RE: Flight sims come of age.

Few more to temp you…

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RE: What is everyones favourite carrier?

The USS Lexington, CV-16, is a vintage wartime aircraft carrier. Commissioned in 1943, she served the United States longer and set more records than any other carrier in the history of naval aviation.

The ship was the oldest working carrier in the United States Navy when decommissioned in 1991. The Lexington, an Essex-class carrier, was originally named the USS Cabot. During World War II, the final work on it was being completed at Massachusetts’ Fore River Shipyard when word was received that the original carrier named Lexington, CV-2, had been sunk in the Coral Sea. A campaign was launched to change the new carrier’s name to Lexington, and the rest is history. The USS Lexington was commissioned on February 17, 1943.

After training maneuvers and a shakedown cruise, the Lexington joined the Fifth Fleet at Pearl Harbor. During World War 11, the Lexington participated in nearly every major operation in the Pacific Theater and spent a total of 21 months in combat. Her planes destroyed 372 enemy aircraft in the air and 475 more on the ground. She sank or destroyed 300,000 tons of enemy cargo and damaged an additional 600,000 tons. The ship’s guns shot down 15 planes and assisted in downing five more.

The Japanese reported the Lexington sunk no less than four times! Yet, each time she returned to fight again, leading the propagandist Tokyo Rose to nickname her “The Blue Ghost.” The name is a tribute to the ship and the crew and air groups that served aboard her.

After the war, the Lexington was briefly decommissioned (1947-1955). When reactivated, she operated primarily with the Seventh Fleet out of San Diego, California. Although not involved in actual combat, the Lexington kept an offshore vigil during tensions in Formosa, Laos, and Cuba. In 1962, the Lexington sailed into Pensacola, Florida, and began training operations, eventually being officially designated CVT-16, Navy Training Carrier.

The USS Lexington was decommissioned on November 26, 1991.

I jioned the U.S. Navy in 1984 originally to be a sonar tech. I was 6′ tall when I joined and grew another 5″ in the first 2 years… I grew myself out of the submarine service. The most technically challenging thing I could do in the surface fleet was electronics warfare (EW) so that is what I cross-rated to. I got out in 1991…

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RE: Vulcan XL391

I do not have many Vulcan pictures that fit under the 75kb file size but this one does by a hair…
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RE: Any Storch Fans Out There?

The NASM aircraft is the second Do-335A-0, designated A-02, with construction number (werke nummer) 240102 and factory registration VG+PH. It was built at Dornier’s Rechlin-Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany, plant on April 16, 1945. It was captured by Allied forces at the plant on April 22, 1945. After checkout, it was flown from a grass runway at Oberweisenfeld, near Munich, to Cherbourg, France. During this flight, the Do-335 easily outclimbed and outdistanced two escorting P-51s, beating them to Cherbourg by 45 minutes. Under the U.S. Army Air Force’s “Project Sea Horse,” two Do-335s were shipped to the United States aboard the Royal Navy ship HMS “Reaper” together with other captured German aircraft, for detailed evaluation. This aircraft was assigned to the U.S. Navy, which tested it at the Test and Evaluation Center, Patuxent River Naval Air Station, Maryland. The other aircraft, with registration FE-1012 (later T2-1012), went to the USAAF at Freeman Field, Indiana, where it was tested in early 1946. Its subsequent fate is unknown, and this is the only Do-335 known to exist.

Following Navy flight tests in 1945-48, the aircraft was donated to the Smithsonian’s National Air Museum in 1961 but was stored at NAS Norfolk until 1974. It was then returned to Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany, where the Dornier company restored it to original condition in 1975. The return trip to Germany required an exemption under U.S. laws concerning the export of munitions. The Dornier craftsmen doing the restoration – many of whom had worked on the original aircraft — were astonished to find that the explosive charges fitted to blow off the tail fin and rear propeller in an emergency were still in the aircraft and active, 30 years after their original installation! The Do-335 was put on static display at the May 1-9, 1976, Hannover Airshow, and then loaned to the Deutsches Museum in Munich, where it was on prominent display until returned to Silver Hill, MD, for storage in 1986.

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