On March 10, 1966, he led a two-ship element of Skyraiders to the A Shau Valley to support troops in contact with the enemy. Six “Spads” were striking numerous emplacements when the A-1 piloted by Major D. W. “Jump” Myers was hit and forced to crash-land on the airstrip of a CIDG-Special Forces camp. Myers bellied in on the 2,500-foot runway and took cover behind an embankment on the edge of the strip while Fisher directed the rescue effort. Since the closest helicopter was 30 minutes away and the enemy was only 200 yards (180 m) from Myers, Fisher quickly decided to land his four-seat A-1E on the strip and pick up his friend. Under the cover provided by the other A-1s, he landed in the valley, taxied to Myer’s position, and loaded the downed airman into the empty seat. Dodging shell holes and debris on the steel-planked runway, Fisher took off safely despite many hits on his aircraft by small-arms fire.

The rescue at A Shau was similar to an event that occurred on August 4, 1944 during World War II. On that date, Captain Richard “Dick” Willsie’s P-38 was damaged by flak near Ploieşti, Romania. After both engines failed, Willsie crash-landed but was rescued from capture when Flight Officer Dick Andrews landed his P-38 on the field, squeezed Willsie into the cockpit, and flew back to base. By remarkable coincidence, both Willsie and Andrews were also involved in the A Shau rescue. Willsie was the commanding officer of the 602nd Air Commando Squadron to which Myers was assigned, and Andrews flew top cover during the entire rescue.

I’ll bet Andrews and/or Willsie had mentioned the WW2 incident to the other pilots in their unit before this incident.

My favourite was Pan Am flight 843 on 28 June 1965, The Captain safely landed his Boeing 707 with 3 engines and half a right wing. Basically one of his engines and 25 foot of his wing fell off. Fully laden plane with fuel and 153 passengers on board. Takes some skill to put the bird down safely.

http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19650628-0
Crew: Fatalities: 0 / Occupants: 10
Passengers: Fatalities: 0 / Occupants: 143
Total: Fatalities: 0 / Occupants: 153

Pan Am flight 843 experienced an explosive disintegration of the third stage turbine disk of the No. 4 engine. The accident occurred shortly after takeoff from San Francisco, at an altitude of about 800 feet above the ground.

Disintegration of the turbine disk was followed by a fire in the No. 4 engine area and an explosion in the outboard reserve fuel tank. The No. 4 engine and approximately 25 feet of the right outer wing separated from the aircraft.

The fire was extinguished and a successful emergency landing was accomplished at Travis Air Force Base, California, with no injuries to the 143 passengers or 10 crewmembers aboard the flight.

Taken from rear of right wing. Outboard pylon can be seen under wing.
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Or the kickstand that is just visible extending below the pedal.

And the “Thumper” Lanc nose-art is indeed historic:

http://www.raf.mod.uk/bbmf/news/index.cfm?storyid=48037260-5056-A318-A82DC18C0C7DA123

The RAF BBMF Lancaster, PA474, has taken on a new ‘identity’ as 617 Squadron Lancaster B1, DV385, “Thumper Mk III”. This aircraft was one of the brand-new standard Lancasters issued to 617 Squadron as replacements after the ‘Dams Raid’ in 1943.

DV385 was delivered to 617 Squadron in November 1943, whilst the unit was based at Coningsby, and then moved with the Squadron to Woodhall Spa in January 1944. The aircraft was retro-fitted with bulged bomb bay doors to enable it to carry a 12,000-lb ‘Tallboy’ ‘earthquake’ bomb internally, and it initially wore the code letters ‘KC-A’ (later on it was also coded ‘KC-V’ and then ‘KV-T’).

The “Thumper” nose art features the cartoon rabbit – from the 1942 Walt Disney cartoon ‘Bambi’ – holding a foaming pint of beer.

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Of course, I should be upset over the BBMF stealing an all-American nose-art!

B-29 bomber 497th BG 870th sqn THUMPER nose art 42-24623 Tinian 1945

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In addition to a B-25 & P-40 with the Disney bunny on their nose, I found this strange bird:
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Hi All,
Nice story’s Ross_McNeill very funny, I must ask though why did they not adopt the tandem canopy as the yanks had on their B-57 version of our Canberra or was this simply because they never used it as a reconnaissance platform like the RAF did amongst it many roles ?

Geoff.

