Aircraft Trivia Quiz

Through a heat exchanger, to keep the Flight Sergeants on the lower deck warm....the officers on the upper deck, had, of course, individual electrically-heated seats with sheepskin-covered cushions and afternoon tea holders on the armrests.

You do realise that the Tupolev Badger, Bear and Blackjack, and the Myasishchev Bison, had a provodnik as part of the crew, whose sole duty was to keep the samovar stoked and the crew served with tea...

The Tupolev Bull had, in fact, two provodniks, one for each of the forward and aft crew compartments...the samovar stovepipes went through heat exchangers, which turned turbines, which, through a system of gearboxes, added significantly to take-off thrust...

And the best Boeing could do for the B-52's crew was a 1950s-technology microwave oven....though it is said that there's a branch of Starbucks in the back of every B-2 Spirit...

Cheers,

Chris.

BTW, did you know that the Nimrod was originally fitted with a rum barrel, and the Mainbrace was religiously spliced at 12 noon every day? It was removed when the Royal Navy abolished the tot...

LAMO! Very funny! Isn't spilling an RAF officer's tea an act of war?

Chris! You got it! It's the A-26 Invader. It could mount up to 8 .50s in the nose, a few carried four underwing gunpods with 2 .50s in each pod, and most mounted 6 .50s in the wings. While not very many Invaders had all of this firepower, it was blisteringly lethal at low altitude. Also, the B-26K was re-renamed back to the A-26A during Vietnam because Thailand would not allow bombers to base there, but would allow attack aircraft.

Its all yours! Hit us with your best 727 question.

Thanks, Shark! It'll be a 747 question, not a 727 question, and it'll be along in a couple of hours. I'm off to cook breakfast (sausages, fried eggs, baked beans, coffee and croissants) and read the Sunday papers. Pastrycook's hard at work baking 14 dozen krill pasties for the Colony's breakfasts...

Cheers,

Chris.

Brews wrote:

The plural of Olympus would be Olympi, surely. All V-bombers were used at low-level, the strain of which on the airframe was why the Valiant was phased out of service so soon. I'm going to throw C-47 into the ring ... though I know not what it might have been redesignated as (apart from AC-47, and that only had 3 fixed machine guns, and they weren't forward-firing). This is a good question, thanks for the stimulation!

I'm going to go out and chew on your position on low level vivis strain. Certainly ground effect has a role on spar life, but operational history of at least Victor and Valiant suggest otherwise, but I am in your debt till I find information. Valiant for sure suffered from spar failure, however I don't remember her ever being trained, (and that's all we have because thank the Lord they never attacked anything) extensively at low level.

Victor of course was converted to low level attack, as was Vulcan, but gun ship is tough as both had the classic pressurized/ bomb bay layout.

Of all things in this vein, a good gun ship of things that go boom and make a streak in the sky would have been the B-58 Hustler, I opine.

Her whole weapons package was in a pod, which often included breathers, "manning " instruments. (Women aren't that dumb)

They could have had a 155 and a bunch of ammo. Don't think the 22 forward firing MGs would have worked; the a'c would have sucked the bullets up.

Just a side thought about the A-26...Can you imagine the recoil from all those .50 cal guns firing at the same time??? Probably feel like your getting shaken out of the sky. I imagine it would slow the plane down a bit too...Pretty awesome!!

Chris:

Wow that sounds good, can almost smell it. I use waffles to get the kid to Mass.

I was thinking about that scene in Stategic Air Command where they show James Stewart the kitchen set up in the back of the B-36.

Do you really think there's a samovar in a Backfire?

Or a tea trolley in a Vulcan?

Or a McDonalds in a BUFF?

OK I'll shut up.

Vis B747s:

I know what there was in the aft galley of a Pan Am B747 that was hated by the crew. Fingernail breaker too, and too far away from the middle seats. Good place back there to study law, however, once the Y codes shut up and went to sleep.

Saw the  CA Flight 006 damage. I was standing next to where this shot was taken from at SFO.

Do you really think there's a samovar in a Backfire?

No, there's no room. Made it really unpopular with crews transferring from Bears and Badgers. There is, however, a vodka bar in the back of the  Moss and May. In ther Indian Air Force's Mays, this is replaced with stations for the cha- and chapati- wallahs.

