The Great, Constantly Changing Picture Gallery, Troisième partie: la vengeance!

[Llarry]

VFs -31 and -213 return from the last deployment in 2006

 

[Llarry]

Vought and Grumman were developing new torpedo bombers just before World War II started. Vought was slightly ahead on timing and used P&W R-2800 power for their design, while Grumman used the Wright R-2600 with a bit less power. But the F4U Corsair and the F6F Hellcat were coming, too, and BuAer wanted the two companies to concentrate on rapid production of fighters. Grumman built just under 2,000 TBF Avengers before turning production over to GM's Eastern Aircraft as the TBM and Eastern in turn produced almost 8,000 TBM Avengers before war's end. Vought was a bit ahead on design and testing of the F4U and turned over production of it's XTBU-1 design to a factory run by Consolidated at a Mack truck factory in Allentown PA. Disaster ensued as it took the factory almost two years to turn out the first Consolidated TBY-2 Sea Wolf torpedo bomber. In the end, only 180 TBY-2s were built and they only equipped a single squadron for a few months right at the end of the war. The paper superiority of the Vought design proved a mirage and the few TBYs were soon scrap, while the almost 10,000 TBF/TBM Avengers went on to serve the fleet in many roles (torpedo bomber, night attack, ASW, AEW, COD, etc.) for years.

 

[Llarry]

An early mockup of what was to become the Grumman F-14. Single vertical stabilizer and note the folding ventral fins aft.

 

[hlg6016]

Note the brown flight boots.

 

[Uncle Fester]

An early mockup of what was to become the Grumman F-14. Single vertical stabilizer and note the folding ventral fins aft.View attachment 40196

The F-14’s ‘Vark DNA is a lot more evident in those pics.

 

[DanMa1156]

There's a reason we don't like to do forecastle VERTREPs anymore.

Believe it or not, I did it several times to our cruiser on my last deployment. I think I had only done it one other time ever.

 

[pilot_throwaway]

Believe it or not, I did it several times to our cruiser on my last deployment. I think I had only done it one other time ever.

We had a crew bump the tailwheel the one time we got the chance to do it unfortunately but I know several CVN squadrons that have had recent opportunities as well.

 

[Llarry]

The Northrop T-38 has been flying for 65 years as of yesterday! Does this mean the users can get Medicare coverage for repairs? <g>

The photo is of the second prototype YT-38A.

 

[Llarry]

Fixer-upper C-130s for sale! Buy two get a third free! Call BR 5-49.

Photos of the AMARG at Davis-Monthan are always impressive.

 

[Llarry]

It turns out somebody did call. Coulson Aviation of Canada with a subsidiary in the USA bought five ex-RNoAF C-130Hs for firefighting. Although the aircraft may have come direct from Norway rather than via AMARG.

 

[Griz882]

It turns out somebody did call. Coulson Aviation of Canada with a subsidiary in the USA bought five ex-RNoAF C-130Hs for firefighting. Although the aircraft may have come direct from Norway rather than via AMARG.)
View attachment 40277

Nice, but did they get the A-7 (off to the left) in a package deal?

 

[hlg6016]

Fixer-upper C-130s for sale! Buy two get a third free! Call BR 5-49.View attachment 40275

Photos of the AMARG at Davis-Monthan are always impressive.

All those old girls where worked hard and have the airframe equivalent of 100k miles on them unfortunately.