Wednesday, May 13, 2020

Bell, Fixed and Fling...


Before we dive into today's topic, which is the Bell Aircraft Corporation which, while no longer operating under that name, still exists as Bell Textron Incorporated, I want to mention helicopters. The former built fixed wing aircraft up until 1960, the latter builds helicopters, known also as rotary wing aircraft (also known as "fling wings"). To the Army (the Air Force too I suppose, we have them, Hell, everyone has them) they are choppers, to the Navy they are helos. To Arnold Schwarzenegger, they are "choppas," to wit -



Anyhoo, this all started when someone (it might have been Tuna) asked me if the P-39 (which I posted about here) was built by the same folks who built the ubiquitous Huey, the UH-1 Iroquois, ya know this bird -

UH-1Ds airlift members of the 2nd Battalion, 14th Infantry Regiment from the Filhol Rubber Plantation area to a staging area in 1966.

The short answer is "sort of."
The Bell Aircraft Corporation was an aircraft manufacturer of the United States, a builder of several types of fighter aircraft for World War II but most famous for the Bell X-1, the first supersonic aircraft, and for the development and production of many important civilian and military helicopters. Bell also developed the Reaction Control System for the Mercury Spacecraft, North American X-15, and Bell Rocket Belt. (Source)
Note the tense on that sentence (I underlined it for you), was, as in not anymore, as in "it's an ex-aircraft manufacturer," pining for the fjords as it were. However,
Textron purchased Bell Aerospace in 1960. Bell Aerospace was composed of three divisions of Bell Aircraft Corporation, including its helicopter division, which had become its only division still producing complete aircraft. The helicopter division was renamed Bell Helicopter Company and in a few years, with the success of the UH-1 Huey during the Vietnam War, it had established itself as the largest division of Textron. In January 1976, Textron changed the division's name to Bell Helicopter Textron. (Source)
The most famous fixed wing aircraft, based on how many people know about it, is that X-1 mentioned above. This bird -

Glamorous Glennis Herself!
Currently in the Smithsonian with another Bell product. (Which I'll get to in a minute.) Last time I saw her was in January of '15, when I snapped that photo.

Take careful note of how Chuck Yeager gets into the X-1 in the following clip. Bear in mind, they're at altitude!



The other Bell product in the same space as the X-1? This bird -

That's the Bell XP-59A Airacomet,
one of only six in existence!
The Airacomet was the first American jet fighter aircraft, the USAAF were not impressed with it's performance and canceled the project when less than half of them had been built. Word on the street is that the Planes of Fame Air Museum in Chino, CA is restoring an Airacomet to flying condition. Won't that be cool? (It will be the only airworthy Airacomet when completed. They also have a flyable P-39 Airacobra!)



These days Bell makes helicopters both civilian and military, one of my favorite "choppas" is this one -



Bell has made a lot of aircraft, both fixed wing and rotary wing, over the years. Their helicopters have had a significant impact in wartime, particularly Vietnam.

Bell logos, then (left) and now.

I suppose your wondering about that aircraft in the opening photo, an odd looking duck innit?
The Bell YFM-1 Airacuda was an American heavy fighter aircraft, developed by the Bell Aircraft Corporation during the mid-1930s. It was the first military aircraft produced by Bell. Originally designated the Bell Model 1, the Airacuda first flew on 1 September 1937. The Airacuda was marked by bold design advances and considerable flaws that eventually grounded the aircraft.
The Airacuda was Bell Aircraft's answer for a "bomber destroyer" aircraft. Although it did see limited production, and one fully operational squadron was eventually formed, only one prototype and 12 production models were ultimately built, in three slightly different versions. (Source)
The "bomber destroyer" was a "thing" way back in the day. The idea was to have heavily armed fighters which would be used to attack and destroy enemy bombers. Germany's Bf-110, Me-210, and Me-410 were all examples of this concept. As they were larger they could carry heavier armament than their single engine counterparts.
The United States Army Air Corps considered powerfully armed destroyers, like the Bell YFM-1 Airacuda prototype, to counter a potential attack of high-performance bombers. The Lockheed P-38 Lightning and Bell P-39 Airacobra were also initially specified to carry very heavy armament based on a central 37 mm cannon, specified as interceptor aircraft working in the anti-bomber role. Great Britain, by contrast, favored specialized "turret fighters", such as the Boulton Paul Defiant, which mounted heavy armament in a rotating turret. The P-38, a small, single-crewed example of the bomber destroyer type, was eventually outfitted with a 20 mm cannon and four .50-caliber machine guns in a central nacelle instead of a heavier cannon; it proved itself a highly competent fighter aircraft in the early phase of World War II. (Source)
The Airacuda was a rather odd duck in that it was powered by two "pusher" engines, that is, the propeller was behind the engine and it would push the aircraft through the air. That led to problems with the engines overheating on the ground as the air flow over the engine from the more standard tractor engine (pulls the aircraft through the air) helped to cool the engine. So they would tow the aircraft to the runway, then the pilot would start the engines. Not very practical.

