There may be more Ro 37 remains out there. According to a survey of surviving Italian WW II aircraft published in Flypast around 15 years ago, a pair of Ro 37 wrecks had been discovered in Ethiopia. I have not seen any news of these wrecks being recovered, so it is possible that at least something should remain.

Regards,

Jan

Hi TT,

The u/c legs are marked AEU, which Pär believes to be a British company. I received the same photo a few days ago, but I can’t identify the aircraft type.

Regards,

Jan

Until some years ago, the Royal Swedish Aero Club (KSAK) regularly used DH 82 SE-ADF and Norwegian-built DH 82A SE-ALM as glider tugs at Ålleberg. Incidentally, SE-ADF (c/n 3113) is the world’s oldest Tiger Moth, and was originally delivered to the Swedish Air Force in 1931.

A few non-glider towing photos of SE-ADF can be found here: http://www.warbirdalley.com/tiger-pic.htm

Regards,

Jan

The T-28 pilot who defected to North Vietnam was a Thai national serving in the Royal Lao Air Force. Apparently, he had left the Royal Thai Air Force under rather vague circumstances, after which he went to Laos where he joined the RLAF. On March 16, 1963, he defected to North Vietnam. The North Vietnamese didn’t know what to do with him, and, just to be on the safe side, threw him in jail.

Initially, the T-28 was stored, but in September 1963, it joined the VPAF as s/n ‘963’ (i.e. September 1963). The C-123 incident occured on February 16, 1964. However, the C-123 was badly damaged (not shot down), with one of the pilots being killed by 12.7 mm machine gun fire.

This T-28 was most likely the one that served in the VPAF. The T-28s of the South Vietnamese Air Force (VNAF) had all been withdrawn from use long before April 1975. It is, however, possible that some of the T-28s operated by the Kampuchean air arm were incorporated into the VPAF after the Vietnamese invasion of that country in 1978/79.

Regards,

Jan

The Finnish Air Force (Ilmavoimat) operated about 90 Russian-built aircraft during the Second World War. Although some were captured during the Winter War, most were delivered from captured German stocks during 1941-1944. With the exception of the P-40M and the Hurricane IIA, most of the aircraft types listed below were either operated by the Ilmavoimat as front-line aircraft, issued to training units or evaluated.

Types used included;

24 Tupolev SB-2s, most of which were used on anti-shipping ops. Three Russian subs and five other ships claimed as sunk.
11 Ilyushin DB-3Ms,
Four Ilyushin Il-4 (aka DB-3F),
Five Petlyakov Pe-2s,
One Petlyakov Pe-3,
Five Polikarpov I-15bis (aka I-152, only used as advanced trainers),
21 Polikarpov I-153s, (One Finnish I-153 pilot shot down a Russian I-153!)
Two Polikarpov I-16s, (only evaluated, at least one was sent to Germany),
Three LaGG-3s,
One Curtiss P-40M, (s/n 43-9438 was captured in December 1943),
One Hawker Hurricane IIA (plus two more that weren’t restored to airworthiness),
Four Polikarpov U-2s, (One is preserved at the Finnish Air Force Museum)
One Polikarpov UTI-4, (Two-seat training version of the I-16, preserved at Helsinki),
Five Beriev MBR-2/-2bis (flying boat, used for coastal patrol duties)
Two Shavrov Sh-2s.

Regards,

Jan

I agree, most likely a Fairchild 24W. The registration seems to be OH-FUJ?

More photos of the Fairchild 24 can be found here: http://www.fairchild24.com/

Regards,

Jan

The first operational use of the ejection seat by the Swedish Air Force occured on 9 July 1946, when 1st Lieutenant Bengt-Olov Johansson ejected from a Saab J 21A, following a mid-air collision near Gothenburg with a FFVS J 22.

Regards,

Jan

The MiG-21 and the Chinese J-7 must surely be a candidate for the No. 1 ubiquotous jet fighter. http://www.mig-21.de/english/inservice.htm lists no less than 48 countries that have used it.

Interestingly, though, neither Israel nor the USA is not included in that list…

Regards,

Jan