraft off the drawing board. In 1940, an additional 930 Marauders were ordered, still before the first aircraft ever left the ground.

Like the other medium bombers then in service, the B-26 featured a shoulder-mounted wing with two engines slung underneath. It was powered by a pair of !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! 18-cylinder radial engines and had a crew of seven: two pilots, bombardier, navigator, and three defensive gunners. The first production Marauder served as the flying prototype, and soon after it entered service it became clear that the emphasis on speed had an unfortunate side effect for the pilots. The relatively small wing, which was designed for high speed performance, also created particularly high !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , which resulted in higher landing speeds than many pilots had experienced in training or in other similar aircraft. Inexperienced pilots, particularly trainees, discovered that if they dropped under 120-135 mph on landing, depending on the weight of the aircraft, the Marauder would stall and crash. The bomber gained the nickname “Widowmaker,” and pilots training in Florida began to chant, “One a day in Tampa Bay.” Other structural issues beset the early Marauders, and many pilots believed that the bomber could not be flown on one engine, until more experienced pilots, including !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , proved that it could be flown safely.

Even when these difficulties were solved, including a redesign of the wing, the B-26 remained a demanding aircraft to fly, but it ended the war with the lowest combat loss rate of any US aircraft. The Marauder first saw action in the Pacific Theater in 1942, though the bulk of B-26 missions were flown over Europe and the Mediterranean. The US Army Air Forces calling the Marauder “the chief bombardment weapon on the Western Front” and, by the close of WWII, Marauders had flown more than 110,000 sorties and accounted for more than 150,000 tons of bombs dropped while serving with the US, Britain, Free France and South Africa. Production ended in 1945 after more than 5,200 Marauders had been built, and the type was retired by 1947.

Though Marauder crews suffered the fewest combat losses of any American bomber type, bombing missions were still risky business. Here a B-26 suffers a direct hit by flak over Toulon, France in 1944. (US Air Force)

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Short Takeoff

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November 24, 1971 – The hijacking of Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 305, a regularly scheduled flight between Portland, Oregon and Seattle, Washington. The suspected hijacker, !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , who has since come to be known as D.B. Cooper, claimed to have a bomb and demanded that $200,000 and four parachutes be given to him when the flight reached Seattle. After the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! (N467US) landed, the passengers were released and officials met Cooper’s demands. After refueling, the airliner took off and Cooper ordered the crew to fly to Mexico City. Once in the air, Cooper parachuted from the rear stairway of the aircraft and was never seen again. Authorities believe Cooper perished in the jump, but neither his body nor the money was ever found. The case remains the only unsolved act of air piracy in American aviation history.

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(US Air Force)

November 24, 1959 – The first flight of the Hiller X-18, a vertical/short takeoff and landing (V/STOL) aircraft and the first to be designed with a tilting wing. The Hiller Aircraft Corporation was founded in 1942 and worked primarily with helicopters before taking on the V/STOL X-18. In an effort to shorten development time, the X-18 was built from parts scavenged from other aircraft, the fuselage coming from the unsuccessful !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! transport and the turboprop engines from the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . For takeoff, the wing tilted upward, and exhaust from the engines downward at the tail to control pitch. Test pilots carried out a total of 20 test flights, but problems with control plagued the aircraft. However, useful information from the program, particularly the need to cross-link the engines should one fail in hover, was used in the development of the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! tiltwing.

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November 24, 1955 – The first flight of the Fairchild F-27, a turboprop airliner developed from the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . The program began in Holland with the Fokker P275, and was eventually built in the US by Fairchild as the F-27. With capacity for up to 40 passengers, the first F-27s entered service with West Coast Airlines in 1958, and the airliner was soon flying for a host of American carriers and airlines of eight other countries. The upgraded F-27B received more powerful engines, and Fairchild developed a stretched version, known as the FH-228, which increased seating capacity to 56 passengers and added a cargo compartment between the cockpit and passenger cabin. A total of 128 F-27s were produced, along with 78 FH-227s and, as of 2010, only one remained in active service with the Myanmar Air Force.

