Photo of the week
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This weekends photo.
And a closeup of a C-47's 1,200 horsepower radial engine and its three-blade variable-pitch propeller,taken at Long Beach, Calif
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This weekends extra.
The Verville-Packard R-1, A.S. 40126, flown by Major Rudolf W. Schroeder in the the Gordon Bennett Cup race, at Etampes, France, September 1920. He was forced down by an overheated engine, his team did not finish.
Rudolph William Schroeder was born in Chicago on 14 August, 1886 and began glider experiments in 1909. He was a mechanic for Otto Brodie, one of the earliest exhibition flyers, until 1913, when he joined Mickey McGuire and his Curtiss pusher in exhibitions. McGuire was killed in 1914 flying with the Mexican army, and 1915 found Schroeder giving exhibitions on his own. In 1916 he was associated with the aviatrix Katherine Stinson as an expert on rotary motors. He enlisted in the aviation section of the U.S. Army Signal Corps in October 1916 and was rapidly promoted, becoming a major in September 1918. Schroeder was the chief test pilot at McCook Field, where he insisted on the development of a free-type parachute pack as invented by Floyd Smith and in 1919 was the first air service aviator to wear one. He was credited with being the first to fly with a supercharged engine and the first to open a night-flying school. On September 1919 he set a new altitude record at Dayton with Lt. G. Elfrey as passenger, reaching 28,900 feet in a Lepere biplane built by Packard Motor Car Co. of Detroit and equipped with a 400-horsepower supercharged Liberty motor. On 4 October he pushed the mark up further to an uncorrected altitude of 33,335 feet (McCook Field, where the flight was made, reported corrections later that brought the figure down to 31,796 feet). Schroeder placed first in the 1919 New York-Toronto reliability race.
Schroeder exuded confidence in his chances of winning the 1920 Gordon Bennett. In his letter to the Aero Club, he said, "From all indications, it looks to me as though the next Gordon Bennett will be held in America." -
This midweeks photo.
A fantastic shot of a Rohrbach Ro X Romar being beached.
The Romar was the final production aircraft from Rohrbach and was a monoplane flying-boat with a crew of four or five and two cabins for a total of 12 passengers. The revised Romar II could accommodate 16 passengers. It had three BMW VIUZ Vee piston engines strut mounted above the wing. The first aircraft flew on 7 August 1928 and was unveiled at the Berlin Aviation Exhibition in October 1928. Only four aircraft were built, three were used on Baltic services by Deutsche Luft Hansa and one was supplied to the French Navy. -
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This weekends extra.
North American P-51D 44-14495 Dallas Doll of the 352nd Ftr Sq, 353rd FG December 1944.
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This midweeks photo.
F-5 "Stinky 2" of the 9th Photographic Squadron, attached to the 7th Bomb Group, based at Pandaveswar, India. Getting ready for a mission over Burma. 1943.
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This weekends photo.
Taken at Fliegerhorst Schiphol Amsterdam 1941 a fully armed Junkers Ju 87 Stuka sits under its camouflage netting.
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This weekends extra.
B17E Flying Fortress landing, believed to be at Nausori, Fiji.
B17E, 412434 at RNZAF Station Ohakea.
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This midweeks photos
The Spitfire carried a unique slipper tank under the fuselage which provided an additional 45 gallons of fuel.Some Seafire tanks could carry 90 gallons .
“Amongst the piles of ammunition, wireless sets, pilot’s seats, propeller spinners, tail steering arms, wing mats, sweating bodies and noise, we could see several huge slipper-shaped petrol tanks. Some of these were being offered up to the underside of the Spitfire’s fuselage — where a bomb might ordinarily be — and the fuel lines were being connected by an invisible, sliding fit. There was only a half-inch gap between the underside of the fuselage and the top surface of the tank, which was all of six feet long by two feet wide. We found that it could hold 90 gallons of 100 octane fuel. This was more than the Spitfire carried in its internal tanks. A closer study of the jettison arrangements showed that a Bowden cable release in the cockpit let go the lifting ring — stressed to three tons breaking strain — in the top surface of the tank. The tank then slid backwards onto two lugs sticking out two inches from the fuselage underside. The nose of the tank then dropped and the airflow forced it downwards and clear of the fuselage underside. The slightest skid, we thought, and the whole thing would come clear of the two lugs, slide back and hit the tail. However , the Spits would now have a range of 400 miles and would allow a fly-off to Malta well before we got to ‘bomb alley’.”
From here - http://www.armouredcarriers.com/seafire-variants/ -
This weekends photo.
A shot of a Heinkel He 111 H1,with an interesting history.
This aircraft started life as the personal aircraft of General Friedrich Weise, commander of the 19th Army Group in Southern France. It was captured by French troops on August the 28th 1944 during Operation Dragoon then tested and French roundels were applied over the German colour scheme and assigned to the Dor group as a transport plane. From March 1945 it was repainted beige and named La Pinasse and full French markings were applied. It moved to the Paris area in 1946 and was painted Allied green then was taken out of service in 1949.
