VERY Large Aircraft! The Old Guard

[Sandy G]

The guy at Lockheed who was SO prolific was a guy named Clarence "Kelly"Johnson. If he WASN'T an out & out right genius, he wasn't very far from it. Not many people can honestly say they moved the State of the Art, but HE could, & not just one time,either.

 

[john111/LZ]

"A History Of Bombing"-Sven Lindquist-very interesting

 

[transmaster]

I have some kind of romantic fascination/fixation with large flying boats. The Martin Mars is one. Big and strangely beautiful. Only 2 left, one of which can still fly. That's actually pretty amazing considering that only 7 were made and the last one was built some 66 years ago.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_JRM_Mars

Cheers,
James

My dad was career Navy. In 1954 My dad was stationed in Pearl Harbor. He was transferring back to the states, My mother, brother and I, were booked on a Navy R6D-1 which was the Navy designation for the Douglas DC-6. We were bumped from the flight by a Navy Lt and his family. My Dad was able to get us seats on the Martin Mars "Caroline" in which we flew from Pearl Harbor to San Francisco. When we landed My Mother learned that the Navy R6D-1 we where originally booked on had flown into a mountain on the Big Island and all 66 onboard were killed,

 

[Bratwurst7s]

My dad was career Navy. In 1954 My dad was stationed in Pearl Harbor. He was transferring back to the states, My mother, brother and I, were booked on a Navy R6D-1 which was the Navy designation for the Douglas DC-6. We were bumped from the flight by a Navy Lt and his family. My Dad was able to get us seats on the Martin Mars "Caroline" in which we flew from Pearl Harbor to San Francisco. When we landed My Mother learned that the Navy R6D-1 we where originally booked on had flown into a mountain on the Big Island and all 66 onboard were killed,

That runs the whole circle of good luck and bad, of joy (to be alive) and sorrow (for those that aren't) and Karma. In this case your Dad's & your whole family's good luck that he was outranked.

Cheers,
James

 

[Bratwurst7s]

The guy at Lockheed who was SO prolific was a guy named Clarence "Kelly"Johnson. If he WASN'T an out & out right genius, he wasn't very far from it. Not many people can honestly say they moved the State of the Art, but HE could, & not just one time,either.

Yeah, he was "the real deal". From his first job on the model 11 to the P-38 and many more. Oddly enough one airplane that he was against producing and didn't want anything to do with was the C-130. Now the longest unbroken aircraft production run in history.

Cheers,
James

 

[hjames]

Since this is an audio site - hunt down this album and have a listen ...
All about the German Air Ministry purchase of the Lockheed F-104 Starfighter "fair weather fighters" .... (colloquially known as the Widowmaker). In German service these planes had a poor safety record, with 270 of almost 635 Luftwaffe Starfighters lost in accidents during the aircraft's time in service, which lasted from the early 1960s until the mid-1980s. Musicians who appeared on the album include members of Hawkwind, The Pink Fairies, Brian Eno (although not credited as Eno), Arthur Brown and Adrian Wagner. The spoken sketches are primarily performed by Calvert, Viv Stanshall and Jim Capaldi. (I actually own this on the original vinyl)

the f104g was pretty common in European skies,several nations bought it..starting probably with Canada's license built version of the 104,there were US programs that offered financial help and flexible terms to her Allies,at a time when many needed to replace obsolete aircraft.

i don't think the US ever operated the more advanced G version of the f104 sold to NATO allies,it was developed just for these programs to provide a fully updated and very high performance aircraft at a reasonable price..it had some flaws but when operated correctly with those in mind,not much could touch the 104G's specs,and certainly not with the added value of the US govt "friends and family" type of financing.

the f104 was sold to 1st world air forces that needed and could operate a plane of it's capabilities,but the program was not unlike what they also did with the Northrop f-5 freedom fighter,that program offering a simple low cost,but still competent supersonic fighter to countries that didn't need or simply couldn't afford the top shelf designs...it too was sold with quite generous and flexible terms

 

[usedto]

My dad was career Navy. In 1954 My dad was stationed in Pearl Harbor. He was transferring back to the states, My mother, brother and I, were booked on a Navy R6D-1 which was the Navy designation for the Douglas DC-6. We were bumped from the flight by a Navy Lt and his family. My Dad was able to get us seats on the Martin Mars "Caroline" in which we flew from Pearl Harbor to San Francisco. When we landed My Mother learned that the Navy R6D-1 we where originally booked on had flown into a mountain on the Big Island and all 66 onboard were killed,

My late father fueled aircraft in WWII, and spend alot of time driving tankers in Sicily. They got to know some of the pilots pretty well. One of them that he knew the best had just gotten notice that he was being shipped home the next day. Things were pretty quiet that night and the higher-ups decided to send 6 planes out on a little reconnaissance jaunt. He was just killing time before he left, so he volunteered to go. They unfortunately ran into some enemy aircraft, and his was the only plane that got shot down.

 

[transmaster]

Captain Lockheed and the Starfighters is available on Apple Music.

 

[nedseg]

Slightly OT, but here's a vid of the C-97 at the DonQ Inn in Wi.

Not obvious in the vid, but the approach end is on a ~20degree upslope, and ends at a 'cliff' over a 4 lane highway, and fuel management for that 30 mi flight was very tricky apparently.
BTW, one of the things Kelly Johnson did was to put the design/fab engineers desks right on the production floor next to the planes being developed/built, so that the mechanics/assemblers could walk up any problems they found right to the appropriate designers face right then and there, rather than submitting squawk forms and waiting for the paperwork to catch up to some guy in an office across the field.
Kind of Just In Time development/mfgring/production, shortening the communication/resolution process to bare minimums.
Another, less well known, amazing a/c designer was Arthur Young, of Bell Helicopter fame.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_M._Young