Vahe.DThe Fw 200 recovered from a Norwegian fjord in 1999 has been finally restored to display as a civilian machine at the former Berlin Tempelhof Airport.
https://ww2aircraft.net/forum/threads/last-remaining-focke-wulf-fw-200-…
Vahe.DI found additional info on the target drone gliders built for the Royal Air Force and Royal Navy in the 1940s and 1950s at these links:
https://www.haddenhamairfieldhistory.co.uk/targets.htm
https://www.facebook.com/RAFLECONFIELD/posts/testing-times-at-leconfiel…
Vahe.DThe latest on the restoration of the Lancaster Just Jane:
https://vintageaviationnews.com/warbird-restorations/lancaster-nx611-ju…
Vahe.DAll the men who carried out the Doolittle Raid on Tokyo in April 1942 have passed away (Richard E. Cole died in April 2019), and the last living member of the Flying Tigers died in 2020. John Hemingway is the only living RAF airman who fought in the Battle of Britain, and Jiří Pavel Kafka is the last living Czechoslovak airman who fought for the RAF in World War II.
With the centenary of the Japanese invasion of Manchuria coming up in 2031, I can only speculate that a number of Chinese veterans of the Pacific theater of World War II who regard the Japanese conquest of Manchuria in 1931 as the true start of World War II may hold a commemoration honoring Chinese Nationalist Air Force pilots and Flying Tigers crews who defended Chinese airspace from Japan in the war.
Vahe.DThe metal debris artifact 2-2-V-1 which TIGHAR considered possibly from the Lockheed 10E Electra registered NR16020 is now recognized as being from a C-47 based on forensic analysis of the artifact. Like the sextant box with numbers 3500 and 1542 which was once thought to have belonged to Fred Noonan, the artifact 2-2-V-1 is thus unrelated to the 1937 circumnavigational flight attempt by Earhart and Noonan.
https://tighar.org/Publications/TTracks/2022Vol_38/TIGHARTracks38_03_Se…
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/us-news/new-breakthrough-search-amelia-ea…
Vahe.DThe letter “ER” in ER-2 stands for “Earth Resources”, and the ER-2 is tasked with collecting data about the Earth’s resources, celestial observations, atmospheric chemistry and dynamics, and oceanic processes. Also, the ER-2 carries out electronic sensor research and development, satellite calibration, and satellite data validation.
This month, one of the U-2R/S aircraft built as TR-1As (serial number 80-1069) was flown to Edwards AFB for the eventual display at the Air Force Flight Test Center (AFFTC) museum, and a number of parts are slated to be taken from this aircraft by NASA to keep the two ER-2s flying.
https://dragonladytoday.com/2024/08/17/keep-the-u-2-by-downsizing-the-o…
Vahe.DFrom the 2019 article “Joining Forces”:
The IIAF received its initial batch of 21 Republic F-84G Thunderjets under the US Mutual Defense Assistance Program (MDAP) in 1957. They became the air arm’s first jet fighters. As their numbers increased in service with the 1st and 3rd Fighter-Bomber Squadrons at Mehrabad, the F-47D Thunderbolt fleet with the 2nd Fighter Bomber Squadron at Qaleh- Morghi declined until the air force took delivery of 20 ex-USAFE F-86Fs in the first quarter of 1960. Thirty-two more F-86Fs followed during the second and fourth quarters of 1961, in batches of six and 26 respectively, increasing the number in the Iranian inventory to 52.
This article also has additional info on F-86s in Iranian service, including a deployment of four aircraft to support a UN mission in the Congo in 1963.
The F-86Fs delivered to Tunisia in 1969 were previously in use by the Japanese Air Self-Defense Force before being retired in 1964 and returned to the US.
Vahe.DThe AT-6 Texan owed its ancestry to the North American BC-1A, a version of the company’s BC-1 basic combat trainer with squared-off wingtips and a triangular vertical stabilizer.
Vahe.DThe L-15B is the light attack variant of the baseline L-15 jet trainer, and since light combat aircraft can be used for modest airstrikes against ground targets and low-level reconnaissance, the L-15B, like the Tucano and Super Tucano, is ideal for attacks on insurgent groups (the OV-10 was also built for the COIN and low-level reconnaissance roles).
