that’s easy, the instructor is flying as leader and the trail formation follows:”whip effect” ehehehhe

Cheers

Alex

thanks archieraf 🙂
i remember seeing the pics on Flypast done with Sally B, did they change the ship at the last moment?

cheers

Alex

moondance u r absolutely right, but I wonder how much the person who provided the picture earned from it.. if it really is a photo editing I find it at least outrageous for the memory of Carey himself, isnt it? 🙁

Cheers

Alex

well guys, in my humble opinion the whole pic is a fake….
Apart for the obvious scale difference between Carey’s body and the Spit, the lights and shadows are a real mess..
Look at the lights and shadows on the pilot’s body, then look at the shadow his body leaves on the ground.. Assuming this is true, notice how sharp it is:the propeller and wings should have the same kind of shadow too, but they dont..
I think it’s just a 3 layers picture: a background with a spitfire pasted over it, and last but not least is the pilot. Notice even how the details of the pilot come out well if compared to the rest of the pic, way more grainy and with less details.
Now what’s going on here?:confused:

cheers

Alex

Flanker Man yes, if I remember correctly the cowls were a unique piece formed in ground stampings (the same technique used for the tank turrets). A sturdy and robust machine indeed: in Erich Hartmann’s memories u can read a passage where he remembers shooting at one of these IL-2 from 100 meters and seeing his bullets (including the 151/20 cannon shells) ricocheting on the armored parts!! He found the weak spot in the oil cooler under the IL-2 belly, and that soon became the “most visited” area of german fighters 😉
Veltro, I dont think that again this thing is a valid justification.. I personally know and collaborate with one of the technicians who worked on the “phoenix project” and what he told me is that the Harvard there is the only one still owned by ITAF to be registered in the aeronautical register as an aircraft, and not as an “object”, as the other gate guardians are considered.. the papers were done, and even if they werent it really would have not been a problem to do them. It was just a matter of lack of interest in the thing by the Air Force, which I consider idiotic at least.. They allow the AMX to fly (ask any pilots who fly them what they think about it) and dont want a milestone of ITAF rebirth to take back to the air, pure nonsense to me..
JDK, of course we have to be grateful to ppl who keep on believing in what they do, and most of the times they do it against all odds, but I would like to share my thougths with u and hear yr opinion:
I passed some interesting time studying the structure of the Macchis. The wings and fuselage are really robust and well designed, and so is the layout of the machine, with the large landing gears giving a great stability on the ground, a steady rock if compared to the Spit or 109. Now the damage sustained by the airframe was surely relevant (but still I hear several versions about it:someone says it ground looped, somebody else says it flipped over etc..), but once more I would like to remember that Aermacchi has the priceless possibility to construct spare parts by themselves, and the cost is really nothing for a company like that, this is something out of any discussion: we were not talking about a blown up DB605 or a burned wreckage, but a structural damage. Stressed spars can be redone, and unless the whole ship was considered scrap(which I think it’s impossible, unless it carthweeled on the ground for 200 yards..) there was no unsormountable reason to give up.
I see a B-17 in airworthy condition zooming over me (a HUGE metalic structure with FOUR P&W engines that drink A LOT of fuel and oil…) at Duxford or Lufthansa flying a Ju52 and Bf108 and an aircraft company can’t repair a small airframe built by them and of which tehy still have the orginal quoted drawings?? Allow me to say bull**it!!!
U probably got the point: it wasnt worth it(at least for them).
I wonder if we will ever have another Macchi or G.55 flying again, even if I think it will remain a mere dream…

cheers

Alex

well, If u look at what happened to the tuskegee P-51 or the Bristol Blenheim u would understand what I’m talking about: despite de relevant damage those machines will take back to the air because the aim of the associations behind them is to preserve the memory of the machines and men who flew them making the darn thing fly! I guess u r italian, and so u know how much sweat, blood and pain our crewmen and pilots had to shed to be up there during the war. The tribute that the Macchi had to represent was obvious, but after such accident (that surely wasn’t minor, but knowing the potential of an aircraft industry like Aermacchi, it wouldnt have been so impossible to bear), they packed up everything and said “that’s enough, end of the game”. Let’s even say they probably made the wrong choice about the pilot, but this doesnt justify their decision to give up. This is not the only case in Italy: some years ago the RSV (the experimental squadron of italian air force) in Pratica di Mare completed the restoration of a Harvard IV, a job that saw a great group of specialists working hard to get the plane together. They got all the papers, the permissions etc.. but when an ITAF experimental pilot (who had NO experience on taildraggers) gave it a take off run trial he almost crashed the poor harvard.. he taxiied back to the dispersal and said “there’s no way to fly this stupid thing”.. now imagine the anger and disappointment of all the guys who worked hard on that project. Nowadays the Harvard is sitting OUTSIDE, taking rain, seasalt, sunlight… It’s in working condition (or at least that’s how they left it), but it’s just left there..
Now would u justify things like these??? We had a glorious decade in the 30s with out air force, but our country seems to forget this to concetrate on superficial things..
I’m getting rethorical and again going off topic, if u want to continue this discussion we can do it privately or in another topic, but trust me, the 205 could have been repaired and taken back where it belonged to: the sky.

cheers

Alex

P.S.
Veltro, this nick is not new to me, r u who I think u r? 😉

awright fellas, awright! 😀
I wasnt serious, but when u look at pics taken over Texas or California u must admit the panorama can be pretty desolating: no interesting landmarks, no mountains, no nothing… Europe is more appealing under this point of view, having historical landmarks(castles, monuments..), hills and mountains, small old villages, historical areas.. A flight over the Channel with a low pass over the Dover cliffs is an emotion that a million flights over Aspen can’t give.. Our ATC can turn into a nightmare sometimes, but that’s another story 😉

cheers

Alex

The 51 had the fiercest combat theatre here, so I say
Mustangs belong to Europe!!!! 😀 😉
Flying here is so exciting, with all our mountains, hills, valleys… US are a pool table, no deep valleys to whizz into 😎

Alex