Vintage Aircraft

[Bob Michaels]

Loving this thread as it brings back nostalgia and many old memories.

WPB's photo of his grandparents and their Piper PA-22 Tri-Pacer is one as we had one of those in the early '60's. I have a lot of hours flying one of those and made my first parachute jumps out of ours. PITA to get out of the back seat without being able to put your foot on the ground. My first jump it took me so long to climb out that we had flown over the airport and I landed in the top of a big pine tree, never touching the ground.

Photos of the old AT-6 trainer reminds me of us using one as a jump plane when Av gas was cheap. We would cram 2-3 jumpers in the back seat and all climb out on the wing together. More than once, someone fell off early.

And the DC-3s. Also a popular jump plane. Only 28 seats but you could put 35 jumpers in one with people standing in the isle like a bus. We made an "unscheduled landing" in a sugar cane field in one when we lost an engine at an altitude too low to jump and it was too overloaded to fly on one engine. A friend owned one but ended up losing it to the Drug Enforcement Agency and got to spend a few years as an involuntary guest in Federal facilities due to hauling the wrong cargo.

Those fun aviation days are long gone now due to government regulation and my old age.

Where is Don Parsons who used to post here? He kept up flying and was an old airplane buff.

 

[mconnealy]

New Age Piloting


cybernauts by Mike Connealy, on Flickr


drone pilot by Mike Connealy, on Flickr


at the drone races by Mike Connealy, on Flickr
Albuquerque Balloon Museum - Leica IIIa

 

[mconnealy]

Back on topic, an AT-6 in Albuquerque.


AT-6 by Mike Connealy, on Flickr
Olympus 35RC

I always took advantage of local air shows around Las Cruces and later in Albuquerque to photograph aircraft, old and new. The big yearly shows at Kirtland stopped for quite a time after 9/11, then started again, and are now suspended due to the virus. The Collings Foundation used to make regular visits to New Mexico, but it has been quite a while since I saw any of those planes.

When I was a kid toward the end of WWII, flight was still something of a novel and vicarious experience for most people. I recall that my whole family would run outside when we heard a plane overhead and everyone took great satisfaction in identifying the aircraft. That was due in part to the Army giving my uncle a job as a ferry pilot after he recovered from being shot down in Sicily. He flew for a while from bases in the Northwest and sometimes had the opportunity to fly over our house and waggle his wings at us in P-38s and Black Widows.

 

[Retrotech68]

Moldova international airport. Not sure which plane this is. December 2010. Bessa R3M - CV Classic Heliar 2/50 - Kodakcolor 200 ISO.

That is a Tupolev Tu-134, a Soviet-made, twin-engined jet airliner. It was widely used, being the most produced jet airliner of its class (twin-engined, narrow bodied airliner). The early versions, such as the one you photographed, had a glazed nose for the navigator, inherited from their military ancestor, the Tu-16 bomber, and the Tu-134 immediate predecessors, the Tu-104 and Tu-124 airliners.

 

[David Hughes]

Seeing the Ford Tri-Motor reminded me of a flight we had in a DH Rapide years ago; it was the 1930's version of the executive jet. And here's one:-

It wasn't the one we flew in as we'd just arrived and were wandering around without a camera when they announced that there were just two seats left. We rushed over, paid our money and then had to be weighed. Then they opened the cabin door and asked the heaviest two to get in and sit at the back, then the next heaviest and so on. It seems it could over balance and crunch the air screws if it was loaded from the front seats. As it turned out we were the lightest and so I sat behind the pilot and my wife on the other side of the aisle but a little further back so the pilot could get into his seat...


Regards, David

 

[mconnealy]

Inside the Tin Goose
Olympus Infinity Stylus (mju)

Trimotor Cockpit

Three crew and eight or nine passengers

 

[ASA 32]

B24J
by ASA 32, on Flickr

View from B24J Nose Turret position, Weekapaug bombing run.

 

[mconnealy]

At the Nuclear Museum in Albuquerque (recently reopened)

nuclear museum by Mike Connealy, on Flickr
Vivitar Ultra Wide & Slim


jet by Mike Connealy, on Flickr
Argus C3

 

[Doug]

Grumman Albatross sea / air rescue. Pima Air & Space Museum, Tucson, AZ.

Pentax K-1, 1.8/77mm SMCPentax

 

[Doug]

Columbia XJL-1 -- Amphibian failure, only three built. Pima Air & Space Museum, Tucson, AZ.

Pentax K-1, 1.8/77mm SMCPentax

 

[mconnealy]

Cessna 195 by Mike Connealy, on Flickr
Double Eagle Airport, Albuquerque
Kamera Werkstatten Patent Etui, Rollex roll film back, 12cm f-4.5 Tessar lens, Tri-X, Rodinal 1:50

 

[madNbad]

Digging through some old negatives and found this SPAD from the 1975 New Hope, Pennsylvania Auto Show. Nikon Ftn, Nikkor 24 2.8, Tri-X, D76


SPAD, 1975 New Hope Auto Show

Check out the bellbottoms.

 

[02Pilot]

Digging through some old negatives and found this SPAD from the 1975 New Hope, Pennsylvania Auto Show. Nikon Ftn, Nikkor 24 2.8, Tri-X, D76
SPAD, 1975 New Hope Auto Show

Check out the bellbottoms.

Actually, I think that's a Nieuport. This is a SPAD:

 

[02Pilot]

 

[02Pilot]

 

[mconnealy]

Constellation by Mike Connealy, on Flickr
pinhole

 

[KoNickon]

Digging through some old negatives and found this SPAD from the 1975 New Hope, Pennsylvania Auto Show. Nikon Ftn, Nikkor 24 2.8, Tri-X, D76


SPAD, 1975 New Hope Auto Show

Check out the bellbottoms.

Right, a Nieuport 17 I think -- done up in Charles Nungesser's personal insignia. He disappeared along with a fellow crew member, Coli, in an attempt to fly across the Atlantic from east to west.

 

[madNbad]

Thanks for the clarification. It has been forty five years since I took the photo.

 

[Doug]

Chance-Vought F4U Corsair is recognizable due to the double dihedral of the wings. From the first prototype delivery to the U.S. Navy in 1940, to final delivery in 1953 to the French, 12,571 F4U Corsairs were manufactured, in 16 separate models, in the longest production run of any piston-engined fighter in U.S. history (1942–53). For a couple of years carrier landing problems meant use was restricted to land-based fields by the US Marines (as in the Solomon Islands by the Marine’s Black Sheep Squadron). Once the carrier landing issues had been tackled, it quickly became the most capable carrier-based fighter-bomber of World War II. The air inlets in the center anhedral wing sections are for the oil coolers and supercharger inlets. Pima Air & Space Museum, Tucson, AZ.

Pentax K-1, 1.8/77mm SMCPentax

 

[KoNickon]

A Connecticut product -- built in CT (Stratford) with a Pratt & Whitney engine (East Hartford) and Hamilton-Standard propeller (Windsor Locks). The prop was the largest fitted to any aircraft of the war; meant to take full advantage of the engine's power. The shape of the wings gave additional ground clearance for the propeller, as well as making for a strong joining of the wing and fuselage at a 90 degree angle.

Maybe the best fighter aircraft of WW II, and its lengthy service career is an indication of the excellence of the design and its ability to accept ever more powerful Pratt engines. I gather it was a bear to learn to fly, though!

Thanks for the picture.