by Nick Anderson | Jan 19, 2023 | Plane Tales
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The First World War battle of the Somme continues, to this day, to fascinate and appal in equal measures. Much has been written about the ground war the first day of which saw the greatest number of British casualties than had occurred before in the entire history of the British Army… 19,240 were dead and 38,230 injured. The fighting over a 16 mile front lasted almost 5 months, after which the Allied troops had advanced about 6 miles. The butchers bill of casualties was horrendous. The combined Commonwealth countries number reached nearly 60,000 but was dwarfed by the United Kingdom’s casualty number of over 350,000. The battle opened on the 1st of July 1916 with a massed explosion that ranks amongst the largest non nuclear explosions in history and was then considered the loudest human made sound to date, audible beyond London 160 miles away. It was witnessed by an 18 year old RFC pilot.
The mine under Hawthorn Ridge
Then the dust cleared and we saw the two white eyes of the craters
Going over the top
The la Boisselle mine crater now and then.
Pip’s landing
The Fokker Eindecker
Bristol Fighters
A dogfight
The battlefield
Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to British First World War Air Service Photo Section, Ernest Brooks, Henry Armytage Sanders, H. D. Girdwood, the RFC and the IWM.
by Nick Anderson | Jan 16, 2023 | Plane Tales
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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.
