by Nick Anderson | Jan 16, 2023 | Plane Tales
Podcast (pt): Download
Robin Olds was a hard drinking, hard working man who led from the front in a way that inspired his men to become a great fighting force. He only became frustrated when he saw mistakes being made by those above him who should have known better and he went out of his way to make his feelings known. He defined what it meant to be a fighter pilot, not only in the air but on the ground with the stunningly beautiful Hollywood actress, Ella Raines, the first of his 4 wives.
The court-martial of General William “Billy” Mitchell 1925
West Point students
A P-38 Lightning
A digital representation of SCAT II
A Bf109
Olds and his P51 Mustang SCAT VI
A P80 Shooting Star
The Gloster Meteor
An F86 Sabre of the 71st, Hat in the Ring Sqn
The F4 Phantom
Robin Olds completes his 100th combat mission
Robin Olds in Vietnam after his 4th Mig kill
Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to those images in the Public Domain, the Bundesarchive, the USAF, Digital Combat Simulator, Ruffneck88, USAF National Museum and RuthAS.
by Nick Anderson | Jan 16, 2023 | Plane Tales
Podcast (pt): Download
A recent news programme caught my eye when I realised it involved our great friends at the Farnborough Aviation Sciences Trust museum. It reminded me of the group of sadistic so-called doctors who populated the Institute of Aviation Medicine and tortured generations of unsuspecting and innocent RAF aircrew in machines such as the one the article featured, a centrifuge! This aforementioned device which resembles a vast witch’s ducking stool crossed with an iron maiden, first operated in 1955 but was decommissioned as recently as 2019 and has now received Grade 2 protection.
The Institute of Aviation Medicine
The Farnborough Centrifuge
The Cecil Hotel with it’s red and white ornate frontage
The august medical journal, the Lancet
Early versions of oxygen masks
An early mobile decompression chamber
Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to the RAF, FAST museum, The Library of Congress, those images within the Public Domain and the National Museum of Health & Medicine.
by Nick Anderson | Nov 28, 2022 | Plane Tales
Podcast (pt): Download
The story of my military flying career continues with the new challenge of flying the FA/18 Hornet round the beautiful skies of Australia.
The official crest of No 77 Sqn RAAF with its Grumpy Monkey
The 77 Sqn Mirages
The helmet fitting
An FA/18A cockpit
Sunset
The Head Up Display
The location of RAAF Williamtown
Firing the gun
Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to Nick Anderson and Google Earth.
by Nick Anderson | Nov 28, 2022 | Plane Tales
Podcast (pt): Download
Featured in a Scientific magazine which offered a first look inside the USAF’s new jet fighter, the F-89 Scorpion was to have an interesting history which involved the Battle of Palmdale and a top secret Canadian UFO!
A Scientific Magazine cutaway drawing
The Fly-off competitors
The Northrop F89 Scorpion
The 437th Fighter Interceptor Squadron
An F6F Hellcat red drone
Mighty Mouse rockets
1st Lt Moncla
The Canadian UFO
The official USAF report
Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to Scientific magazine, the USAF, USN, NASA, SDASM, RKO Pictures and those available through Fair Use and Public Domain.
by Nick Anderson | Aug 29, 2022 | Plane Tales
Podcast (pt): Download
Arguably one of the most talented and innovative aircraft developers of his time, John Knudsen Northrop had long sought an aircraft design that could start a revolution… a craft with minimum drag and a level of lift unachievable in any other form. Jack, as John Northrop was usually known, pursued his dream of building a pure flying wing strategic bomber that would exceed the capabilities of anything else his less imaginative competitors were designing.
The gliders of Otto Lilienthal
The Armstrong Whitworth AW-52
The Avion/Northrop Experimental No1 pusher
The remains of a Horton flying wing
The Northrop N1M
Nortons XB35
The XP-79 fighter
The XB-49
The YB-35s being broken up at the cancelation of the project
The final successful B-2 Spirit
Images shown under Creative Commons licence with thanks to the USAF, the Library of Congress, Northrop, National Museum of the Air Force, Michael.katzmann, the IWM, Sanjay Acharya, the National Archive and NASA.
by Nick Anderson | Aug 29, 2022 | Plane Tales
Podcast (pt): Download
It was an unpopular aircraft because, well… a lot of aircrew were superstitious. They were renown for carrying lucky charms, doing things a certain way and never daring to change the habit because it worked for them last time. Their machine was a B17 nicknamed Old 666 taken from the last 3 digits of its tail number 41-2666 and they were the Eager Beavers!
Old 666
The Martin B-26 Marauder
The B-17 bombing Japanese shipping North of Australia
The B-17’s waist guns
The route for their recce sortie over Bougainville
The Japanese Zero
A Zero passes close aboard
The damage to Old 666
The brave crew fight the Zeros off
Jay Zeamer receives his Medal of Honor
Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to the USAAF, Mark Wagner, USAF, USAAC, Gary Fortington, US National Archives and Records Administration, SDASM, Steve Jurvetson and those in the Public Domain or orphaned.