Now those engine nacelles were also used to carry a gunner. No, seriously. Each nacelle had a 37 mm cannon mounted, the guy inside was intended mostly to keep the cannon loaded, each nacelle could carry a hundred 37 mm rounds. There were a few problems with the concept:
  1. The cannons were not very reliable and tended to jam, a lot.
  2. The gunner's compartment would fill with smoke from the cannon, making it hard to not only load the cannon, but also to breathe.
  3. In the event of having to abandon the aircraft, there really wasn't anywhere the gunner could go, what with the propeller being behind him.
The company did experiment with explosive bolts (rather like those on Navy command pins) which would blow the propellor off in the event the gunners had to unass the aircraft in the air. As you might imagine, not a great solution.
"Lieutenant, we seem to be losing airspeed."
"Uh yes sir, I activated the explosive bolts on the propellers. Accidentally, of course."
"Oh damn, guess we'd better jump."
Wouldn't fill me with confidence, not at all.



As to what the narrator said about the Airacuda? No, just no. The aircraft was slower than most of the bombers of that time frame. What's more, it had all the maneuverability of a street car.

It is kinda neat looking though. You can read more about her here.

The Airacuda
(Source)



90 comments:

  1. Did they ever build a Twincobra? I'm thinking of combining two P-39s or two P-63s in the same manner as the North American F-82 Twin Mustang.
    And I'm a bit afraid to check out if someone tried it.

    My memory kept nudging me about pusher propeller fighter aircraft and Germany popped into mind. I was thinking of the Dornier Arrow.
    The Arrow is mentioned in this blog post.
    https://oldafsarge.blogspot.com/2019/11/mos-eisley-airport.html

    Good reading and watching.

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    1. Not to my knowledge John. The twin Mustang was designed as an escort for the B-29 raids over Japan. It had a much longer range than the P-51 and the distances in the Pacific were daunting. As the US didn't really use the P-39 (or the -63) all that much, there would have been no meed for a really long range version of that aircraft. It would look kinda neat though, wouldn't it?

      Ah yes, the Dornier Pfeil, that was actually a Dr Doolittle sort of plane (remember the pushmi pullyu?), a prop in the back (pusher) and a prop in the front (tractor). Very cool looking, the only one in existence is at Udvar-Hazy, both juvat and I have snapped photos of that one.

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    2. It is a good looking airplane, for sure.

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    3. Bigger than I expected as well!

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  2. ...Sad that none of the YFMs survived - apparently they knocked around Langley until just after the US entered the war, when those survivors that could still get into the air were transferred to Chanute Field (which must have been the longest flights those beasts ever made). There they became ground trainers, and under the gentle attentions of tens of thousands of student maintainers only lasted a few months - that right there tells me that the YFMs weren't so much service test aircraft as a series of custom hand-built prototypes. They were apparently all gone by the end of 1942...but wouldn't it have been wonderful to see just one at the NMUSAF or NASM?

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    1. I know, they are such interesting looking aircraft.

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  3. I've watched that footage of Chuck manning the X-1 hundreds of times and only just noticed that it must have been staged for the cameras.

    Where's his oxygen bottle?

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    1. An alert reader. Good eye Angus!

      Yes, where indeed?

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    2. Not only no O2, but on the actual flight, he had to have help to get into the cockpit. He had busted a rib or ribs a day or two before the flight falling off a horse and knew if he made that fact known he'd be grounded. He wasn't about to miss the opportunity of a test pilot's lifetime! So his pal helped him in the cockpit, and he then used a short section of broom handle to reach over a dog the hatch closed since he couldn't do so without the help of the stick. At least that's the story I've read several times.

