Aircraft Trivia Quiz

O.K.  At the risk of having to come up with a question to ask, I will attempt to answer this one.

The aircraft in question is the Pond racer, designed by Burt Rutan.  I do know that it was powered by Nissan built racing engines that, together had a smaller displacement than on jug on Rare Bear.  As for the pilot, I am at a loss.

This was quite an interesting and dare I say beautiful airplane.  It is too bad that it never saw Reno.

Okay, this is an air-racing question again. Keith will have to give everyone else a 24 hour lead, and then he can answer.

A well known warbird collector  began to get dismayed at all the valuable warbirds that were being modified beyond the point of no return for the sake of air racing, and even more so at the number of increasingly rare powerplants that were being blown up in the course of a race. He decided to do something about it by contracting to a well known aircraft designer to design and build a plane that could compete and hopefully beat the warbirds. It was designed to break the piston-engine speed record, and was powered by non-aircraft engines.

It never lived up to its potential, mostly due to powerplant problems, and sadly it took the life of a well known and respected pilot.  Name this unusual looking aircraft, for bonus points its engines, designer and pilot.

There exists at least one short-run model of this aircraft.

-Bret 

bondoman wrote:

T_Terrific wrote: Well, bondo, I guess you must picked a real good one, since the answer is obviously unfindable using any normal research sources. Either that or everyone found your question as interesting as I did. Drat!! I blew it on the date, it was May 6, not March 6. Sorry about that. Stupid! I came across this while researching a subject for the Italeri C-119. http://www.air-america.org/newspaper_articles/mcgoon.shtml

Well, that was why I cooked up that rule for this web, so even an inadvertantly incorrect question couldn't shut this this string down.

My initial reason for the rule was "What if the person dies in a plane crash (or winds up in the hospital, etc.)before he verifies any one of the answers"?

Now you get another stab when Skybolt posits the next one

Tom

skybolt2003 wrote:

Well, it is claimed that the last 'dogfight' in the ETO was between an L-4 and a Storch - and they forced the Storch down using a .45 pistol. It would be unique as neither plane was armed.The -birds have been descibed "as commanding the most firepower" because they were used as artillery spotters, and therefore could call massive amounts of fire to bear with a radio call.

Well, bolt-baby, you got it

Give us a live one

  Tom

T_Terrific wrote:

Well, bondo, I guess you must picked a real good one, since the answer is obviously unfindable using any normal research sources. Either that or everyone found your question as interesting as I did.

Drat!! I blew it on the date, it was May 6, not March 6. Sorry about that. Stupid!

I came across this while researching a subject for the Italeri C-119.

http://www.air-america.org/newspaper_articles/mcgoon.shtml

Well, it is claimed that the last 'dogfight' in the ETO was between an L-4 and a Storch - and they forced the Storch down using a .45 pistol. It would be unique as neither plane was armed.The -birds have been descibed "as commanding the most firepower" because they were used as artillery spotters, and therefore could call massive amounts of fire to bear with a radio call.

Well, bondo, I guess you must picked a real good one, since the answer is obviously unfindable using any normal research sources.

Either that or everyone found your question as interesting as I did.

In either case, one really neat "by-law" I cooked up for this thread is that if no one "get's the question" in over a week, this forum is wide upen to anyone who figures he has a good one to offer. That means you could have even chosen to "switch the question" by now.

That being the case, I'll throw the next one out:

What is considered to be the "last dogfight" of the Western front of WWII?

What was unusual about this final conflict?

Hint:

I was said about the allied plane involved in this "shoot out", that it commanded more firepower then the B-17.

Also, as usual, my question involves actual model airplane subjects as well.

Tom

This american pilot lost his life on March 6, 1954 south of Latitude 22N. Bonus: what were the national insignia on his aircraft?

Moddy Alon on 6/3/48. He was flying an Avia S-199 and shot down two Egyptian Dakotas.(sort of bombers)

The S-199 was a Czech built (by Skoda) Me-109. I believe they were flown to Israel in deceptively registered C-46s.

Izzy;

You got answer correct on both parts and its your turn.

On this trivia quiz we answer dirctly here.

Mike T.

There has been one guess so far by Bondoman of Wojciech Januszewicz which was incorrect. Another hint, this pilot flew with the Polish Air Force (PAF) and was a double ace. He was NOT a member of Skalski's Circus.

Mike T.

I can't believe that this was a stumping question?

Mike T.

I'll through a couple of hints out.

He was an active pilot from the beginning of the war till almost the very end (he spent the last month as a POW). The units he flew in included: 111 Eskadra Mysliwska (Poland); GCII/55 (France); No. 303 Sgd (RAF); 133 Wing (RAF) and HQ No. 84 (RAF).