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(US Air Force)

November 24, 1947 – The first flight of the Convair XC-99, a double-deck transport aircraft developed for the US Air Force and the largest piston-powered land-based aircraft ever built. Developed from the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , the XC-99 was designed to carry 100,000 pounds of cargo or 400 fully equipped troops over 8,000 miles. A civilian airliner version, the Model 37, was planned but never developed. Introduced in 1949, only one XC-99 was built, and it was retired in 1957 after eight years of service. Today, the aircraft is part of the collection of the National Museum of the United States Air Force, where it awaits restoration.

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(San Diego Air and Space Museum)

November 24, 1939 – British Overseas Airways Corporation is formed. State-owned British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) was created by an Act of Parliament in 1939 with the merger of !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . The new company started operations on April 1, 1940 and provided vital transport and logistical support to the far flung British Colonies during WWII. After the war, BOAC continued to operate flying boats until 1950, and was the first airline to introduce jet aircraft in May 1952 with the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . BOAC was eventually merged with !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! (BEA) in 1974, and ceased to be an independent organization when it was merged with !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! on March 31, 1974. Had the final merger not taken place, BOAC would have been one of the airlines operating the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! supersonic transport.

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November 25, 1961 – The USS Enterprise is commissioned. USS Enterprise (CVN 65) was the eighth US Naval vessel to !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and the world’s first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. Ordered on November 15, 1957, Enterprise was built at Newport News Shipbuilding in Virginia and still holds the record as the longest naval vessel in the world. After her maiden voyage in 1960, Enterprise saw action during the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , as well as the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . After more than 50 years of service, Enterprise was deactivated on December 1, 2012 and struck from the Naval Vessel Register on February 3, 2017 and now awaits scrapping and recycling. The next !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , CVN 80, will be named Enterprise.

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(NASA)

November 26, 1985 – The launch of Space Shuttle Atlantis on STS-61-B carrying Rodolfo Neri Vela, the first astronaut from Mexico. Vela, a professor in the Telecommunications Department in the Electrical Engineering Division at the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , flew on board !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! as a !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , helping to launch three communications satellites and carrying out various scientific experiments, including special experiments for the Mexican government. Vela, the second Latin-American astronaut (after Cuban !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! ), logged over 165 hours and in space and completed 108 orbits of the Earth.

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(UK Government)

November 26, 1951 – The first flight of the Gloster Javelin, a twin-engine, delta-wing interceptor and night fighter. It was also the first purpose-built, all-weather interceptor developed for the RAF, and the last in the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! line of jets that began with the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , Britain’s first operational jet fighter. The subsonic Javelin served the Royal Air Force from the mid-1950s through the 1960s, and was eventually replaced by the supersonic !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , though the two served together for much of the Javelin’s operational career. While the Javelin never saw any actual combat, it did serve in a number of global hot spots during its career, and was retired in 1968 after the construction of 436 aircraft.

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(US Navy)

November 26, 1943 – The death of Edward Henry “Butch” O’Hare, a US Navy fighter pilot during WWII and the Navy’s first fighter ace. On February 20, 1942, O’Hare found himself alone and facing nine Japanese bombers attacking his carrier. With limited ammunition, O’Hare flew his Grumman F4F Wildcat at the enemy, destroying five of the bombers and damaging a sixth. O’Hare was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor, which recognized his actions as “one of the most daring, if not the most daring, single action in the history of combat aviation.” While leading the first-ever nighttime fighter mission flown launched from a carrier, O’Hare’s Grumman F6F Hellcat was shot down. Neither he nor his fighter were ever found. The Navy destroyer USS O’Hare (DD-889) was named in his honor, as was Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport.

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November 26, 1925 – The first flight of the Tupolev TB-1, a large, twin-engine bomber developed by !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! for the Soviet Air Force. The Soviet Union’s first large, all-metal aircraft, the TB-1 employed a corrugated !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! skin originally pioneered by !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , and was so large that a wall of the factory had to be knocked down to get it out. Powered by a pair of !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! liquid-cooled V-12 engines (license-built !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! ), the TB-1 had a top speed of 111 mph and could carry 2,205 pounds of bombs. Following a 13,194 mile promotional flight from Moscow to New York, the TB-1 entered service as the Soviet Union’s standard heavy bomber, and was fitted with either traditional landing gear or floats. A total of 218 were built, and the TB-1 was eventually replaced by the much larger !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! .