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    3. Getting in was the easy part. Getting out by yourself would be....problematic. But desperate times call for desperate measures and fear of dying can be a great motivator.

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    4. Tom - I'll have to dig further into this. At a high enough altitude oxygen is needed, I doubt even the great Yeager could hold his breath that long. As to needing help to get into the cockpit, pretty tight fit from that video, not sure how anyone could help. But like I said, further digging is required.

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    5. juvat - You've seen the X-1, not sure getting out was even an option. But fear of one's imminent demise is indeed a great motivator!

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    6. Supposedly you just yanked the handle, the door fell off into the slipstream, and you rolled out. Supposedly.

      Of course, let's see... Door flies off, whacks wing, plane goes into uncontrollable pitch/roll/yaw maneuver, spits you out... into the slipstream where you whack the wing...

      Yeah, nooooooo......

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    7. And, of course, with the biggest fear being the rockets and/or fuel would blow up, all the parachute really served as is a transportable butt-pad. Because if the propellant blew before or during the normal ignition process (either in the tank or at the nozzle) all that would be left would be a smear of smutz and a chaff cloud.

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    8. So, well, the parachute was kinda like that sub escape hatch thingy, when the sub is at 1,000' below. Yeah, more a "Look, Ma, we can escape..." than reality.

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    9. No doubt it's to make someone feel good as opposed to actually working.

      How very modern.

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    10. Parachutes make you feel like you can escape anything except blowing up. Martin-Baker told us that about the Phantom and that's how we felt in the Deuce. I'm not so sure now. Hmmm.

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    11. Better to have it than not I would suspect. Even if the odds of survival ain't so hot. No parachute would seem to approach a 0% chance of survival though, right?

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    12. Martin-Baker was the first of the actually reliable seats. Not quite zero/zero, but approaching it. Aces II were advertised as zero/zero. Meaning you could safely eject if you were stationary on the ground (it helped immensely if you were out of the hanger). According to the graphs in the Dash-1 you could safely eject, if you were in level flight inverted 100' above the ground. I wonder how they figured that out. But, if you were in a 60 degree dive at 500K, you needed to be about 10K above the ground to make it. IIRC. That would also probably hurt...a lot! But, at least in my case, I've got exactly the same amount of takeoffs and landings in every airplane I flew. So....I've got that going for me. Which is nice."

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  4. The novelty of riding in a helicopter wears off about 5 minutes into the flight. I spent too many hours in them. That goes for C-130's as well.

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    1. Helicopters, "10,000 Spare Parts Flying in Close Formation" or something to that effect. Never flown in one, but I want to, someday.

      As to C-130s, rather like sitting in a really noisy basement where first you've got unpleasantly hot air blowing down on you, then unpleasantly cold air, off and on throughout the flight. With the difference though that the basement can attempt to tie the low altitude record. Flown on a number of them though and liked the aircraft, even though the view was kinda crappy from the cheap seats.

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    2. I disagree about the novelty of riding in egg beaters.

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    3. Does being terrified ever get old?

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    4. Heard this from an Army CWO helo pilot while I was stationed in West Germany-- "Helicopter's don't fly. They thrash".

      We are about a 15 minute drive from Arlington Municipal Airport, where Bell has a facility. There have been several days when we had multiple low level (under 1000 ft.) passes by one or more Osprey's.

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    5. Saw two of 'em in formation once upon a time, not a mile to the east of my position and rather low. Pretty awesome sight!

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    6. The only terror I suffered at a helo was a homebuilt Scorpion. The builder and pilot was a great guy and a great pilot. We were tearing along below treetops in east OK, following the roads at 100mph. When I got out, my legs were wobbly and most of the seat cushion was missing.

      I went back to visit about a year later, and he had just been flying. He asked if I wanted to go up, and I declined. He killed it and the blades went thwop, thwoop, thwooop, and they quit spinning. He said the rotor clutch seized up. We looked at each other with wide eyes. I gave back what was left of the cushion right then...

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    7. That's enough terror for me right there.

      I'll bet that seat cushion was somewhat the worse for wear!

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  5. Kind of a shame, because "Airacuda" is a much punnier (therefore better) name than "Airacobra" or "Airacomet."

    Sort of like how I wish the XP-55 Ascender had taken off (heh).

