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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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Something A Little Different an Air Force Connie

Sat Dec 26, 2009 10:35 pm

Image USAF PHOTO
DESCRIPTION; A U.S. Air Force Lockheed EC-121R Constellation of the 553rd Reconnaissance Wing over Southeast-Asia on 15 January 1969.
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Re: Something A Little Different an Air Force Connie

Sat Dec 26, 2009 11:25 pm

Red Crown??

Re: Something A Little Different an Air Force Connie

Sat Dec 26, 2009 11:47 pm

Batcat.

Re: Something A Little Different an Air Force Connie

Sun Dec 27, 2009 8:11 am

translation? :p

Re: Something A Little Different an Air Force Connie

Sun Dec 27, 2009 9:18 am

Red Crown was the airborne air traffic controller.

Batcat: Here is a link http://personalpages.tdstelme.net/~westin/batcat0.htm

Re: Something A Little Different an Air Force Connie

Sun Dec 27, 2009 11:05 am

did this aircraft once of the top dome? It looks like that area has been painted over? :?:

Re: Something A Little Different an Air Force Connie

Sun Dec 27, 2009 11:55 am

Nathan wrote:did this aircraft once of the top dome? It looks like that area has been painted over? :?:


The Batcat EC-121Rs were all Navy-contract WV-2s or 3s, so they originally had the upper and lower domes. It is interesting that you can still see where they touched up the paint on this one, leading one to think they removed the upper antenna dome after it was camouflaged.

S

BabyBat

Mon Dec 28, 2009 2:03 am

Great pic! It's cool to see a Connie in Vietnam camo paint and all the big antennas removed.

It's hard to believe that the Air Force tried to downsize and replace the big ol' Connie and it's 16 (or so) crewmembers with an itty bitty modified Beech A36 Bonanza, the QU-22B Baby Bat. Beech only built 27 of them and there are a few left in civilian hands with maybe 2-3 flyable that I know of. One of 'em is based at my home field and I was lucky enough to get to fly it a year or so ago on a short test hop after being parked for 12 years. Got to fly my first actual Warbird, cool! It's kind of odd to think of a Bonanza being a Warbird, but this thing appears to be the real deal; thumbing thru the logs shows it was attached to the 553rd Recon Wing, based at Nakhom Phanom... the records include mission log pages as well as the usual MX write-ups, plus the induction paperwork when it was stored at AMARC. It's a pretty cool machine...

Here are a few pics. BTW, it's for sale. Anyone interested?

John B
Houston, TX
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