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November 27, 2005 – Boeing delivers the 1,050th and final 757. Designed as a larger replacement for the three-engined !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! while retaining the 727's short field capabilities, the 757 took its maiden flight on February 19, 1982 and entered service with !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! on January 1, 1983. The 757 was developed concurrently with the wide-body !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , and shares the essentially the same cockpit, allowing crews to transition easily between the two types. Of the 1,050 produced, 913 were built as the 757-200 which seats up to 239 passengers. Production of the 757 ended in October 2004 as Boeing shifted emphasis to further development of the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , and 688 757s remained in service as of July 2016.

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November 27, 1969 – The first flight of the IAI Arava, a light short takeoff and landing (STOL) utility aircraft and the first major design by !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! to enter production. In order to achieve IAI’s design goals of carrying up to 20 passengers while maintaining STOL and unprepared runway capability, the Arava has a large central fuselage placed between a twin-boom tail and high wing, and the rear of the fuselage can be opened for cargo loading. The Arava is powered by two !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! turboprop engines, and first saw service in the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! of 1973, though the Israeli Air Force did not buy them in any numbers until 1988. The majority serve primarily in third world countries.

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(US Air Force)

November 27, 1949 – The first flight of the Douglas C-124 Globemaster II. The C-124 was developed from the smaller !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , and served the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! (MATS) as the primary heavy lift cargo and passenger carrier throughout the 1950s and into the 1960s before it was replaced by the jet-powered !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . The C-124 could carry 68,500 poulds of cargo, including tanks, bulldozers and other heavy equipment without needing to disassemble them prior to loading. It could also carry 200 fully equipped troops on its two passenger decks. The Globemaster II served in the Korean and Vietnam Wars, and ended its career with the Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve. A total of 448 were produced, and nine still survive as museum pieces.

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(US Air Force)

November 27, 1944 – The first flight of the Boeing XF8B, a long-range carrier-based multi-role fighter/bomber initially developed to protect bombers on missions over the pacific while leaving US Navy aircraft carriers at a safe distance from Japan. Boeing designed the XF8B to fulfill the roles of fighter, dive bomber, interceptor, level bomber, and torpedo bomber, and the massive fighter, indeed the largest piston-powered, single-seat US fighter developed during WWII, was be powered by an equally massive !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! supercharged 28-cylinder four-row radial engine, the largest-displacement piston aircraft engine to be developed during the war and the same engine that powered the postwar !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . Ultimately, the war ended after the construction of a single prototype, and the remaining unfinished preproduction aircraft were scrapped.

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(Author unknown)

November 27-28, 1929 – Richard Byrd and his crew make the first flight over the South Pole. Explorer !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! began his first expedition to the South Pole in 1928, taking two ships and three airplanes for use in exploration of Antarctica. After establishing a base camp on the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , Byrd and his crew took off in a !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! named Floyd Bennett in honor of the recently deceased !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! from Byrd’s previous expeditions. During a round trip flight of 18 hours, in which they jettisoned much of their equipment to maintain altitude, the team crossed the South Pole and returned to base. For his exploits, Byrd was promoted to the rank of rear admiral at the age of 41, becoming the youngest admiral in the history of the US Navy.

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Connecting Flights

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If you enjoy these Aviation History posts, please let me know in the comments. And if you missed any of the past articles, you can find them all at !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . You can also find more stories about aviation, aviators and airplane oddities at !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! .

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user314 > ttyymmnn 11/27/2018 at 13:10

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Flew in from Miami Beach B.O.A.C.

Didn’t get to bed last night

On the way the paper bag was on my knee

Man I had a dreadful flight

Nuclear wessels. And, Admiral... it is the Enterprise

facw > ttyymmnn 11/27/2018 at 13:23

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I was recently near the former Grumman plant in Bethpage, NY where the F9F (and many other Grumman aircraft) were built. The airport is nearly entirely gone (not even a trace of the runways remains , though some of the hangar/plant buildings are still present ). Most of the buildings still branded Northrop Grumman appeared to be empty, though there was one still occupied at the adjacent former Naval Weapons Industrial Reserve Plant.