My underlining.

The RB-57A (Martin Model 272A) was a reconnaissance version of the B-57A bomber. Cameras installed aft of the bomb bay constituted the main difference between the RB-57A and the B-57A. The cameras (P-2s, K-17s, K-37s, K-38s, or T-17s) could be interchanged according to the aircraft’s mission. The intended mission included day and night, high and low, and visual and photographic reconnaissance. Unlike the B-57A, the RB-57A was totally unarmed. It was painted with a high gloss black paint which was intended to minimize detection by searchlights. The crew was two–one pilot and one photo-navigator. It was intended that only a minimum of effort would be required to convert the RB-57A to a bomber mission–which was never actually done in practice. The last of 67 RB-57As was accepted by the USAF in September of 1954.

The RB-57D was a high-altitude reconnaissance version of the Martin-built Canberra. The RB-57D featured a substantially-altered B-57B fuselage. The fuselage bomb bay was permanently closed off and the fuselage fuel tanks were removed. Four camera windows were installed ahead of the nose wheel well. A large nose and tail radome further lengthened the fuselage. A power-driven rudder and yaw damper were installed. A new 105-foot wing was fitted, which carried all of the internal fuel in the aircraft. The fuel cells were integral with the wing, which was of honeycomb construction–the first time that such a structural feature had been used in a piloted aircraft. Wing spoilers augmented the stubby ailerons. Wing flaps and speed boards were eliminated as a weight saving measure. The J65 engines were replaced by a pair of 10,000 lb.s.t. Pratt & Whitney J57-P-9 turbojets housed in enlarged nacelles and equipped with anti-icing equipment. It was anticipated that the aircraft would be able to operate at altitudes in excess of 70,000 feet. The first RB-57D flew on November 3, 1955. A total of 20 were built.

The RB-57F was the result of a early-1960s program to produce a virtually new high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft out of the B-57. The wing of the RB-57F was an entirely new, three-spar structure with a span of 122 feet. Extensive use was made of honeycomb sandwich panels, which had originally been developed by Convair for the B-58 Hustler supersonic bomber. All of the fuel was carried inside the wings outboard of the engines. The large wing had a marked anhedral, and had a set of ailerons inset at mid-span that were supplemented by spoilers. All control surfaces had tightly sealed gaps in order to reduce drag, and there were no wing flaps. The aircraft was fitted with larger vertical tail surfaces. These surfaces were twice as large as those of the standard B-57.
The RB-57F was powered by a pair of 18,000 lb.s.t. Pratt & Whitney TF33-P-11A turbofans, which gave the RB-57F more than twice the power of its predecessors. In addition, provision was made for a 3300 lb.s.t. Pratt & Whitney J60-P-9 turbojet housed in a detachable pod underneath each wing. These auxiliary engines did not have starters, and were air-started after takeoff after windmilling up to 12 percent rpm. They remained at idling RPM up to 32,000 feet altitude, where throttling control started becoming effective. Full throttle could be used at altitudes above 40,000 feet. The J60s added approximately 2500 feet to the maximum ceiling. However, the J60s could be removed for maximum range missions.
There were four underwing hardpoints, all of which could be used to carry external stores when the turbojets were mot mounted. The RB-57F could carry a two-ton HTAC high-altitude reconnaissance camera. Special ELINT/SIGINT equipment could be carried in the modified nose and in the plastic wingtip sections.
Following the completion of the first two aircraft, the USAF awarded a contract to General Dynamics for the construction of 19 more RB-57Fs. Most of them were converted from B-57B airframes that were still on active duty, but four were converted from RB-57Ds that were taken out of storage, and three were converted from RB-57A aircraft by using spare B-57B nose sections. Production was completed in March of 1967.

No, they wouldn’t. The limit is not the lenses, but the composition of the film emulsion.

To have a good depth-of-field (small aperture) and short exposure times (required if the aircraft are to not be blurred) requires “modern” “high-speed” film chemical make-up, which was not available in the WW1 era – it was invented in the 1940s & later.

My entry. Short Stirling bomber, why oh why weren’t any saved?

In that line – B-32 Dominator.

Mr Cresote -do you think it would be worth travelling back and rather than taking away – drop a sketch of the Hawker ‘Sea Hunter’ on someone’s desk instead of the Scimitar??

You mean the Hawker P.1081 with an Avon instead of the Tay?