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This is the place where the majority of the warbird (aircraft that have survived military service) discussions will take place. Specialized forums may be added in the new future
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Re: Today's photo from Aircraft-in-Focus.com

Sun Sep 23, 2018 6:01 pm

LARGEFLYER wrote:I am thinking that the T-50 (UC-78) Bobcat with 415 on the side belongs to Larry Kelley of Georgetown, DE


You are right, and thank you for that. Definitely 43-32644 N266C now with Delaware Aviation Museum.

August

Re: Today's photo from Aircraft-in-Focus.com

Tue Oct 02, 2018 8:28 am

Since we're talking about the CAF I-16 being for sale on another thread, here's a ramp shot of it from Airsho 05.

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August

Re: Today's photo from Aircraft-in-Focus.com

Wed Oct 03, 2018 6:25 am

95 years ago today, on October 3, 1923, was the first flight of the de Havilland DH.51 Hummingbird. The first prototype and only survivor was sadly lost in a fatal accident with the Shuttleworth Collection in 2012.

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Re: Today's photo from Aircraft-in-Focus.com

Wed Oct 03, 2018 4:16 pm

k5083 wrote:The first prototype and only survivor was sadly lost in a fatal accident with the Shuttleworth Collection in 2012.


Quite sad that we lost Trevor Roche that day. Hopefully one day we'll see the remains rebuilt. Judging from the post-crash photos, the plane looks fairly intact.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2167205/Pilot-Trevor-Roche-killed-historic-aircraft-crashes-600-spectators-airshow.html

Re: Today's photo from Aircraft-in-Focus.com

Mon Oct 15, 2018 9:24 pm

I spent some time in the Frontiers of Flight Museum in Dallas this past Friday. My intention had been to drive north to Gainesville for the antique fly-in, but the weather was bad, so I settled for this museum. It was fun, though. I guess the Vought Flying Pancake is of most interest to most of us, but I found several of the other exhibits interesting. Here are two.

I didn't realize it at the time, but I was looking at the Apollo 7 command module 50 years and 1 day after its launch, so it was in Earth orbit exactly 50 years before when I was viewing it. It splashed down October 22, 1968, so there is still time to have this experience. There was no signage or other mention of the anniversary around the museum; I only became aware of it later, when I checked my instagram and saw a post from the National Naval Air Museum about it. I see that there is an event on October 20 at the museum to commemorate the occasion. For any of you who are foggy on their Apollo history, Apollo 7 fulfilled the mission profile intended for the tragic Apollo 1, with a redesigned capsule, launched on a Saturn IB into Earth orbit to prove the basic functioning of the occupied portion of the spacecraft.

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I was momentarily taken aback to see the name "Pilot: Gary Austin" painted under the cockpit of the Shoestring. Then I remembered Gary's foray into racing during the last year or so of his life, and am glad that he is memorialized on this museum piece.

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August

Re: Today's photo from Aircraft-in-Focus.com

Tue Oct 16, 2018 7:58 am

Nice one August.
I never met Gary. I still think of him all the time.
I raised a glass to him on my annual camping trip in August (his birthday was in August. It's an event I'd prefer to remember)

Like you say, nice to see him commemorated in a display of something he enjoyed.

Andy

Re: Today's photo from Aircraft-in-Focus.com

Tue Oct 16, 2018 8:35 am

That's a commemorative nod to Gary on the Shoestring, right? That's not actually "Maybe's Baby"(sp?) is it? Anyway, it's a nice touch. The gent touched many people he never knew in a positive way. Need more folks like that these days...

