Century Series Fighters...

Hi Fotofrank ;

     I got to see their planes up close and personal here at New Braunfels. They brought the B-17 , the B-24 and the P-51 two seater. The Tondelao,the B-25, was delayed at Mass. and never showed.

     Ya know considering the size of the aircraft,the B-24 was hard to move around in. I almost got stuck between the bomb racks on the way out. I don't weigh but 205 !

     In the B-17 ,I think the Ball Turret gunner must've been a heighth and weight limited guy. Both the B-24 and the B-17 took some maneuvering to get in the command seat. Like the B-26 Cockpit at the Smithsonian. These planes were big for their day but required slight built men to crew them .

   Surprisingly, I had no problems getting into the P-51. Although that sill was a doozy. The nice thing was that in the  P-51 it felt like I was wearing the plane, Not just sitting in it. I did get to sit in an F-100 in the States and an F-104 in Germany. Tight but functional.

Yeah, Tank-Builder, it was the same when I flew on FiFi a few years ago. When you are standing outside the airplane, it's huge! Once you get inside and try to move around, all the bigness goes away. I was surprised how tight it was inside the B-29.

I was looking at my Hasegawa F-104 kit yesterday, trying to decide how I should build it. I thought about an early intercepter scheme at first but I have a lot ofg NMF finished airplanes on the shelf. Then I looked at the 104 in SEA camo and decided against that. The camouflage just hides the beauty of the airplane. I'm going to go with a QF-104 finishe on the airplane. From what I've seen online, it seems quuite a few F-104s ended their careers as target drones. It will look good next to my red and yellow Hellcat drone.

Hello!

I was born in 1979, but I always felt this is the essence of the century series:

Have a nice day

Paweł

mach71

 

The Thud against a Mig-17, the Mig is more manuverable, but can't hold the energy in a turn like the Thud could. Knowing nothing about the fight I'm guessing the Thud pilot would take the fight vertical and avoid a low level turning fight.

 

Im a big fan of the 105. Especially of their Vietnam achievements. In the air to air, they gave as good as they got. The MiGs (17 & 21) could all outturn the Thud in air to air due to the wing loading. But for the 17, the Thud was superior in climb and acceleration- at least once free of its bomb load. But the NVAF tactics were not to engage in dogfights. Those were the exception and not the rule. The standard was a hit and run attack after being placed into a position of advantage by GCI radar on the strike aircraft flights. Even if the Migs did not score a kill, if they could force the bombers to jettison ordnance to escape being shot down before dropping bombs on target, and then their sortie was successful in protecting whatever target. Which meant that another strike on the same target would need to be mounted, and the defences could be increased. Dogfights were usually the result of the Migs being cornered and not able to evade the escorts.

I should have added a few caotuibs with the pictures.

The F-100D was visiting Little Rock A.F.B. for a air show we were having.

The 100F shot was given to me by a pilot.  I should have asked about it.

The TF-102 was taken at the small museum they had at Lackland A.F.B. in the early 70s.  

The 105G was taken was assigned to the 17th Wild Weasel Sq, 388th TFW, Korat.

The 106 shots were taken at Minot A.F.B. North Dakota, the coldest place I've ever seen in my life.

Hello!

fotofrank - the Squadron "In Action" book about the F-104 states many brand new F-104s were turned into drones for target practice, which was very important then, but that didn't mean they were "one time use" - they were used to practice aiming and all the procedures, but that doesn't have to mean the exercises were conducted all the way to the shoot down. Plus the first F-104As were't really ready for combat operations. That's what the book says.

Wouldn't the yellow truck with the mobile tower on it be a great modelling subject?

Bob - your fotos are really beautiful. Thanks for sharing those!

Carlos - I also thint the F-105 is such a cool aircraft! I especially want to build "the Polish glider" one time - it's currently on display at the Krakow aerospace museum.

Have a nice day

Paweł

Hey Pawel, I haven't heard from you for a while.

During the 1982, I think it was, when the 18th TFW out of Kadena made it's debuet with their new Shogun markings, one of our pilots shot a F-102 down with a AIM-7 hit dead center.  I had to build one of the Hasegawa kits as a trophy with the missile sticking out just above the wing root where the impact was.

I had heard that a few of our 5thFIS 106s ended up in Florida, and a couple have been spotted in different museums around the country, one on display at Minot, and the rest in the boneyard.  I miss the 106, it had class.  Does anyone make a gun pod for them?  We had enough guns for all our aircraft plus at least three spares each.

NASA kept some 106s at Langley AFB for lightning strike research.  What a job that must be, wanting to get hit by 1.21 jigawatts.