Or a tea trolley in a Vulcan?

Of course. There's a pub in the lower section of the Nimrod's fuselage, behind the weapons bay. In the Airfix Nimrod, the strange 6-pack cylindrical thingies in the weapons bay are actually beer barrels. The MoD ran a large 'black' project to stabilise the aircraft and keep the weapons bay at 55 degreees Farenheit, so that the pub could serve real ale. And many preserved Shackletons still have their rum barrels, mounted next to the flight engineer's station.

It's not widely known that when he was Prime Minister, aircraft in which Sir Winston Churchill flew were fitted for in-flight refuelling. If the flight lasted more than three hours, he would run out of brandy...

Or a McDonalds in a BUFF?

Again, of course. Any Big Macs not sold within 15 minuts of cooking are transferred, by a chute, to the weaopns bay, where they add to the bomb load. And there used to be a mechanism whereby targets could be srayed with MacDonalds shakes, until it was banned under various chemical weapons limitations treaties....

Which is why the Dutch AF is always winning prizes for areobatics...

Anyway, enough of this silliness! Here's the question:

On a standard-fit Boeing 747-400, where is the main crew rest area, and how many bunks does it contain?

Cheers,

Chris.

Behind the bulkhead in the aft galley, main deck, 3 bunks up to five crew.

Cabin cleanup crew finds a note at the top of the stairs:

"I've been to Hawaii and back three times, didn't realize that the hatch (from the upper deck back into the fillet) didn't have a handle on the inside".

Might have met TISAC in there too...?

Good enough, Bondo. Some versions have eight bunks, up a steep flight of stairs to the rear of the after galley, on the starboard side.

Your turn!

Cheers,

Chris.

On Qantas planes, it is over the rear toilet block and it has 8 bunks. They have a big main galley in cattle class. A block of 4 toilets are in the rear, crew rest is accessed by a half stair and half ladder covered by a sliding door on starboard side just aft of door 5 left not much more than a shoulder width away from a toilet.

Cheers

Good work bondo!

I kind of crawled across the finish line on that one, probably because i was in "good spirits" last night, but here goes.

After the DB Cooper incident, in which a hijack, ransom and escape were apparently successful, what did the aircraft have modified to thwart a future similar attempt?

I was thinking the doors were reversed to open toward the nose, keeping someone from leaping out and clearing the door due to the windspeed keeping the door shut...

BTW if Chuck Norris was on the plane and someone went out the door he'd make sure they weren't wearing a parachute!!!

John- you are correct. The Cooper vane was a simple yet effective device that locked the airstair by folding back in the airstream, and could not be over rode by the crew, even under duress.

 Your turn, John.

OK, not quite from McClellan but a close relative.  What's this from?  It does meet the official requirements, as there is a model of it in plastic.

jeaton01 wrote:

OK, not quite from McClellan but a close relative.  What's this from?  It does meet the official requirements, as there is a model of it in plastic.

Is it an F-86 or T-28?

Cheers

I really want to think the f89, but it isn't. The CF-100 Canuck.

Edit: withdrawn.

OK John, I'm on to you.

there's a wind in the gorse and my ancestors are whisper'n.

Rear seat; ie no instrumentation for the corn cobs (s) and I suspect there are two.

Missing instrument which in technical photos from the era usually means radar scope.

Grey panel; cold war non combative. Or Russian. But Robby Burns avays no

Rudder pedals (look north american)

bondoman wrote:

It's the rear seat of an F-101B.

It's definately a single engine plane, you can tell by the upright row of 4 instruments to the right. The hole in the panel would be from the missing artificial horizon as a missing radar scope would leave a bigger hole. It's either a single seater, or the front seat of a duel seater. You can see the frame of the windscreen. Judging by the grip of the stick, I would also say it's a jet. That much I do know, WHAT it is.......I'm working on it.

Cheers

It is the YF-107. www.uscockpits.com see YF-107, its the exact same picture. A VERY VERY GOOD SITE FOR COCKPIT PHOTOS GUYS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WOOOHOOOO!!

Cheers