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    1. Took me a second but...

      Bwaaaaaahaaaaaahaaaaaa. Now I get it.

      Good one a bear.

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  6. My uncle worked for Bell-Textron. I found out when I was but a youth, and asked if he would be able to send me one of every part for a Jet Ranger. I rarely saw him smile, but he did at that question. My dad told me my paternal grandpa only smiled twice he could remember. And one of those times, my dad got beat. He passed on 10 years before I arrived...

    When I was a radio secret agent for my current employer, I got to rent a few helicopters to service radio relays out west. One was a Bell Jet Ranger in southern Montana. As we were coming in to land on this cool deck above the tree line, 2 women were laying on there sunning. We were about 2000 feet above the top of the ski lift. The wash blew their clothes all over, and the pilot just hovered as they ran all over gathering their stuff. They were both about 70, tan, and..... saggy. The local Motorola guy said, "I've never seen anything like that before, must be because of you. You're just Lucky." So that was my name every time I came by to visit. "Hey Mac, it's Lucky, how ya been??"

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  7. I kind of like the Airacuda, it's got that classic late-30s Art Deco styling. Seems like it's be right at home weaving in and out among zeppelin traffic in some alt-history dieselpunk film.

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  8. here's one source for the broken ribs part of the story I mentioned above

    https://www.thevintagenews.com/2016/09/20/chuck-yeager-first-person-break-sound-barrier-two-broken-ribs/

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    1. I knew about the broken ribs. Classic Yeager though, broke them in a fall from a horse. Probably got bucked off, I can't imagine Chuck Yeager falling off of anything.

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  9. While in the Army had several hours of bootleg instruction in a Bell H-13. Was never able to master hovering so gave up on becoming a rotary pilot. My instructor was a poor shot with a rifle (had a bad flinch) and traded me rides for shooting lessons. That worked out better for him; he eventually qualified as Expert with a M-14.

    The maintenance men said Bell products were much easier to fix and maintain then the Sikorskys.

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    1. Interesting tidbit about the maintenance aspect. We old maintainers like hearing such stories.

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    2. WSF, you ain't alone. In my one orientation ride in an OH-1, I couldn't get that thing to hover in the slightest. I seem to remember that the left and right hands had reversed duty than in fixed wing, as in right did power and left did direction or something like that. Couldn't overcome the change. It was an interesting flight other than that, however.

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    3. Helos, they ain't natural! (Though I'm sure my rotorhead friends would disagree!)

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  10. Outstanding work. Superlative, even.

    Now, if you could elaborate on this: "did experiment with explosive bolts (rather like those on Navy command pins)", it would be even more illuminating.

    One could be persuaded to recant The Saga of The Extinguishers, 2.5Kg, DryChem.

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    1. The only reference I saw to the explosive bolts was just that, they tried it. I'll have to dig deeper.

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  11. Not to quibble, Sarge, but in the second sentence of the paragraph under the photo of the XP-59, did you get your "aira's" mixed up?
    "Word on the street is that the Planes of Fame Air Museum in Chico, CA is restoring an Airacobra to flying condition. Won't that be cool? (It will be the only airworthy Airacomet when completed. They also have a flyable P-39 Airacobra!)

    220, 221...Whatever works! ;-)

    Still recovering from internet withdrawal, our San Angelo based internet provider went off line yesterday morning and didn't come back til sometime last night/this morning. I'm gonna reevaluate some redundancy around here.

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    1. D'oh! Fixed it. I noticed yesterday that I kept referring to "Airacobra" and not "Airacomet". Fixed all of those save one, which you found. The eye of the fighter people is still keen I see. (I noticed this morning that the very first sentence was left hanging, so I fixed that too.)

      Ya gotta love it when your IP goes down, no? In fact just the opposite. It happens here but very infrequently and usually after a big storm which kills power so the Internet ain't really necessary. Unless one has a good smart phone, which I do. I remember a blizzard some years back where we lost power for three days. I kept my cell phone (and my sanity) alive by sitting in my car, running the engine, charging the phone, surfing the net. It's a rare thing, rare enough where I'm not all that keen about getting a generator (the cost mostly, I am cheap.)

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    2. The cast mark of a "salty" Marine was knowing where not to sit in a CH 46 so as to avoid the inevitable hydraulic leaks. Even the utility uniform didn't suffer the red stains well.