The former Grumman Airfield did have one plane:

(yes, some jerk broke its sidewinder)

This is the second to last F-14 built, and the last to fly for the Navy. I’ve seen conflicting info as to whether F-14s were actually built at Bethpage, it seems like the Calverton, NY facility (also now closed) farther out on Long Island was the main production/testing site. It is a big bird, and felt somehow larger than other Tomcats I’ve seen, maybe because you can get right up next to the plane.

ttyymmnn > user314 11/27/2018 at 14:14

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You’re on a roll....

ttyymmnn > facw 11/27/2018 at 14:21

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The tail is VFA -31 out of Oceana NAS. I used to see these in the air all the time when I was a kid living in Norfolk. I still remember when the first Hornets started showing up. And yeah, it’s a big plane. You can get right up to the one at the Udvar-Hazy Center. This particular Tomcat, an F-14D (R), is credited with shooting down a Libyan fighter over the Gulf of Sidra in 1989.

facw > ttyymmnn 11/27/2018 at 14:31

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From Wikipedia:

VF-31 remained operational aboard Theodore Roosevelt until July 28, 2006 when the last Tomcat landing and catapult launch took place off the Virginia Capes, with journalists from around the world (Mexico, UK, Holland, Germany and US) witnessing. VF-31 was the last Tomcat squadron, with the last F-14 flight occurring on October 4, 2006 as BuNo.164603 flew from NAS Oceana to Republic Airport . After spending a year at the American Airpower Museum, the aircraft is now on public display outside of Northrop Grumman headquarters in Bethpage, NY. 

ttyymmnn > facw 11/27/2018 at 14:43

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And not outside in the elements.

user314 > ttyymmnn 11/27/2018 at 16:07

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I did not realize that not only were the Enterprise and Long Beach firsts in being nukes, they were also the only two ships to carry the SCANFAR system (resulting in the their large blocky bridge structures), forerunner of the the Aegis AN/ SPY system.

In 1967, during a shipyard overhaul period, the Long Beach radar system was converted from electronic tubes to solid state electronic boards. Converting to solid state for radar and radio equipment lightened the superstructure by 20 tons. 

There were 450 tons of aluminum used in the construction of the   Long Beach , so much so that her radio call-sign was “Alcoa”.  

ttyymmnn > user314 11/27/2018 at 16:11

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Twenty tons. Damn. That’s some great info. Thanks!

Chariotoflove > ttyymmnn 11/27/2018 at 16:28

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Love the crew photo on that Marauder.  No non-smoking flights back then either.

Sampsonite24-Earth's Least Likeliest Hero > ttyymmnn 11/27/2018 at 16:30

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Man i love planes with “pusher” configuration prop engines, they just look so cool. like the Devestator from Crimson Skies

ttyymmnn > Chariotoflove 11/27/2018 at 16:32

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If you’re going to fly through flak and fighters, you damn well better be smoking.

ttyymmnn > Sampsonite24-Earth's Least Likeliest Hero 11/27/2018 at 16:34

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Why not both?

Chariotoflove > ttyymmnn 11/27/2018 at 16:34

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Yeah, well back then guys rolled their own, too. So, I’m guessing  no one but your flight crew would know what you had to roll to get through. If I’m the commander, I’m letting a nose gunner smoke whatever he needs, as long as his aim stays good.

ttyymmnn > Chariotoflove 11/27/2018 at 16:36

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My grandfather rolled his own cigarettes, though not all the time. It always fascinated my to watch him do it. Of course, he died of bladder cancer and emphysema, so there’s that. 

facw > Sampsonite24-Earth's Least Likeliest Hero 11/27/2018 at 16:43

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Give me the Hughes Bloodhawk instead please:

Chariotoflove > ttyymmnn 11/27/2018 at 16:43

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I once was given a bag of...not tobacco...at a party and a paper to practice my first ever. I overstuffed it so it looked like a sausage. I was allowed to keep my handiwork, probably because the owner had already smoked a significant fraction of the bag’s  contents. Point being, it takes a little more effort to get right than one might think.

Sampsonite24-Earth's Least Likeliest Hero > facw 11/27/2018 at 16:50

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man that game was so Rad, i wish theyd do a remake of it

facw > ttyymmnn 11/27/2018 at 16:53

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Today, the aircraft is part of the collection of the National Museum of the United States Air Force, where it awaits restoration. 