Vahe.DAlthough many books have used the term “Amerika Bomber” for the RLM requirements for a bonafide German long-range bomber that led to the design of the Messerschmitt Me 264, Focke-Wulf Ta 400, Heinkel P.1064, Horten Ho XVIII, Junkers Ju 390, and the Focke-Wulf intercontinental bomber designs bearing the drawing numbers Nr. 238 and Nr. 261 (the latter erroneously called “Fw 238” and “Fw 261” respectively in a few books), research by Dan Sharp (who has written books on World War II German aircraft projects) shows that official RLM documents referred to requirements for a long-range piston-engine bomber by the term Fernkampfflugzeug (long-range combat aircraft). In particular, Sharp notes that British intelligence reports from 1944 referred to the Me 264 as either the “USA bomber” or “New York Bomber”, and he also points out that the late-war Junkers EF 132 strategic jet bomber project was called “Amerika Bomber” in a November 1952 issue of the magazine Flying although the EF 132 did not have the capability to reach the US, surmising that the British intelligence reports and a March 1943 speech by Hermann Goering at his retreat in Carinhall, northern Germany gave rise to the mistaken assumption about the 1941-1942 intercontinental bomber requirements from the RLM being called “Amerika Bomber”.
Also, as noted by Dan Sharp, the Focke-Wulf Ta 400 but also the Heinkel He 277 (which were canceled without ever being built) were merely intended to sink Allied convoys in the North Atlantic and would not have had enough range to reach the eastern US. The Messerschmitt Me 264 and Junkers Ju 390 were the only heavy bombers designed for the Luftwaffe with the capability to strike Manhattan or any other target on the US Eastern Seaboard to reach the hardware phase. There were once rumors about the Ju 390 (of which only one prototype was built and six more prototypes and 20 production aircraft were on order) making a long-range flight from France to overfly New York City in January 1944 to test the Ju 390’s ability to attack Manhattan, but such claims (originating from August 1944 British intelligence reports based in part on the interrogation of German POWs) have been debunked due to a lack of concrete evidence, given that the Ju 390 V1 was in the flight testing phase by the time American and British troops landed in Normandy.
The wooden mockup in the photo posted by lazlo is actually of a fighter project by Mario Zippermayr, not Sanger’s suborbital bomber project (officially known as Raketenbomber despite being better known by Sanger’s colloquial informal term Silbervogel for his conceptual spaceplane designs).
https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/threads/mario-zippermayr-and-his-work-…
Vahe.DI found a tidbit of info on the An-22’s operational career in a wartime capacity:
During the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, An-22s were used to deploy airborne troops. On October 28, 1984, one An-22 was shot down by an SA-7 shortly after taking off from Kabul, killing 250 passengers and crew. Two further An-22s crashed at Vnukovo Airport in Moscow in 1992 and at Migalovo Air Base in 1994.
In 1984 the An-22 was used to transport Mi-8 helicopters to help relief operations following the drought in Ethiopia and 1986 to deliver materials following the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. An-22s became the go-to aircraft for relief missions and troops’ transportation to hot spots during the Soviet Union’s break-up in the late 1980s.
Vahe.DThe B-52H has historically carried a pilot, copilot, weapon systems officer, navigator, and electronic warfare officer. However, plans to convert the entire B-52H fleet to B-52J call for reducing the B-52 crew to four, with the navigator occupying the roles taken by both a navigator and electronic warfare officer.
https://alert5.com/2022/09/12/b-52h-air-crews-are-now-trained-to-operat…
https://www.magnoliareporter.com/news_and_business/north_louisiana/arti…
Vahe.DOne Bf 109E-7 (Wk. Nr. 3579) was restored to airworthy condition in the late 1990s and is currently owned by the Biggin Hill Heritage Hangar Ltd with civil registration G-CIPB.
https://www.aerialvisuals.ca/AirframeDossier.php?Serial=37350
Vahe.DThe website “http://www.deltajets.com” now redirects to the following URL:
Vahe.DThe United States in the last two years of World War II developed a number of turboprop engine designs, including the Westinghouse T30, General Electric T31 (company designation TG-100), and Pratt & Whitney JT1 (military designation T32). The JT1 was bench tested in 1943 but never flew in any aircraft before being cancelled in 1945 in favor of the advanced T34, which would be used on the C-133 Cargomaster, YC-97J, YC-124B (originally designated YC-127), R7V-2, YC-121F, and Super Guppy. The T31 began test runs in May 1945, becoming the powerplant for the Convair XP-81 and Ryan XF2R, but never entered production.
https://aviationtrivia.blogspot.com/2015/02/the-pt1-pratt-whitneys-firs…
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