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    3. I have a certain familiarity with that red hydraulic fluid. Do you know what it means when a Phrog isn't leaking hydraulic fluid? Means you're out of hydraulic fluid!

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    4. Once again I salute you OAFS, you not only know the lingo, you also know the joke,

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    5. Helps to have friends in low places! 😉

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  12. Hey AFSarge;

    Excellent Post, I loved those Movietone articles, straight up propaganda, back in the day, LOL..I'm pretty good good recognizing airplanes especially from WWII, but what were those single engine planes at the end of the video? the cockpit was so far back it made the corsair cockpit look "forward"

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    1. Good question, I'll have to look that up. Was going to, forgot. The hazards of age!

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    2. The aircraft at the end look to be Curtiss YP-37s, if my eyeball comparisons to the pictures of that aircraft on Wikipedia are correct.

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    3. Bingo, Aaron's got bingo!

      That's exactly what those were. Thanks!

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    4. Ah, the evolutionary step between the Curtiss P-36 and the Curtiss P-40.

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    5. Expect a post in the next few days on that series of aircraft.

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    6. This is what happens when a male Hawk loves a female GeeBee very much...

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  13. I was part of a letter-bomb task force (I was the lowly scribe, walking dictation unit, analyzer of mumblers) wherein a postage stamp of a 'Huge Jet Bomber Aircraft, maybe something German' was used to post said letter-bomb.

    And me being me...

    I spoke up, and stated the stamp was celebrating the US breaking the sound barrier, purposely, using the Bell X-1, a rocket powered plane, painted orange, and was only about 30 feet long. You know, Chuck Yeager flew it. In the movie "The Right Stuff."

    I think lead balloons would have risen quicker than the temperature in the room after some dumb 'secretary' told a bunch of college-trained secret agents(there were these two guys who nobody acknowledged, seriously,) Fibbies (FBI, a derogatory term, very derogatory,) Postal Inspectors (who were called Postal Richards (fill in short nickname yourself) behind their backs,) Secret Service (ever see the epitomy of bland as seen in human form?,) and state, county and local law enforcement personnel.

    Fortunately one of the unacknowledged guys who wore sunglasses inside laughed, eventually, and said "The fat kid's right." (Yes, I was fat. Was at least as old as half the room, many were younger.)

    That task force almost got me fired, twice. One was this incident, apparently being right wasn't good enough for them. The other incident was asking who the chairman was. This was right before all the silly de-genderization bullscat, but for some reason the female Captain I worked under turned all crazy and read me the PC riot act. So, instead, I asked who the chair was, and I managed not to ask, "Thomasville, or Sears?"

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    1. People who inflict PC equine excrement on others should be locked away someplace. They're the precise reason rational humans know it's all part of a quota, balance the numbers thing. One gains a position through merit or favoritism. Guess how the captain got the job.

      As to the FBI, most people I know call them "Feebs," as in "feeble." Postal Richards, I like that.

      "Huge Jet Bomber Aircraft, maybe something German," obviously the product of a progressive indoctrination, er, education. No, I was right the first time.

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  14. As to the Destroyer, well, interesting concept, baaaaaad execution. Kinda like that prototype fighter with the aim-able nose so you could shoot off-axis at your enemy. Yeah...

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    1. So many great ideas, so many horrible implementations. Why do I smell bad management somewhere in there?

      Aim-able nose? Do tell, inquiring minds want to know.

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    2. The Vultee XP-54 prototype. A Pusher aircraft with twin booms leading to the tail. Tricycle landing gear. Pressurized cockpit. Nose with twin 37mm cannon steerable 3 degrees side to side, 6 degrees up and down.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vultee_XP-54

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    3. Sufficiently odd looking that I will probably include that in a post at some point in time. The nickname of that beast, The Swoose Goose led me to another story which led me to learn that Udvar-Hazy will be getting a B-17 at some point in the future. I wonder where they'll put it...

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  15. Mote that while Army moved to the famous AH-64 Apache, marines still swear by their "perfected Cobra" AH-1W (they risk running out of alphabet if they keep making new models...)

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    1. Bell has gone one better, look up the Bell AH-1Z Viper. Looks like a Cobra and is based on that design. Of course, the Marines call it the "Zulu Cobra."