It’s actually at the Boneyard, the construction of the new hangar at Dayton meant that the museum was not going to have the funds to restore the XC-99 for a long time, so they sent it to the desert.

I believe this is (most) of it:

user314 > Sampsonite24-Earth's Least Likeliest Hero 11/27/2018 at 16:57

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Back in ‘87, BAe released concept art of their P.1233 SABA   (Small Agile Battlefield Aircraft) which would have been used to hunt down Mi -28s, the tilt rotor Mi-30/32 , or cruise missiles(?!).

The specs say it would have had a Lycoming turboshaft driving a propfan (though that term hadn’t been invented yet), and it would have been armed with 6 ASRAAMs and a 25mm cannon.

The US Army and Air Force were interested, possibly even replacing the A-10 with SABAs, but that never happened.

Kiltedpadre > ttyymmnn 11/27/2018 at 17:02

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One of my favorite parts of this series is the strange Wikipedia tangents I find myself on.

Like this where I learned that the Soviets used multiple configurations of parasitic fighters on the Tupolev TB-1 and TB-3. Including one version where they planned for it to carry 5 fighters of 3 different types with plans for the fighters to refuel when docked.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zveno_project

I had heard of them using TB-3s carrying I-16s with a bomb load to strike bridges captured by Germans but had no idea they had so many different versions they tried.

facw > facw 11/27/2018 at 17:02

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Also, as long as we are talking big transport aircraft I stumbled across this nice comparison from the December 1947 issue of Flight:

user314 > Chariotoflove 11/27/2018 at 17:03

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Bugs and Tom made it look so easy...

Chariotoflove > user314 11/27/2018 at 17:06

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Well, Bugs was definitely smoking something, even if off screen between takes, so no surprise there.

I always pegged Tom as a heavy drinker, seeing as he had to do his own stunts.  He and that Wile E. Coyote fella.

user314 > Kiltedpadre 11/27/2018 at 17:07

1

 !

What the Russian equivalent  for “Fox Four”? 

ttyymmnn > Chariotoflove 11/27/2018 at 17:22

1

I learned the trick of using a dollar bill to roll my.....cigarettes. Conversely, I was once handed a tubular, water-filled smoking apparatus which, unbeknownst to me, had been filled with menthol cigarette tobacco. When I removed my thumb from the hole, I thought I was going to cough up a lung. 

ttyymmnn > facw 11/27/2018 at 17:25

0

Yeah, I read that both ways, and couldn’t manage an order of operations. I thought I had read that it was back at Dayton. How old is that satellite photo?

ttyymmnn > facw 11/27/2018 at 17:26

0

That’s very cool. *saved*

ttyymmnn > Kiltedpadre 11/27/2018 at 17:28

1

Well, that’s a new one for me. We were using Zeppelins around that time for the same purpose, and tried it with jets during the early Cold War ( FICON ). But, like many things Russian, they did it to the max.

Kiltedpadre > ttyymmnn 11/27/2018 at 17:34

1

We’ve definitely had some crazy ideas that showed varying levels of success.

I personally think peak Russia is probably the A-40 glider tank concept.

facw > ttyymmnn 11/27/2018 at 17:48

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It’s about a year old. I suppose it’s possible they moved it back, but I certainly missed it (and I don’t see anything on Google) . They cut it up in San Antonio, and then shipped it to Dayton, where it hung out for a bit before being reshipped to the boneyard.

Chariotoflove > ttyymmnn 11/27/2018 at 18:02

0

A carrot with a hole bored in it for a bowl is useful for smoking your not-tobacco.

Or so I’ve heard.

ttyymmnn > Chariotoflove 11/27/2018 at 18:04

1

Oh, the levels of creativity are endless when the need arises. 

You can tell a Finn but you can't tell him much > ttyymmnn 11/29/2018 at 14:08

0

Thanks to Mr. D. B. Cooper we now have the Cooper vane on aircraft with rear stairs.

ttyymmnn > You can tell a Finn but you can't tell him much 11/29/2018 at 14:30

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I had never heard of that. Neat!