Aircraft Trivia Quiz

Jafa - its not the aircraft I had in mind. It is smaller than the one I was seeking. I don't if the 2 U4B's were purchased for Ike's use or not, but I'll hand it over to you. I was seeking the Beechcraft KIng Air, but I'll it over to you. Good job.

Mike T.

Air Force One

VC-6A used as Air Force One

During the administration of President Lyndon Johnson, the United States Air Force acquired a Model B90 King Air "off-the-shelf". With the military designation VC-6A, the aircraft, serialled 66-7943, was used to transport President Johnson between Bergstrom Air Force Base (near Austin, Texas) and the Johnson family ranch near Johnson City, Texas. When Johnson was aboard, the aircraft used the callsign Air Force One. This aircraft is now on display, with other presidential aircraft, at the National Museum of the United States Air Force at Wright Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio.^[16]

Jafa

I believe the smallest "Airforce One" was an Aero Commander U4B used between 1956 - 1960?

Kia Kaha

Jafa

Interesting side note--as soon as I saw this question I knew it had to be the Aero Commander...that actual aircraft is in a museum down here in Louisiana, not far from me.  Up until 2010, it was displayed at the Wedell-Williams Aviation Collection in Patterson, LA....it has since moved to the Regional Military Museum in Houma, LA.  I saw it when it was still in Patterson some years back...every time I look at one of those I cannot believe how cramped they are inside.

Jafa - you get the question, over to you.

Mike T.

Thanks,

a simple one, what is the most produced monoplane military aircraft of all time?

The F-16.

Tango Juliet

The F-16.

I can think of several that were built in multiples of the F-16's current production total.....................

Ilyushin Il-2 Sturmovik?  36,183 produced....

F6F Hellcat?

well I did say it was an easy one.....

over to you F-8fanatic

Alright, lets see if we can make this next one last a little bit.....

Over the years, we have heard of some really strange aerial combat stories.  I remember the Piper L-4 and the Storch with handguns in WWII, also remember hearing about a CH-53 in Vietnam that engaged one of two AN-2 biplanes that came close by.  Of course, the A-10 in Desert Storm that shot down a chopper.  I even remember hearing about 2LT Owen Bagget, a WWII co-pilot on a B-24.  He was forced to bail out of the burning bomber while under attack by Japanese fighters.  The Zeros then took to shooting at the airmen hanging from their chutes.  Bagget played dead, and when one Zero flew close by, slow and with open canopy, Bagget fired off four rounds from his 1911.....hitting the pilot in the head. 

Even after all of that, there is one aerial duel that stands out as perhaps the strangest ever for several reasons.  One of those reasons is the fact that the "dogfight" lasted close to an HOUR between just two aircraft.  Name the aircraft involved and bonus points if you can narrate the event a bit.

B-17 "Old 666" vs er...6? Zeroes. Battle lasted over an hour, only ended when the zeroes ran out of fuel. 2 zeroes downed, 1 crewmember of the B-17 was killed. The mission was a pathfinding mission which the pilot refused to abandon as the troops on the ground needed the information.

No, the one I am talking about involved a total of two planes, one from each side. 

Ok how about this one, F8 Crusader vs NVAF Mig17 during Vietnam. Both aircraft had their guns jam but they stayed with the dogfight until nearly out of fuel.

Nope, as far as I recall, that dogfight lasted about 10 minutes.  The one in question was a very strange one and lasted about 45...you were warmer with the first guess

Last guess.

Saburo Sakai and Pug Southerland. Pug got the upper hand but his guns failed (he still doesnt know why) Sakai then managed to shoot pug down, but shortly after was shot in the head by a tail gunner of a US bomber, he then flew back to his base in Rabaul with a hole in his head. If i remember correctly Sakai mentioned that even though pug was shot down he believed he won the dogfight.

No, not that one either.  I dont want to give this one away, but I guess the best way I can say this is that the dogfight I am looking for is a very strange one.  There isnt anything strange about two fighter planes in a dogfight.

There are others i want to guess at, but i think 3 guesses is a good limit until someone else fields an answer.

Ok ONE LAST guess. I promise this is it from me lol.

"On Feb. 20, 1944, a weather recon B-17 flying out of Scotland encountered an He 177 that was orbiting over the North Sea transmitting a false homing radio beam to lure American planes flying the Atlantic off course so that they would run out of fuel far out at sea. When his radio operator picked up the signal, the B-17 pilot, Guy Reed, assumed it was being broadcast from a submarine close by and decided to follow the beam and send a location report. 

