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Post by jetmex on Sept 4, 2008 8:38:07 GMT -7
By special request: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. The usual rules apply, and remember: Dave got older but he didn't slow down any...... ;D Good luck!!
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Post by Stetto, man... on Sept 4, 2008 19:24:33 GMT -7
#2 looks like a B-26 Marauder to me, and that #3 is Storchish-ish, but the colors are just...off. I'm a lousy plane identifier though, just thought I'd bump my post count.
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Post by propnuts on Sept 4, 2008 20:36:20 GMT -7
Oooh, oooh, I know. I know. Oh, wait. I sent him the pictures. Never mind.....
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Post by jetmex on Sept 5, 2008 7:30:30 GMT -7
Hey Stetto, it's not really Storchish enough, and besides, it's 'Merican. Not a B-26 either, but your post count did go up by one..... ;D
Yes, the Other Evil Eric knows the answers....does anyone else??
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Post by Stetto, man... on Sept 5, 2008 12:45:58 GMT -7
OK, post count will go up again--That tail is Martin or Douglas--Maybe a P-70 nightfighter?
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Post by Galvin on Sept 5, 2008 18:56:19 GMT -7
Jaime, I sent you my answers privately in order to let the others chip away at the IDs more freely. All five answers were off the top of my head too. So far it is definitely more fun this way. At least for the others I'm sure.
So, how'd I do?
OK, OK, I already know so don't answer.
BTW: I meant XOSE on the one I labeled XSOE.
Hints:
Picture No. 1 was taken in upstate New York and the airplane was named for a bunch of camels. BTW: The same people who designed the camel designed this airplane too.
Picture No.3 was taken looking roughly to the north at Lindberg field. The company that built it was owned by Teledyne for a while but now is a subsidiary of Northrup Grumman. They don't build airplanes anymore either despite their building of one of the more famous aircraft in U.S. history.
It is named for an insect.
The Consolidated building in the background was owned by the company that later morphed into one of Northrup Grumman's biggest competitors.
Picture No.2 was taken at Mines field. The company still exists but under a new name. They also built some of our most famous fighters, trainers and bombers.
Picture No. 4 was taken over Seattle. The company that built it still produces aircraft under the same name. This one had a 4360 corncob engine with a counter rotating prop and burned just about enough 115 octane Av Gas on one long flight to run all the cars in an average NASCAR race.
Picture No. 5 was taken in Queens, New York. The company that built it was named after its founder's initials but is now owned by ITT.
They were not an airplane manufacturer before they attempted to become one and 60 years later are still doing pretty much what they did prior to that misadventure.
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Post by jetmex on Sept 6, 2008 8:17:13 GMT -7
Stetto, not a Martin or a Douglas, sorry! ;D
Good to see you back, Dave. Got your message, all good as usual. That makes three of us that know the answers, anyone else want to try?
The hints are right on the money....
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Post by jetmex on Sept 8, 2008 14:29:26 GMT -7
Come on, guys, these aren't THAT hard...... ;D
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Post by jetmex on Oct 3, 2008 8:41:55 GMT -7
Ok, it's been a couple of weeks and the hurricane is over. Does anyone want to have a shot at identifying ANY of these?
The world wonders.....
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Post by Galvin on Oct 4, 2008 9:06:57 GMT -7
You already know that I know what they are.
Big whoop.
I'm Rain Man when it comes to airplanes anyway.
But I also picked up on and know the historical significance of the last three words in your sentence.
It would be interesting to know if anyone else does.
Extra credit anyone?
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Post by Grug - American Neanderthal on Oct 16, 2008 15:41:12 GMT -7
I have seen every one of those pictures except the second one, but can't remember now what they were.
1st one looks like a British design, obviously since Dave said its a Sopwith.
If the second one isn't an A-26 it looks awfully close.
3rd I want to say is a Boeing
4th looks an awfully lot like a stretched version of a Grumman Bearcat, but its a Boeing XF8
5th no clue
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Post by Galvin on Oct 17, 2008 21:53:52 GMT -7
1. The camel, whether dromedary or bactrian, was the only animal designed by a committee, Mr. T. O. M. Sopwith designed a very different sort of Camel and it was pretty successful as was NOT this sorry excuse for a cargo airplane, which he did NOT design either.
A long line of camels walking beak to butt down an ancient trade route and loaded with goods is called a _______.
Committees seem to get it wrong most of the time and this airplane is a stellar example of that old maxim. It had an insurmountable CG problem when loaded, a C-47 could run rings around it, and could carry more. It was made of wood because those in charge had feared a shortage of critical materials that never really came to pass.
2. Derived from a very successful and historically significant design but having no commonality to that other aircraft other than a strong family resemblance, this pressurized attack bomber had a great performance and promise. It would have been quite successful but those higher up felt that existing designs already in production had potential for development. They also did not want to add a production line that would have competed with other manufacturers for R-2800s and thus disrupted other production lines and schedules.
The first prototype was bare aluminum with pre-Pearl Harbor markings and was a very snazzy looking airplane indeed.
3. This airplane sported a 300 Lyc. R-680 radial and could leap tall buildings at a single bound. But it was a product without a market given that the adaptations of existing light plane designs were working so well with minimal military mods required and cost so much less to do essentially the same thing on anywhere from 65 HP (L-3 Airknocker, L-4 Cub and L-2 T-Cart) to 190 HP (Stinson L-5). Besides, it had open cockpits and they were out of fashion for liaison aircraft. Cold too. Ask me, I know.
4. This airplane was a result of attempting to design a multi-role aircraft that had way too many of those roles. The usual result of that is that it may fulfill those roles adequately but none of them exceptionally. Besides, jets were coming into use and this was a dinosaur from the get go. Those who do not study their history are doomed to repeat it and sure enough, the F-111 fiasco of the mid sixties played out much the same.
