Doolittle Raiders

[Barton]

These 3 landed at our local airport yesterday afternoon. They will be here 2 more days. Being a bit of a WW2 buff, I had to go see them. We were allowed to crawl through the 2 B's. Pretty cool and that P-51 is just pure sex.



A couple of pictures of the inside of the B-17:



I was surprised to see this veteran:

 

[k0ua]

These 3 landed at our local airport yesterday afternoon. They will be here 2 more days. Being a bit of a WW2 buff, I had to go see them. We were allowed to crawl through the 2 B's. Pretty cool and that P-51 is just pure sex.

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A couple of pictures of the inside of the B-17:

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I was surprised to see this veteran:

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That is extremely cool. I will always remember hearing and feeling a P-51 mustang taking off. OMG the extreme power and sound of that engine winding up and taking to the air was just breathtaking.

 

[mjarrels]

P-51's were wimps at first using a US engine... when upped to a merlin twice the HP they would screem.

mark

 

[PhysAssist]

My Dad was a bomber pilot in WWII so i don't mean to take away from any heros in that war, but seems i remember reading that the merchant marines took highest casualty rate.

Interestingly, my da was regular Navy, rated as an armed guard, but on detached service to Merchant Marine ships in Atlantic fleet. He tells amazing stories of Normandy invasion from a waterfront viewpoint. He did get a ship sunk from under him in the North sea, but was rescued after a very short time in the drink. Ironically, it turned out to have been a friendly that sunk his vessel..

 

[Daver1963]

These pictures were taken on September 10, 2001 at the 164th Airlift Wing, Memphis IAP, TN. This B-17 had flown in for an upcoming 54th anniversary of the Air Force. It is not the original Memphis Belle. At the time the 164th was flying C-141Bs.
Little did we know what would be happening the next morning. It ended up being grounded for a while even after the 7 day no fly period after 9/11 because something happened with the engines.

 

[dmccarty]

These 3 landed at our local airport yesterday afternoon. They will be here 2 more days. Being a bit of a WW2 buff, I had to go see them. We were allowed to crawl through the 2 B's. Pretty cool and that P-51 is just pure sex.


A couple of pictures of the inside of the B-17:

View attachment 344562 View attachment 344563

The first image of the bomb bay was the bottle neck that prevent many of the men from moving forward to the nose.

I saw a B24 and B17 fly into an airfield near my college decades ago. I saw them take off and then they buzzed the airfield. The engine noise was simply awesome. You could imagine what seeing and hearing hundreds of these planes at once must have been like to both the Allies and to the Axis.

I hope you were able to see the planes warm up their engines and take off...

Later,
Dan

 

[2LaneCruzer]

P-51's were wimps at first using a US engine... when upped to a merlin twice the HP they would screem.

mark

The P-51's were originally equipped with the GM built 1100 hp Allison V-12...a very good engine, and fast at low altitudes. When refitted with the Packard built RR licensed Merlin, at a hefty 1490 hp, you're right, they screamed...especially at high altitude...where their top speed was, as I recall, about 480 mph.

 

[houstonscott]

The P-51's were originally equipped with the GM built 1100 hp Allison V-12...a very good engine, and fast at low altitudes. When refitted with the Packard built RR licensed Merlin, at a hefty 1490 hp, you're right, they screamed...especially at high altitude...where their top speed was, as I recall, about 480 mph.

Did you know the P51 was designed by a German who worked for Messerschmitt. As far as the Doolittle raid; what made it historic was it was the first time in Japanese history that an enemy had attacked the main island. HS

 

[dmccarty]

These pictures were taken on September 10, 2001 at the 164th Airlift Wing, Memphis IAP, TN. This B-17 had flown in for an upcoming 54th anniversary of the Air Force. It is not the original Memphis Belle.
View attachment 344606

The Memphis Belle is the B17 we saw a summer back.

Can you imagine climbing into that ball turret and hoping that it will not get damaged which would prevent the turret from aligning just right so you could climb back out?

When we were on the B17 it was just after sunrise and it was already hot and humid. It was miserable being in the plane aka oven. I would think in England it would not have been so bad but in the Pacific it most have been really bad. Course, I don't know how the laundry and engine crews worked in ships in the South Pacific...

Later,
Dan

 

[aczlan]

Did you know the P51 was designed by a German who worked for Messerschmitt.

Wikipedia disagrees:

An urban legend has grown up about Edgar Schmued, possibly related to his German origins, claiming he had once worked for Willy Messerschmitt and that the Mustang was heavily influenced by the Messerschmitt Bf 109. Neither claim is true but the urban legend persists. Just as familiar is the notion that the abortive Curtiss XP-46 was the basis of the P-51 design.

Aaron Z