Visibility was about a quarter mile when the crew spotted not a sub but a big He 177. Reed decided to try to shoot the He 177 down and a maneuver fight began. At one point the B-17 actually collided with the He 177, smacking the belly of the German with its tail fin. The two bombers traded gunfire for some minutes. At one point Reed was able to position his plane behind and below the German and his gunners ripped it with heavy fire. The Heinkel pilot threw his plane into a dive. The B-17 followed, then, at low altitude the He 177 deployed its dive brakes and dropped its gear, slowing dramatically as it pulled up. The B-17 shot past it and it was the turn of the He 177 gunners to rake the B-17 with fire. The top turret plexiglas was shattered. The right waist gunner was killed. At that point, the two planes, flying at about 3,000 feet flew alongside each other blazing away like two battleships trading broadsides. The He 177 pilot decided to break away to the right. As he did so, the ball turret gunner on the B-17 was able to pour gunfire into the right engine nacelle (housing two engines), apparently knocking them out. The Heinkel pilot lost control and the plane went into a spin and crashed into the sea. No one got out. Reed was able to nurse his plane home with some judicious throttle jockeying - the collision had damaged the rudder so that the plane wanted to turn to the left and would not fly straight and level."

from "Big Week" by Glen Infield

I've read of some other encounters in the Atlantic where long range patrol aircraft engaged one another.

Youre actually close enough...I was talking about a different incident but it is along the same lines.

October 1942, on Esprito Santo, there was a Lt. Ed Loberg, B-17 pilot.  He took a B-17 up on recon patrol, and spotted a PBY being attacked by a Japanese H6K Mavis flying boat down below.  So he jumped into the fight.  He dove the B-17 almost straight down and went at it.  For 45 minutes, he flew the thing like a fighter--full power, banking past 90 degrees, really going nuts with it.  There was a war correspondent on board, Ira Wolfert, and he described the encounter as follows:

"During the duel, the Fort that I was on, with a bullet in one of its motors and two holes as big as Derby hats in its wings, made tight turns with half-rolls and banks past vertical. That is, it frequently stood against the sea on one wing like a ballet dancer balancing on one point and occasionally it went over even farther than that and started lifting its belly toward the sky in a desperate effort to keep the Jap(anese plane) from turning inside it..."

The fight ended with the Mavis, smoking, hitting the water and exploding.  To date, this is, I believe the single longest dogfight in history--the longest before this was from WWI.  It's also the largest "kill" of any bomber anywhere that I know of.  The Mavis was a 4-engined flying boat with a wingspan almost 30 feet longer than the He-177. 

On a side note, I have not been able to find anything to back up the He-177 story.  The only thing I keep finding is the same cut and paste article in numerous places.  I could not find any special version f the He-177 that was equipped for such a role, so if this did happen it was not a factory-built capability.  But you were quite close, and it even involved the same American aircraft.....can you imagine what it must have looked like to see two heavies flying like that?!?

It would have been utterly amazing to see. The ww1 dogfight you refered to would have been Boelcke v Capt G L Cruikshank.?

Ok, this incident happened in 1969. It involved one of the most popular war birds in the world today. And something else. The incident was caused by the pilot breaking the rules, which resulted in his grounding. However if he hadn't been breaking the rules he would have been endorsed for bringing the aircraft back.

What was the incident, and what were the vehicles involved? (Bonus points if you can tell me the tail code of the aircraft)

Not sure on this one, but I am thinking a T-6 in Vietnam. Though I have heard of an F-4 Phantom attacking a forbidden port that Russian vessels operated from, he strafed the port and killed one sailor. IIRC he was hit by flak on the way back, and had a fuel leak or an engine flameout of some sort.

On a side note, during WW2, I heard of the story of an Australian RAF Halifax crew who were hit by flak over the French coast, the pilot headed home and flew over the channel, instructing the crew to bail out while he carried the aircraft over to Britain. When he landed, he was severely reprimanded for landing with his bomb load, which could have over stressed the gear and killed everyone at the airfield. He was nearly court-martialled, though they soon saw that his crew and the aircraft had been saved and he recieved a DFC.

MilitaryAircraft101

Not sure on this one, but I am thinking a T-6 in Vietnam. Though I have heard of an F-4 Phantom attacking a forbidden port that Russian vessels operated from, he strafed the port and killed one sailor. IIRC he was hit by flak on the way back, and had a fuel leak or an engine flameout of some sort

Dont know about an F-4 doing this, but in 1967 two F-105's were attacking a rail yard near Haiphong Harbor when they came under heavy AAA fire from the harbor defenses.  The flight lead fired back at the AA gun, and his gun camera footage did show a Russian cargo ship that was moored in the harbor.  USAF Col. Jack Broughton was the squadron CO, and he was court martialed for destroying the gun camera tape.  He wasnt on that mission but he was protecting his pilots from stupidity.  His court martial was later overturned and dropped and he left the AF because of the incident.  Interesting note--the ship that NK claimed we shot up was later examined, and not one single 20mm bullet hole could be found that would have come from the direction that the F-105's were flying in from.  They did, however, find a ton of other holes--that all corresponded to the NK anti-aircraft defenses.  The NK military shot up the ship and blamed us for it.  Jack Broughton was previously a Thunderbird pilot, also flying as Thunderbird Lead in a second tour with them.  Horrible way to treat one of our finest pilots...

