azflyboy posted:

As impressive as the Reno Unlimiteds are, I'd really like to see the class evolve into something that didn't destroy increasingly rare engines for one race per year.

orange lime posted:

Yep. Up here in Tempe, you'd think that you get used to the sound of jet engines from the one airliner every 90 seconds landing at Sky Harbor...and then some of the F/A-18s come in off training or whatever and you remember what a turbine REALLY sounds like.

quote:

Operation Tidal Wave was a strategic bombing mission executed by the American Air Forces in August 1943, during World War II intended to put nine Romanian oil refineries around Ploiesti "out of action." The mission was unsuccessful in that it resulted in "no curtailment of overall product output".
In terms of loss of life, this mission was one of the costliest for the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) in the European Theatre, accounting for the loss of 53 aircraft and 660 aircrewmen. It was the worst loss ever suffered by the US air forces on a single mission. The day that it took place is known as "Black Sunday." Five Medals of Honor and numerous Distinguished Service Crosses were awarded to Operation Tidal Wave crew members.

amtrak450 posted:

Late last week I made an inter-library loan request with my university library for Sled Driver. Yesterday I got an email from the library saying they received it. All excited, I made my way there today to pick it up. I get home, open the first few pages and find this:


Click here for the full 1382x1843 image.

quote:

With one engine destroyed and two on fire Lieutenant Palm struggled to keep his bomber on course, determined to make his bombs count. "Tramping on the pedals was like fighting a bucking horse," he recalled. "I was not getting much pressure on the right pedal. I reached down. My right leg below the knee was hanging from a shred of flesh."

quote:

Enemy fire was as heavy as it had been earlier and most of the bombers took multiple strikes. Posey's lead ship V for Victory, piloted by Captain John Diehl, took a direct hit from a 37-mm ground gun that tore away part of the bomber's tail and killed gunner Truett Williams. Similar damage was wreaked upon other bombers in the four waves, but in a manner that may well have validated Colonel Smart's original concept for the low-level mission, Target Blue suffered 100% damage beneath the bombs of twenty-one airships, without the loss of a single aircraft over target. Diehl climbed to 250 feet to clear the smokestacks, then dropped back down to low-level flight with the other pilots following. "We left at a very low level," he recalled. "People ask me what I mean by low level. I point out that on the antennas on the bottom of my airplane I brought back sunflowers and something that looked suspiciously like grass."

quote:

Killer Kane had mounted nose guns in Hail Columbia that could be charged by the navigator and fired from the pilot's seat. Running hard and low into a barrage of enemy fire, Kane pulled the trigger. "Col. Kane controlled them (the guns)," recalled his navigator Norm Whalen. "He used them up. The deafening roar of three of them going off at once in the confined space of the nose of a B-24 is hard to describe. Then, all of a sudden, it stopped. Col. Kane hollered down to us, 'What happened?' He thought we would reload the guns, but he'd used up all the ammo. There was none left." In a minute and a half Kane had unloaded nearly 2,500 rounds on the enemy positions.

decahedron posted:

People pretty much love the A-10 because of the GAU. Which is sad. It is totally bitchin even without the GAU.

quote:

The Republic P-47 Thunderbolt, also known as the "Jug," was the biggest, heaviest, and most expensive fighter aircraft in history to be powered by a single reciprocating engine.[2] It was one of the main United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) fighters of World War II, and served with other Allied air forces. The P-47 was effective in air combat but proved especially adept at ground attack. It had eight .50-caliber machine guns, four per wing. When fully loaded the P-47 could weigh up to eight tons. A modern-day counterpart in that role, the A-10 Thunderbolt II, takes its name from the P-47.

quote:

The Thunderbolt was the fastest-diving American aircraft of the war—it could reach speeds of 550 mph (480 kn, 885 km/h). Major Robert S. "Bob" Johnson described the experience of diving the big fighter by writing, "the Thunderbolt howled and ran for the earth"

InitialDave posted:

Some say he used to be as tall as Clarkson...

Imp Boy posted:

Pretty much every bomber from that war had an absurdly cramped interior. I have no idea how crews got out when the things were hit, because there is hardly enough room to turn around. The nose position in a B-25 pretty much consists of being crammed into a 3 foot high cabinet.

oxbrain posted:

Rule of thumb so you can do it in your head next time, 150 gallons for every 1000 lbs. They're rounding the pounds figure anyway, so the inaccuracy doesn't matter.

Slothophile posted:

Blistex posted:

I've heard at least ten people moaning, "OH no, we lots another P-51! There are so few left!".

1. gently caress you, people died.
2. Despite a couple being lost yearly, the number of flyable P-51's is growing.
3. That P-51 was lost when some rich guy decided to ream out the engine, butcher the airframe, and enter it in "Air-Nascar". Not when it crashed.

atomicthumbs posted:

http://www.news.com.au/world/giffords-husband-in-lucky-escape/story-fn6sb9br-1226140441444

quote:

Michael Presley of Rockwall TX Posted at 8:12 AM September 19, 2011:

Wow! You not only hired a mentally handicapped person, you actually let them write a story.

ursa_minor posted:

JIMMY LEEWARD: HATE KLANIKAZE?

http://youtu.be/pFnRTGyVqAM

ursa_minor posted:

Eh, he's allowed to make his lovely jokes, and we're allowed to hate and troll him for it.

iyaayas01 posted:

I can almost guarantee that it was just improperly secured and/or secured using defective tie-downs. Either the cargo (supposedly some MRAPs) wasn't tied down with the appropriate amount of straps/chains or they weren't arranged in the right manner, or something with the tie down system (either the tie down points on the aircraft or some of the straps/chains) failed. Tail strike isn't going to cause all that much more of a jolt to improperly secured cargo that takeoff acceleration isn't going to force it to shift.

Someone in the thread posted earlier about some rumint that the MRAPs were only tied down using the minimum amount of chains (11 IIRC). Assuming that's the case, I'd wager on a an accident chain where the decision to only use the minimum amount meant that when one or two of the chains failed/wasn't properly installed/etc there wasn't a safety margin with some additional chains to pick up the slack, resulting in the cargo shifting.