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Three Testing B.57's

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  • Member since
    May 2013
Three Testing B.57's
Posted by Mr Canberra on Sunday, June 9, 2013 2:38 AM

Another resent home made decaling project that would never have been possible for me without the magic of home made decals.

The background to the aircraft is as follows.

The aircraft were used for satellite calibration in the early sixties, originally I only had a top side photo of the RB.57D on the right in the second photo but I eventually received more photo via a friend who was in contact with the son of one of the pilots involved. You can see more info on the builds at. http://www.britmodel...there-were-two/     and on my site http://ipmscanberras...h-planes-rb-57d 

The way it worked was the satellite cameras were fitted in a capsule suspended from a weather balloon which would fly up to the upper atmosphere,. The Canberra's with there very good high altitude performance and stability would fly high above the New Mexico Desert well above much of, if not all the atmospheric pollution, thus giving the clearest possible image. The test patterns were to test the optical quality of the camera lenses, any distortion could be noted and accounted for in subsequent photographs take by the system. They were also for testing the quality of the photographic film emulsion.

 

John 

 

  • Member since
    January 2010
Posted by CrashTestDummy on Monday, June 17, 2013 4:03 PM

Interesting.  In the late 60's (I think that was the time), my Dad was involved in some high-altitude, high-resolution photography, and I think it was in the B-57 (It may have been in the B-47, I'm not certain), at Wright-Patterson AFB.  I remember him saying they were taking some pictures at night, and from the shadows being cast by the hood ornament on the hood of a car from the moon, they could accurately identify the make of the car.  :-)

I never saw any of these birds painted that way, but since they were in New Mexico, I wouldn't have.  

Gene Beaird,

Pearland, Texas

G. Beaird,

Pearland, Texas

  • Member since
    May 2013
Posted by Mr Canberra on Tuesday, June 18, 2013 5:10 AM

I'd love to know more about this subject Gene, I'm sure there are many more fascinating aircraft involved it these types of trials, who knows one day things may start to come out, the only problem is the guys involved directly are getting a little long in the tooth now.

John

  • Member since
    January 2010
Posted by CrashTestDummy on Tuesday, June 25, 2013 3:28 PM

I believe that during that time, we had one of the rare tornadoes come through the area.  My Mom said we had friends over and a thunderstorm came up.  Then they could hear the telltale 'train' noise and my Mom, being from the south said: "That sounds like a tornado, lets get to the basement!"  Her friend said "We don't have tornadoes in Ohio!" Mom said, "We do now!"

Afterward, sure enough, a tornado touched down not far from our house in Fairborn but tore mostly fields up.  At the base, they loaded up the cameras and went for a little recon, taking some beautiful high resolution pictures of the damage.  I still have those pictures.  I guess I should go through those notebooks to see if the airplane that took those pictures is amongst those damage pictures.  

Gene Beaird,

Pearland, Texas

G. Beaird,

Pearland, Texas

  • Member since
    May 2013
Posted by Mr Canberra on Thursday, June 27, 2013 4:31 AM

Hi Gene

Thank goodness we don't have that problem on this side of the pond! It would be interesting to see what plane was used. The whole photo recon thing is very interesting.

John

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