None of these incidents are what im after. Although the aircraft mentioned in the first guess is right, just wrong country and wrong...altitude

A hint. The aircraft involved was on a training run. The pilots actions frightened civilians.

Its just occurred to me that anyone outside of NZ may not know about this. Do we want to continue guessing or should i post another one or hand it over?

That sounds like the one,  I thought it was an F-4, but I may have been thinking of the same thing. Read about that incident in Robin Olds' Memoirs, which would correspond with his Nam years.

I have pulled these from my very reliable sources...

NORTH AMERICAN Harvard Mk III NZ1013
Accident 22 October 1969 – Pilot of 75 Sqdn on routine flight from Hobsonville to Ohakea. During the landing roll. A gust of wind caught the aircraft and the pilot corrected without realising that he had become airborne. The aircraft yawed and the starboard wing hit the ground, then pitched forward, the undercarriage hit the ground and then the port wing hit the ground, shearing the port undercarriage. The pilot was uninjured, but the aircraft suffered internal engine damage, sheared port oleo, port wing buckled and torn, tail wheel assembly torn off and the aircraft centre section moved in relation to the fuselage. Accident attributed to error of judgement by the pilot.

and

 NZ1056 which was "damaged" after hitting a truck 3 Feb 1969. The pilot was Rennai.

There we go, it was 56 i was thinking of.

Plt Off B. M. F. Renai 3 Feb 69
The pilot, the sole occupant of a Harvard, took off to carry out an hour and a half's continuation training that was to include aerobatics and low flying. The first part of the exercise completed, the aircraft entered the low flying area. After making several runs over a car park on a beach, the aircraft struck the cab of a parked truck with the port wing tip. Luckily, the driver of the truck had vacated his vehicle prior to the collision.
People in the vicinity of the collision stated that the pilot made several runs over them and the truck at heights estimated as ranging from 40 ft down to 9 ft AGL. One spectator, who was sitting on a tractor close to the truck, was so convinced that the aircraft was going to hit him that he jumped for his life.
Carrying on, the aircraft grazed the top of a sand hill before the pilot climbed his aircraft to 1,300ft and returned to base. He had to use a considerable amount of aileron and rudder to remain wings level. This wasn't surprising as about 18 inches of the port wing tip was missing.
It was not until the Harvard joined for landing that the pilot decided to inform the tower that his aircraft had part of its port wing missing. He did not declare an emergency, but made a high approach, crossing the boundary 5kts faster than usual to complete a safe landing.
The Harvard's port wing was so severely damaged that it was beyond economical repair. In addition to the wing tip being torn off, the wing main spar was distorted and the port aileron spar fractured.
The truck had been hit by the port wing tip about 5 ft above ground level. Damage to the truck was assessed to be in excess of $500.

*A bad incident which could so easily have been fatal not only to the pilot but to one or more of those unwilling and intimidated spectators in the area.
No one is authorized for low flying below fifty feet in a Harvard, and 50 feet means 50 feet above ground level in any manoeuvre.
This pilot was recently released from the restraint of pilot training and his exuberance tempted him to show off a skill which he proved conclusively he did not possess. For his flagrant breach of flying discipline the pilot was fined and awarded a loss of seniority by his Air Officer Commanding.
The pilot was briefed not to descend below 50 ft, lie had been airborne for only a short time, therefore fatigue should not have affected his judgement, and he was in current flying practice. There were no mitigating circumstances revealed in the inquiry into this accident.

The Harvard.

The Truck.

Well, as it's been over a week, I'm jumping in.  

This was a specialist aircraft conversion of a specific aircraft.  One of these was converted for use in Norway, but never used, and the conversion reversed.  Three more were converted for use in Egypt.  One more was converted for use in the Pacific, but suffered the same fate as the Norway one.

What was the aircraft & conversion?

I'm going to take a shot with the Supermarine Spitfire Mk. Vb.  The conversion was to mount floats to the aircraft.  One of these was produced for Norway, but never used by that country because Norway fell to Germany.  Three of them were delivered to Egypt and flew from Alexandria.  There were also three other conversion sets shipped to Egypt but only three of these aircraft were ever made flyable there. 

Your shot brought victory!  A Spit was floatplane converted for Norway, but never flown (then converted back), the same for one in Pacific, but in between, 3 conversions were used in Egypt.  Over to you.