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    2. The Cobra also takes up less space on a ship than an Apache, and the Marine versions have already been 'marinized' or 'marinated' or, dang it, already prepped for a humid salt-water environment. The Apache? Not so much.

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    3. Excellent point, though I'm sure some enterprising defense contractor could navalize the Apache for so many billions that it would make us all cry.

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    4. So Cobras now run full alphabet A-Z. Sw33t...

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  16. I was sort of stunned when the Warrant Officer IP talked about the armament. 2.75 FFARs. Holy Cow! How many of those things did they make? I would have thought something more sophisticated would be hung on those pylons.
    The mighty folding fin aerial rocket was one of the "fun" loads we had in SEA, except at night. Oh Lord. Did I just think that there were any "fun" loads to shoot at those poor guys repairing the bamboo bridges on the trail?
    Shot them in the Deuce, as well. And of course they were in the drop down tray of the F-86.
    I have a chromed one in California somewhere.

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    1. Yup, those suckers have been around for a LONG TIME.

      So how long did it take to recover one's night vision after lighting those off?

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    2. Sometimes too long! Somebody once got the bright (get it?) idea to do night strafe in the F-4E in the RDF Red Flag. Did that once. Learned a few things in that one burst. One, the gun flash is bright. Two, Tracers work both ways. Three, Those rounds go elsewhere after hitting the target. Squadron commander put the squash on that tactic pretty quickly.

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    3. Add that to the list of shoe clerk ideas gone wrong!

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    4. With the evolution of night vision, tracers are no longer needed, except as a way of scaring the bejeebus out of those on the receiving team.

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    5. Ahh, Beans, what about Fighters standing alert? Do they download 20MM at sunset? Tracers are particularly useful in adjusting fire during the day. One can see where bullets are actually going vs where the radar/sight say they are going. I'd rather do without the gun at night than without the tracers in the day. Missiles don't need no stinkin' light to see where they're going.

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    6. Beans - Even with night vision you can't see where your rounds are going can you?

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    7. juvat - Missiles do it in the dark!

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    8. My flight commander and drinking instructor, Jesse Locke, tried to get us to close one eye just before pickle. It sort of worked. The pod of rockets would almost immediately go into the light of the flares. You could see where they hit more or less if you pressed the attack or on pull-out in the mirrors. Night vision was usually already compromised by the flares which lit the place up better than a sunny day.
      That's the story I keep wanting to write. Ft. Irwin in the Mojave, F4s, and motor homes.

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    9. I forgot to say that you had to immediately go on instruments to recover. Unusual attitude training for real! You could tell the newer guys because they would often "dip down into" the illuminated part of the area. One could easily pick them up. That was when we still had the afterburner igniters, so pretty much everyone was visible climbing out. Someone finally invented and installed some little piece of metal that shielded the flame from view. We still had our smoke though.

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  17. Thanks for the history lesson. That Aircuda is an interested looking aircraft. Makes sense that we'd want a fighter/bomber of sorts, just poorly executed. Bell X-1? Of course the USAF would develop an elevator for the cockpit entrance!

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    1. Ah yes, elevators to enter the cockpit! Just you wait! There's more to come here on "Weird Aircraft Week."

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  18. The gov't doesn't have enough money to get me into a nacelle on an Airacuda and fly into combat, or even a cloud.

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  19. (Don McCollor)...another weird (US) helo was the Karmen HH-43 Husky with side by side counterrotating intermeshing rotors (and no tail rotor). Apparently it was extremely stable, very easy to fly, and just perfect for hovering...

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    1. Wouldn't want to have transmission problems I'll bet!

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    2. (Don McCollor)...have always wondered what happens when a fore-and-aft helo like the CH47 Chinook lost power on one of the rotors...

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    3. Pretty sure it will stop flying!

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    4. (Don McCpllor)...there is an old joke told about NWA when the service was pretty bad...the Captain gives announcement to the passengers "We have just lost all our engines and flight controls. We will to be on the ground shortly...Thank you for flying NWA"...

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  20. Sarge/

    As long as your're at it why not spotlight the Bell X-5 and the Douglas X-3 Stiletto?

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    1. Not a bad idea.

      There are probably enough experimental aircraft to cover a few posts. The X-5 looks almost normal. The X-3 though, I can see where it got it's name!

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Can't be nice, go somewhere else...

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