His personal marking was a "Mad or Angry" version of this popular cartoon character.

Mike T.

Here's one,

This pilot was a highly decorated ace of WWII for the allies and made it up to the rank of wing commander. After the war he didn't return to his native land, but used his secondary nationality. He was an adventurer and was famous/infamous in some of the conflicts occuring in Africa were he provided aircraft and flew them, including Katanga and Biafra where he was know as "Mr. Brown". As a second part, what was the personal marking that he used on his Spitfires.

Mike T.

My bad.  I've been wrapped up in computer stuff the last week and it slipped my mind.  Since I blew it and haven't got a good idea for a question at the moment, why don't we throw it open to whoever has a good question.  First one to ask a question has "the floor".

 Sorry,

Bill 

Bill;

You're up! I guess we took a little break here.

Mike T.

You got it Bill! 

Can you believe that Goering wanted these He 162s manned by Hitler Youth?!?    Their training would have consisted of learning to fly in gliders, then they would have been sent straight into combat with an He 162 to sink or swim.  Man those guys were idiots......  Tank, Messerschmitt, Galland and many others objected to the whole idea and wanted all their efforts poured into the Me 262.

Blohm und Voss also submitted an aircraft, the P.211 which was much more in line with later designs (such as the F-86) but Heinkel lobbied harder and won the contract.  

Ok Bill, you're up! 

Sounds like the He-162.

 Just shooting from the hip here. 

Bill 

In Sept. of 1944, the RLM issued a requirement for a new jet fighter.  It needed to be a simple, low cost design that could be manufactured in mass quantities.  As a result of the simple, low cost, mass quantity philosophy the idea was that little maintenance would be needed as damaged or defective aircraft could simply be replaced with a new one. 

What aircraft ultimately was chosen out of the submissions by the RLM.  Bonus points if you know which aircraft was superior to what was chosen, but lost out due to heavy lobbying by the head of the company that won the contract.

You nailed it Scott. You're turn. He was the top Italian Stuka pilot during the war. The Italian war industry couldn't produce a plane up to his abilities.

Mike T. 

Let's go on to a simple two part question.

Name the Stuka pilot who developed skip bombing in the Med independent of American development of it. And what was the last aircraft type he flew.

Mike T.

skybolt2003 wrote:

which may have contributed toward his descrimination. On to you . . . -Bret

 At the risk of appearing to be "difficult", I am questioning this new line of "question-answer" trivia , inasmuch this is obviously a very obscure and politiacal/sociologocal type of hype with an appearant agenda aimed at an "up-and-coming-poliotical minority", which has gotten a disproportianate amount of press recently, due to "election politics" here in the U.S.

Since I cannot find this extremetly obscure information in any ordinary book I can get from an ordinary source, which includes a reference to a Pakistani pilot who scored as a high ace against Indian pilots in the '70's, as well as the "Red-Tailed Mustangs" of the Tuskeegee Airmen, I will make such a "stink" that the "Web Gods" will "lock this one down" if we do not return to a "mainstream".

Call me a "Horse's Butt", but my own children have called me worse.

Remember, I started this forum, and I can make them "shut it down" by being very "difficult" in my own "special way".

Since I am not a "paid staff member" here, I have nothing to lose by getting this one "locked down".

OK?

Tom

telsono wrote:

Would this be Manuel "Pete" Fernandez with 14.5 victories? He died in 1980 flying a drug smuggling plane. Was he working undercover at the time is a question. The story of his leaving the service involves possible discrimination questions. At least one other officer left the service in disgust of the treatment that Fernandez was receiving from the Air Force. a synopsis of his career that I found. "Pete Fernandez was a working class kid from Miami who became one of the best combat flyers of his generation. He shot down 15 MiGs in Korea to become a triple jet ace. In 1956, he won air racing's Bendix Trophy. He died infamously in 1980 in the Bahamas Islands crash of a drug-laden plane. Since his death at age 55, rumors have persisted that he was actually working undercover to gather intelligence on dope smuggling." Mike T.

Would this be Manuel "Pete" Fernandez with 14.5 victories? He died in 1980 flying a drug smuggling plane. Was he working undercover at the time is a question. The story of his leaving the service involves possible discrimination questions. At least one other officer left the service in disgust of the treatment that Fernandez was receiving from the Air Force. a synopsis of his career that I found.

"Pete Fernandez was a working class kid from Miami who became one of the best combat flyers of his generation. He shot down 15 MiGs in Korea to become a triple jet ace. In 1956, he won air racing's Bendix Trophy. He died infamously in 1980 in the Bahamas Islands crash of a drug-laden plane. Since his death at age 55, rumors have persisted that he was actually working undercover to gather intelligence on dope smuggling."

Mike T.