Guys,

the tracks under the airplane, were part of experiments with different landing gear configurations.

I do not have the books at hand to quote specifically, but I distinctly recall having seen and read on the subject.

More recently, here was either a Boeing or a Northrop transport aircraft (experimental IIRC) that was tested with an inflatable bag in lieu of a landing gear.

Saludos,

Tulio

No B17 was ever fitted with that tank combination. That photo? is just a montage.

Number 6, the B17 with the tank is clearly somebody’s idea of a joke, as I suspect is number 4.

I imagine that docking scenario as pictured would have been a nighmare in real life. Flying boat hulls are not of the thickness and strength of ship hulls and the constant bumping against the “wharf” would have holed it pretty quick.

Normal flying boat mooring was to buoys so that they could swing around the buoy with wind changes and loading of passengers was by launch. The swinging with the wind is caused by the inbuilt weathercocking effect of the vertical tail.

That pictured system could only have been used in an absolutely flat calm and even then tidal effects would have to be accounted for.

Interesting indeed James and XN923. I think that it is true that chivalry in the idealised though probably, in actuality, non-existent medieval tradition did not exist in the WW1 air combats. That is a clumsy sentence but what I am saying that much of the chivalry of the Medieval period which involved letting a beaten opponent live was due in reality to the fact that as hostages they were worth a lot of money. Ransom payments funded many an extension to the manor.

The WW1 airmen lived a life so utterly apart, in combat terms, from the foot sloggers in the trenches and their individual combats may have seemed for fleeting moments for those in the meat grinder to be somehow preferable. Yet a bullet in the head is a bullet in the head whether it’s from a pilot or a muddy scared infantryman.

To me the Germans seem to have engrained the mythic element of knightly combat into their military philosophy to a much greater extent than most with the possible exception of the French. And it is apparent that this ethic survived into the WW2 Luftwaffe. XN923 cites the status accorded the Experten, and this status is unparalleled in the Allied forces. But the price was heavy because by creating those mythic warriors they also created a system where the very best had no respite other than death or incapacitation from constant combat.

The Allies were much more pedestrian and rotated pilots out of combat so that they could instruct or put their leadership skills to tactical and strategic use. In Germany in WW2 the leadership was striving to recreate the myth of the Teutonic Knight – the knights who had first come to prominence in the expansion into the pagan parts of Eastern Europe and from which the Prussian national identity grew. A knight cannot retire he is always on a quest or he ceases to be that mythic figure – for want of a better example its like the man of La Mancha Don Quixote. The quest is always there but in the end no Knight can be immortal.

This creation of a myth was necessary to legitimise what was essentially a working class right wing party that had taken over from the WW1 and pre-WW1 aristocratic German leadership.

But that is a digression. Like James, I see precious little of the myth of knightly behaviour in WW1 air combat. Lanoe Hawker was killed after he had run out of ammunition and was trying to escape. In the Medieval period he would have possibly been captured and held for ransom, but that is not an option in the air. Also the reality was that an enemy who survives and escapes will come back to try and kill you.

A very interesting discussion.

Excellent post Malcolm, not much to disagree with. And yet… and yet… there seem to be some characteristics of the scout pilots of the first world war that make the ‘knights’ analogy easier to apply, if not entirely appropriate. For example, many RFC pilots claimed to feel no animosity to the Germans (though some certainly did) and even felt an affinity with them because they were also airmen. Many of the worst horrors of the Western Front were not immediately apparent to the aircrews so this undoubtedly allowed RFC men the luxury of not needing to hate their adversaries. There are also stories that reinforce the ‘affinity’ idea even between adversaries who were fighting to the death. Von Richtofen reported that as he was locked in a turning battle with Lanoe Hawker, the two men gaily waved at each other (neither could bring their guns to bear and all they could do was try to hold the turn. Eventually, running out of altitude and fuel, Hawker had to make a bolt for the lines and Von Richtofen used his Albatros’ superior speed to chase down Hawker’s DH2 and shoot him down). Admittedly, MVR’s ‘honouring’ of his foes often took the form of rather grisly trophy hunting. It’s a fascinating mixture of cold ruthlessness and respect for one’s enemy’s humanity.

Well it was a very condensed history and that tends to leave out one essential thing of the human condition and that is that we do, even in mortal combat, have the capacity to recognise the humanity of others, or their bravery. Of course that is not always the case more’s the pity. We are also capable of horrific cruelty and inhumanity – but that also is a product of a myth creation process.

For example how else are we conditioned to commit acts of genocide e.g. extermination of Jews, or Ruandans etc. except by demonising them so that they lose their humanity. War invokes a complex psychological process in us and demogogues and dictators like Hitler and Stalin are masters at conditioning their subjects to abandon their humanity.

The knightly spirit is a way to sanitise the killing act while the operation of a gas chamber is another. Both achieve the same end but we view them as diametrically opposed. We are complex creatures and yet it is our humanity that causes this strange dichotomy in our rational process. Both extremes are seen as “good” yet both in the end are the same.

This book http://www.amazon.co.uk/Brief-History-Royal-Flying-Histories/dp/1841194700/sr=8-3/qid=1164274063/ref=sr_1_3/026-5310586-4078044?ie=UTF8&s=books has a few things to say about the different attitudes of Germany and Britain on the cult of the ‘Ace’ and the new knights – in a nutshell, the British Army wasn’t so keen on it (eventually bowing to popular newspaper creation of indiividual heroes) while the Germans seemed to encourage it. Stephen Bungay also discusses how the first war values were reflected in the Battle of Britain in ‘The Most Dangerous Enemy’ – more on individual ‘champions’ rather than fighter aces being ‘verray, parfit, gentil knights’. In essence, not so different from the Middle Ages then where the ‘knightly ideal’ had more to do with literature then reality…

Knightly reality was, in any age, being carved up or shredded painfully and fatally with whatever the best weapon to hand was. In a fight you either survive or die, so you use whatever skill or equipment advantage you have to win.

Just because you are flying an aeroplane, riding a horse, sailing a ship, sitting in a tank or just plain walking and carrying a rifle all these are, in reality, only a means to bring the instrument of execution to your opponent and none alter the ethics of the bloody business in any way.

The “knightly myth” was invented as a means to make it palatable to the squeamish civilians.

I remember reviewing that one and it is the only book in literally hundreds that I reviewed that I used a pencil to make notes on the book about how bad it was.

For example “Richthofen mistreated Moritz (his dog) because he had a complex about being short.”

Was that Manfred von Richthofen who had the complex or the dog? And were there canine psychologists in the German forces in WW1?

😀

In its war against Fireants the USAF has introduced new recon techniques.