Re: Today's photo from Aircraft-in-Focus.com

Tue Oct 16, 2018 10:50 am

No, it does not appear to be the one Gary was working on. Here is the best history of NX24ML that I've found on the web:

http://daddybobphotos.com/Aircraft/Manu ... /K-10.html

August

Re: Today's photo from Aircraft-in-Focus.com

Tue Oct 16, 2018 11:17 am

Ahhh...thanks August. I tried to search the WIX for Gary's bird, but there was no return on the search or his name submitted as author.
James

Re: Today's photo from Aircraft-in-Focus.com

Tue Oct 16, 2018 1:22 pm

Here is discussion of Gary's racing activities on another forum, and it contains a link to the Wix racing forum, but I haven't paged down to 2008 or whatever to find Gary's thread on it.

http://www.aafo.com/hangartalk/showthre ... Shoestring

August

Re: Today's photo from Aircraft-in-Focus.com

Tue Oct 16, 2018 2:11 pm

Nice pics! Thanks for posting. Good to see Gary is remembered. :(
FYI, the Apollo 7 spacecraft was still an early version and considered a "Block 1" Apollo Spacecraft. It was heavily modified after the Apollo 1 accident, so the safety aspects were pretty much taken care of or Wally wouldn't have accepted flying it.
Apollo 8 flew the first manned, "Block 2" Apollo Spacecraft.
Jerry

Re: Today's photo from Aircraft-in-Focus.com

Tue Oct 16, 2018 3:41 pm

That is one of the airplanes Gary was working on. I was bored at work, so I dug back through his posts and found the thread here: viewtopic.php?f=17&t=17299&start=225

It's not the airplane that he raced, or the project that was actually his, but he was finishing the rebuild of "Time Bandit" with the intention of racing it for the owner when they discovered the spar glue had gone bad. The whole story is in the link above. He was quite a personality on this forum, with some really cool stories. He'll been gone 9 years next Friday...

Re: Today's photo from Aircraft-in-Focus.com

Tue Oct 16, 2018 4:02 pm

Well done, good digging there. I used to read Gary's posts diligently but had forgotten he was involved with this plane. So the paint is "authentic" even though the plane apparently never flew when or after he was associated with it.

The Shoestring is a great looking little plane that always caught the attention of fans and modelers. I'm pretty sure there were more different plans and kits made of it than there ever were Shoestrings.

August

Re: Today's photo from Aircraft-in-Focus.com

Wed Oct 17, 2018 10:36 am

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For a few years in the 1980s, Morane-Saulnier M.S. 502 serial 204 was based in Ontario, registered C-FIWG, giving folks in this part of Canada and the nearby United States a look at a Storch in action. The owner at the time impressively demonstrated the plane's slow-flight and STOL capabilities. Today it is registered N111FS to a Connecticut company, but I understand it is actually based in Greece.

August

Re: Today's photo from Aircraft-in-Focus.com

Thu Oct 18, 2018 8:39 am

Sometimes in looking through and scanning old photos from my late friend Dick Kamm, some of the more interesting things are in the background. This pic is from an air show at some base in France in 1949 or 1950.

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The subject of the photo is a Mauboussin monoplane, a 2-seat light sport plane whose production started before World War II and resumed after the war. A little over 100 were built in total. Dick was a crew chief for one of the pilots on the USAF Skyblazers display team and would get to travel to shows and take pictures of odd planes like this. You can see some of the Skyblazer F-80s in the background at extreme left, under the nose of the C-47.

Ah, yes, the C-47. This is where the background gets interesting. 42-100895 is a documented D-Day veteran. According to the D-Day Overlord Encyclopedia site, it flew with the 437th Troop Carrier Group from Ramsbury and towed Horsa glider DP671 to Normandy, filled with 82nd Airborne troops, during the third (evening) wave of June 6, with a drop time of 21:10. By the time of this photo, it was resident at the Furstenfeldbruck base in Bavaria, also the home of the Skyblazers. Probably it toured in support of the Skyblazers team, which means it was likely Dick's ride to this air base.

And then, what's going on in the background over the rear fuselage of the Mauboussin? I enlarged the scan to find out.

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Okay, nothing much. Just a line of French Air Force Halifax bombers, still wearing their wartime camouflage.

Now, I like to think I appreciate obscure French light sport planes as much as anybody, but I kind of wish Dick had been interested enough in the Halifaxes to stroll over there and get some good color slides of them. Usually he was pretty good about snapping shots of leftover wartime birds at bases he visited. Sadly, not this time.

August
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