Cool old airplane movie

[John A]

Utube video on bombers from the 1950’s  https://youtu.be/zwVuM_DMhJ8

[LowRyter]

link??

[John A]

Oops, its there now 

[bad Chad]

Scary!

[Testarossa]

Some of us grew up in that era and remember Civil Defense drills, and Steve Canyon on TV.  At age 7 all I ever wanted was to pilot a jet fighter, specifically an F86.

[brider]

Some cool old aircraft, but amazing how our defense industry was gearing up for using tactical nukes, seemingly as a substitute for conventional bombs.

[Penderic]

I wanted to post this incredible instruction film on ship catapult launching a WWII folding British naval airplane for the amusement of my airplane friends here.

I think you'll enjoy a lot of it! It is so orchestrated, so complicated .....

The comment section is hilarious too!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dmNyts7f1w

On open seas on a moving ship yet, got to have a lot of nerves to be so close to all that moving machinery .... looks so DANGEROUS! (especially the launch of the plane over the heads of the guys standing at attention at the end of the catapult track! Yikes!

[Rough Edge racing]

Some cool old aircraft, but amazing how our defense industry was gearing up for using tactical nukes, seemingly as a substitute for conventional bombs.

  General Curtiss Lemay was in charge of Air Command...If yiu have a war you want him in charge....

   At 8 years old in 1955 I flew from Newark NJ to Florida with my father on a businees trip...The plane was probably a DC6....Climbing to altitude took longer than modern jets...We sat over the wing,the cowling flaps were open, I could see the blue flame from the red hot exhaust stacks ...One at cruising altitude the pilate with cigarette in hand strolled down the isle making causal talk to the passengers...

[John A]

I wanted to post this incredible instruction film on ship catapult launching a WWII folding British naval airplane for the amusement of my airplane friends here.
 







That is a good one,  I’d like to see it under EWO conditions in real time. Thanks :thumb

[Sheepdog]

The outfit that managed that footage is my old employer: USDOE. I believe that this film is one that was declassified in the nineties. I thought it was interesting that the bombs were categorized by the diameter of the physics package. The US nuclear program was so new that numbers were not yet assigned to the various weapons.

[Testarossa]

I think my first airplane flight was in 1954, in a DC-6 from New York LaGuardia to Chicago Midway -- I was 5. I remember the sharp smell of 100-octane fuel mixed with exhaust and the incredible sound of those engines starting up. In '57 my kid brother and I flew with my grandmother from Chicago to New York in a Capital Airlines Vickers Viscount, and the captain invited us up the cockpit. I was 8. The FO explained all the instruments and switches. We stayed there until after dusk and could see the lights of the city come up in the windscreen. We had to return to our seats as the descent began. I decided that one way or another I was going to become a pilot. But I wore thick glasses and someone told me I couldn't be an air force or commercial pilot . . .  The closest I got was flying the UAL 747 simulators at Stapleton.

[ozarquebus]

The loft delivery by the F84 is my favorite. The Oklahoma Air National Guard used to fly over my house at 500 feet on the knife edge in their F86 s all the time when I was a kid. This inspired countless kids to want to fly. Definitely against the rules to do that, now.

[geodoc]

If you like old flying movies, you'll love "China Clipper" with Humphrey Bogart from 1936:

https://youtu.be/ILa3z3wdcoo






.

[Rough Edge racing]

I think my first airplane flight was in 1954, in a DC-6 from New York LaGuardia to Chicago Midway -- I was 5. I remember the sharp smell of 100-octane fuel mixed with exhaust and the incredible sound of those engines starting up. In '57 my kid brother and I flew with my grandmother from Chicago to New York in a Capital Airlines Vickers Viscount, and the captain invited us up the cockpit. I was 8. The FO explained all the instruments and switches. We stayed there until after dusk and could see the lights of the city come up in the windscreen. We had to return to our seats as the descent began. I decided that one way or another I was going to become a pilot. But I wore thick glasses and someone told me I couldn't be an air force or commercial pilot . . .  The closest I got was flying the UAL 747 simulators at Stapleton.

   Those 4 piston engine airliners required a flight engineer to keep track of engine fuel mixure,boost pressure and a zillion other engine details etc... Some used turbo compound engines with an exhaust turbine adding about 300-500 HP to each engines...When all was correct, they were far more fuel effecient than the early jet airliners but with a maintenace penality...
   I was drafted in 1966 and sent out to Colorado from NJ...My first flight in a jet, a 727. It didn't have the off the line performance of a piston airliner but once in the air the climb to altitude was impressive. Landed in Denver  and then boarded onto a Frontier Airlines DC3 for the 70 mile ride to Ft Carson..What a ride that was ! The well worn stewardess handed out chewing gum to keep our ears from popping in the unpressurised plane.

[Penderic]

Ground speed report? Another version .... I like this version.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7EhdaPo5W8

 

[Chuck in Indiana]

Saw him live one time. Pretty good..

[Zoom Zoom]

Watched all these videos. I marveled at them all, but I have to say Penderic, the catapult sequence training video is simply amazing! You look at that and realize just how far we have come launching and recovering aircraft at sea. There was a lot of effort to launch and recover a single plane in those early days.

(I recall having seen the SR-71 video a long time ago. Yep, that's a good one!)

John Henry

[larrys]

Some cool old aircraft, but amazing how our defense industry was gearing up for using tactical nukes, seemingly as a substitute for conventional bombs.

I loaded live nukes on F111's overseas in the middle 70's. Nine birds, each with two, on a 15 minute scramble 24/7/365. We were so close...
Larry

[John A]

Ground speed report? Another version .... I like this version.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7EhdaPo5W8

 

I was stationed here for 4 1/2 years , '76 thru '82, if that's Beale AFB , sure looks like it. Crew chief on a KC 35Q in the 9th Strategic Recon. our primary mission was air refueling SR 71's. In the air they looked like rubber airplanes, flexing all over. Got some interesting trips overseas

[Tom]

Some cool vid posts.  Thanks.

[normzone]

  General Curtiss Lemay was in charge of Air Command...If yiu have a war you want him in charge....

I do not want this to be perceived as a political post ... but Lemay was the man for the times - and that was long ago. Me? I'm a Norman Schwarzkopf fan, and not just because of the name.

That said, the next wise general will be different than both of them - it's the nature of the (horrible) game.

Edit: "Leadership is a potent combination of strategy and character. But if you must be without one, be without the strategy." Norman Schwarzkopf