The North of Africa holds the world’s largest hot desert, known as The Greatest Desert, or more commonly by the Arabic word Sahara. The Lady be Good’s WW2 mission hadn’t gone well and crew of the were hopelessly lost and running out of fuel when the first engine failed. They decided to abandon the aircraft rather than risk a crash landing and they parachuted out over, what they believed to be, the sea… only to discover it was a sea of sand.
The Lady Be Good as it appeared when discovered from the air.
The aircraft was in surprisingly good shape, considering it landed itself.
The aircraft’s weapons were still functioning.
Some of the guns were still able to be fired.
My apologies to the sharp eared amongst you as I misspoke when describing Lt Hatton’s take off, “Pushing up the throttles of his two Pratt & Whitney Twin Wasp supercharged radials…” The Liberator is, of course, a four engined aircraft.
Images used under a Creative Commons licence with thanks to the US Air Force.
Intro/outro Music, Coffee Fund theme music by Geoff Smith thegeoffsmith.com
Dr. Steph’s intro music by Nevil Bounds
Capt Nick’s intro music by Kevin from Norway (aka Kevski)
Doh De Oh by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
Source: https://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=USUAN1100255
Artist: https://incompetech.com/
It was a hot and sunny day at the United States Airforce Base at Ramstein near Kaiserslautern in West Germany… a perfect day for their 1988 annual air show. One of the best parts of the show was going to be the Frecce Tricolori, the Italian formation team, doing their stunning display. After several minutes of what was a great performance, the team started one of the most impressive manoeuvres, the pierced heart. What followed was a disaster beyond anyone’s imagination…
The Frecce Tricolori.
The awful mistake that led to the tragedy.
Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to the US Air Force, A Micheuand J Herzog.
Intro/outro Music, Coffee Fund theme music by Geoff Smith thegeoffsmith.com
Dr. Steph’s intro music by Nevil Bounds
Capt Nick’s intro music by Kevin from Norway (aka Kevski)
Doh De Oh by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
Source: https://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=USUAN1100255
Artist: https://incompetech.com/
As a military aviator he was exceptional.From a starting point that had him at a disadvantage, 40 seconds was how long it took him to get behind you for the kill! His flying skills weren’t the reason we remember Colonel John Boyd as his ideas would change the whole direction of military aviation. A maverick who would lead a like minded group known as the Fighter Mafia, he was a brilliant as he was controversial. His lasting legacy would include the concept of fighter manoeuvre diagrams and the OODA loop. This is his story.
Colonel John Boyd.
An illustration of the OODA loop.
An example of an F4 Energy Manoeuvre diagram.
Images under Creative Commons with thanks to the US Gov, P E Moran and John Golan.