It was called the "Five in One Fighter" and was probably the second largest fighter designed as such behind the P-61. You could also hide in this airplane if attacked, it was so big. A pilot climbing into this aircraft looked about the same size as Tinkerbell climbing up the Matterhorn for the Disneyland evening show.
5. This airplane was designed as a potential replacement for another airplane that itself never succeeded in replacing the airplane it was intended to replace. The reason was due in great part to the choice of engine which was the V-770 Ranger inverted air-cooled V-12, the exact same engine that was itself one of the worst features of the airplane it was supposed to replace. This engine had two banks of six individual air-cooled cylinders topped (bottomed? It was inverted after all) by one piece heads with overhead cams that were turned by crown gears affixed to tower shafts geared off the crank.
Being air-cooled, the engine would grow in size as it got hot, the gear lash would thus change, and the valve timing would become very erratic. The engine would run rough at lower RPMs especially and most who flew behind them did not like them at all. Thousands were built nonetheless. Wartime pork at its finest.
The picture is of the dash one version of the airplane, a small pre-production run of which was completed. Dash two versions with two seats and a bubble canopy were also converted from a couple of the dash ones. All versions had the ability to be fitted with fixed landing gear instead of floats and all had folding wings. But no production contracts.
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Post by HiTemp on Oct 18, 2008 1:02:20 GMT -7
"The world wonders" was the tail end of a coded radio message sent during WWII from Commander in Chief US Naval Forces Pacific (Nimitz) to the Commander of Task Force 34 (Hallsey) in 1944 during the Battle of Leyte Gulf.
Hallsey was supposed to be guarding the straits to prevent any interference with an amphibious assault, but was suckered by the Japanese who, low on planes and plumb out of trained pilots, sent a 4-carrier task force down to draw him away from Leyte. Hallsey took all the 3rd fleet battleships with him and went off chasing the flat tops. When the Japanese navy snuck through the straits and showed up on the morning of Oct 24 with a string of battleships, the only remaining forces - some DDs, DEs, and some 7th fleet escort carriers - send off a message urging Hallsey to return. Because Hallsey took off with the big guns and failed to let even CINCPAC know about it, Nimitz fired off his own message to Hallsey asking, basically, WTF???
The actual text of his message was "Where is, repeat, where is Task Force Thirty Four?" Because part of encoding all encrypted messages involved adding extra text to them (padding), a phrase was added in front of and another following this text. Double letters were used as a "marker" to tell there the padding stopped/started. The phrase that was added on to the end of this message was, "The World Wonders."
So the text and end padding looked like this when decoded:
WHERE IS, RPT, WHERE IS TASK FORCE THIRTY FOUR? RR THE WORLD WONDERS.
It was pure coincidence that the end padding just happened to fit the text of the message itself, but it looked so convincing that Hallsey's radioman included it in the message despite it coming after the "RR" marker.
The story of it became famous. Some historians have challenged the coincidental aspect of it, arguing that the message was sent on the 90th anniversary of the famous charge of the light brigade, and Tennyson's famous poem about it contains similar wording:
When can their glory fade? O the wild charge they made! All the world wondered.
I'm pretty sure the last thing on some radioman's mind at CINCPAC HQ when his boss, the Admiral, is flying off in a rage about Hallsey pulling all those key ships out of position (and not telling him), was to wax poetic and include some words from Tennyson about an Army battle four score and ten years earlier in his padding.
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Post by superooster on Oct 18, 2008 5:20:41 GMT -7
A long line of camels walking beak to butt down an ancient trade route and loaded with goods is called a _______.
:oOMG!!! I know,,, I know,,, I know,,, My first time I know the answer !!!!!!!!!! IT IS,,,,, A Camel Train! (Google search)Uhhhh, no it's,,,, The Arabian Express!!! (Google search)what? Awwwww forget it, I don't have time to mess around,, I have to go put a new starter in my sisters Caravan.....
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Post by jetmex on Oct 18, 2008 12:16:02 GMT -7
Lookie! People showed up!! ;D
#1 is not a Sopwith, even though it does bear a passing resemblance to a camel....
Again, #2 is not a Douglas airplane. The company that built it was famous for the airplane this one was supposed to replace.
#4 is indeed the Boeing XF8B-1, one of the first of the multi role fighters that we're all so proud of now.
HiTemp nailed the story behind "the world wonders".
Read superrooster's post for a clue on the identity of one of these flying machines. ;D
Keep them cards and letters coming!
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Post by HiTemp on Oct 19, 2008 0:07:50 GMT -7
#2 does have an Invader-like tail, and Matin-looking gear, but Dave's clue about Mines field means it must be a North Amercan. The XB-28 perhaps?
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Post by jetmex on Oct 19, 2008 9:20:46 GMT -7
HiTemp gets #1. This is the North American XB-28, which was intended as the replacement for the B-25.
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Post by HiTemp on Oct 19, 2008 11:37:29 GMT -7
uhhh, you mean #2. #1 was the camel butt.
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Post by Grug - American Neanderthal on Oct 19, 2008 13:33:26 GMT -7
Heh, I was trying to look up the last one since it resembles the Percival design with the lower air intake, which led to Curtis and I ran across the 1st one, a Curtis C-76, but there are a whole lot of just as ugly British ones after looking through the search results.
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Post by jetmex on Oct 19, 2008 15:53:17 GMT -7
Eric, #1 is the Curtiss C-76 Caravan, the first aerodynamic wonder of the world. Ok, so I can't remember which picture got what number. I'm getting old.....
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