Would this help?
TBD (Torpedo Bomber, Douglas) Devastator, first delivery to US Navy 25 June 1937. 3-seat torpedo bomber with Twin Wasp radial engine.
Yes, Ray Jade, you are correct in that only the first prototype was the Type 660, the seond being 667. The main external difference appears to have been the shape of the air intakes, just the part that cannot be seen on your photo! Both had silver finish and small serial numbers.
Source: Modern Combat Aircraft 11, Robert Jackson.
My son will most likely come too, and perhaps his children, although you’d better let me know if this is to be a purely adult gathering, so we can find alternative amusement for the children (reasonably well-behaved boys of around 10-13). Never having been to Old Warden before, I don’t know what would be available for them.
Just booked my flights to from Stansted, so I’ll be there; no badge or sticker though! I hope my avatar will be enough to identify me, and you can always greet me in Swedish (“Hej!” pronounced “Hey”) 🙂
Thanks for the great pictures, Stieglitz!
And now I know, thanks to your engine photo, that it’s “SNECMA”, not “Snecma”! I vcan amend my database accordingly.
By the way, the “660” was the Vickers type designation.
No offence intended, Ray Jade, concerning quality, after all I believe the picture I put up was from official sources.
I use 72 dpi, about 650 to 750 pixels wide, mainly to keep within the 100k limit in this site, for my colour pictures; with black and white pictures you might be able to get away with over 1000 pixels wide. I guess the professionals, such as Snapper, could give you better advice, though!
Of course people with dial-up connections would prefer you to keep the size down too (I am lucky enough to have broadband).
Thanks for the pics anyway, they take me back to my youth!
Papa Lima, waht is ABA? Is it a Swedish airline? Have any of the Allied planes that were captured been kept to this day in museums?
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In answer to your qestions, Dave, A B Aerotransport (ABA) began as a domestic airline in Sweden and was one of the Swedish operators that eventually became part of SAS.
On my visit to the RSwAF museum at Linköping next month (the subject of a previous thread I put on this Forum) I shall find out whether any of the interned (not exactly “captured”) aircraft still exist in Sweden or elsewhere.
V-bombers
While waiting for Ray Jade to put us out of our misery, how about this classic from that era?
Well, Stieglitz, I did a 14-week course on Photoshop! That taught me about 1% of this magnificent program. Good thing that we have long dark cold winters, now you know what we Swedish residents do for those awful months!
Thanks, Stieglitz.
I have taken the liberty of tweaking one of your pictures in Photoshop. I hope you can consider it an improvement!
The cropping was necessary to keep the size down.
Yes, Ray Jade, please don’t tease!
More than 200 allied aircraft landed in Sweden during WW2, mostly heavy bombers. A few B-17s were sold for a nominal sum to ABA for conversion into passenger/freighters, the remainder being scrapped or flown to England as soon as the war was over. Every single-engined fighter that landed in Sweden at that time was a P-51 Mustang, some of which later served in the Royal Swedish Air force. Of the ten Mustangs that force-landed in Sweden between April 1944 and April 1945, 5 were write-offs. Another was destroyed during a demonstration flight at Ljungbyhed, but the remaining 4 were eventually sold to the RSwAF. I have more information if anyone wants it!
Source: Svensk flyghistoria under 1900-talet, published by Svensk Flyghistorisk Förening (The Swedish Historical Aviation Society), of which I am a member.
The Poet Pilot
Born in 1900, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry first flew as a boy of 12 at Ambérieu, in a Berthaud-W aircraft with a Labor engine, piloted by Gabriel Wroblewski-Salvez.
On July 9, 1921, he made his first solo flight in a Sopwith F-CTEE, obtaining his pilot’s licence the next year and being offered a transfer to the air force. He found his true calling in flying the mail for the commercial airline company Aéropostale. He flew the mail over North Africa for three years, escaping death several times. In 1928 he became the director of the remote Cap Juby airfield in Rio de Oro, Sahara.
In 1929 Saint-Exupéry moved to South America, where he was appointed director of the Aeroposta Argentina Company, and flew post through the Andes. Eventually the air mail business in Argentina closed down, and he started to fly post between Casablanca and Port-Étienne. He then served as a test pilot for Air France and other airline companies. He persuaded Air-France to let him fly a Caudron Simoun (F-ANRY), and crashed in 1935 in North Africa. He walked across the desert for days before being saved by a camel caravan. In 1937, he bought another Caudron Simoun, and was severely injured in Guatemala in a plane crash.
After the fall of France in World War II Saint-Exupéry joined the army, and made several daring flights, although he was considered unable to fly military planes because of his several injures. However, he was awarded the Croix de Guerre. In June he went to live with his sister in the Unoccupied Zone of France, and then he escaped to the United States.
In 1943 he rejoined the French air force in North Africa. Also in Algiers he continued his lifelong habit of writing in the air. After a bad landing his commanding officer decided that he was too old to continue flying, but after a pause he was allowed to rejoin his unit.
On July 31, 1944 Saint-Exupéry took off from an airstrip in Sardinia on a flight over southern France and disappeared.
See also:
http://www.saint-exupery.org
http://www.westegg.com/exupery/
http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/exupery.htm