by captjeff | Sep 13, 2020 | Plane Tales
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Little Nellie was a rare breed of aviatrix the name of which has its origins in Ancient Greek. In more modern parlance, we have the familiar name autogyro… literally meaning self-turning. The way they work is the same way as a seed from a tree like a Sycamore flies and flying an autogyro is a novel form of taking to the air but one that saved 007!
Juan de la Cierva – the First Count.
The world’s first autogyro, Ciervas’s C1
A replica of the C6
The Cierva C9
The Pitcairn autogyro showing the rotor drive shaft
The RAF’s autogyro
A stamp commemorating the Russian TsAGI 1EA
The Fairy Rotordyne
The Bensen gyrocopter
Mailman Doug’s gyrocopter on the west lawn of the Capitol after he was taken into custody.
The Focke Wulf Fw-61
Little Nellie
A modern autogyro
Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to L’Aéronautique magazine, Pascual Marín, Gyromike, Diego Dabrio, Johannes Thinesen, NASA, Post of Soviet Union, NACA, Fair Use, Cheesy Mike and Asterion.
by captjeff | Sep 4, 2020 | Plane Tales
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A continuation of the stories from Capt Nick’s RAF Form 414… his flying logbook.
BAe Nimrod MR2
The Old Pilot and a Bear
Norwegen F-5A
The Shackleton AEW2
A Canadian CL-28 Argus
The Avro Vulcan
The Skyflash semi active radar guided missile
An AQM37. The Stiletto was an air launched version.
A Skyflash missile firing from the F4 Phantom
Post missile firing treasure
Yours truly
Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to The Old Pilot, Dale Coleman, Crown, Rob Schleiffert, USAF and an RAF Photographer.
by captjeff | Aug 31, 2020 | Plane Tales
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Now a story about the US Navy Band may not seem to be my usual fare in Tales but bear with me and I must thank serving Band member and APG listener Tuba Tony for suggesting the topic for this story.
The United States Navy Ceremonial Band
The distant origin of the first Navy musicians.
The USS Macon
Eisenhower as a General and President
A DC3
A US Navy DC6
The Bandsmen lost in the tragic crash
Sugarloaf mountain
Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to US Gov, Wiki Commons, US Navy, Library of Congress and the Washington Post.
by captjeff | Aug 23, 2020 | Plane Tales
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There are many things that one might want to be remembered for. A fine physician, a pioneer aviator, a renown aeronautical researcher, an inspired inventor but perhaps not as the greatest charlatan ever to see his name associated with an airplane, even though his scout fighter the Christmas Bullet had a perfect kill record… it killed everyone who ever tried to fly it!
The AEA Redwing
One of Christmas’s Patents
The Christmas Bullet
The Christmas Bullet
The Liberty 6 Engine
Dr Christmas
Images under creative commons licence with thanks to the Library of Congress, US Gov, US Patent Office and the USAF.
by captjeff | Aug 17, 2020 | Plane Tales
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Back in 1997, on a sliver of land wedged between a gas station and a car park, a lone C130 Hercules could be found. It was mounted there near the entrance to the National Security Agency at Fort Mead in Maryland for a good reason. Not the original aircraft, as that crashed on foreign soil, it had been painted with the tail number 60528 to represent it.
The memorial to the crew of 60528
The C130 airborne
The plot of 60528 and the track of the intercepting fighters.
A Mig 17
Gun camera film from the attacking Mig17s
Gun camera film from an attacking Mig 17 showing the C130 in flames
The crash site of 60528
A USN Neptune
A Mig15
An LA11
An RAF Lincoln
The U2 spy plane
Gary Powers
The memorial to the crew of the C130
Arlington Cemetery
Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to the NSA, Soviet Defence Archives, 1Lt Kucharyaev, Soviet Air Force, Kirill Pisman, Adam Jones, Garry Goebel, RIA Novosti archive and IP Singh.
by captjeff | Aug 7, 2020 | Plane Tales
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If you are anything like the usual aviation enthusiast you’ll have a list of famous names in your head that you can quote at parties to bore your friends like, Wilbur and Orville, Bleriot, Richthofen, Lindbergh, Sikorsky, Whittle, Yeager and such but I wonder if you can place some of the others who deserve recognition.
Charlie Taylor
Hans Von Ohain
Ohain’s HeS8 jet engine
The He178
The He280
Gloster E-28
Olive-Ann and TravelAir
The Staggerwing
Doolittle and the Mystery Ship
Louise Thaden
Bessie Coleman
Mae Jemison
Houdini
Colin Defries
Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to the USAF, the Air Force Research Lab, Embryriddle, RAF/IWM, SDASM, Flugkerl2, BAC, NASA, Museums Victoria,
