Keystone Instruments, in Lock Haven Pa., is the outfit that many U. S. antiquers use. If you’d be willing to deal with a Yank company, you can ask them here…
Some may wonder about the obviously hand-painted part of the dive brake in photo #5. Having recently written about this airplane, I should pass on that when I talked to Rob Collings about it, he pointed out that they made great efforts to be entirely authentic in its color scheme: though he said it pained the restorers to have to do it, they hand-painted with a brush those parts of the airplane that would have been painted that way by techs in the field, like the red surround around the stars-and-bars, the large J on the fuselage and other items including, obviously, the left-wing dive brake where the national insignia impinged upon it.
The nonpilots among you don’t get it, but I’m not surprised.
Going for a ride in a Spitfire is always fun, and it’s fun to manipulate the controls at altitude, but all I’m saying is that there’s a world of difference between “I went flying in a Spitfire” and “I flew a Spitfire.”
No need to follow me through on the takeoffs and landings, I’ve flown warbirds.
I don’t log any time that doesn’t include either a takeoff or a landing. Anybody with a pulse can “fly” if all it means is push/pull up/down whee lookit me bank and turn…
As we used to say, “Yesterday I couldn’t even spell pile-it,now I are one.”
I can take my cat flying and do the same thing. I have often had total nonpilots take the controls in cruise, in a variety of single-and twin-engine airplanes, and talked them through a variety of maneuvers. But it’s hardly “flying.”
We need to get the “two-holer outhouse” adopted as the standard unit of measurement of external size of fuel tanks!
The image occurred to me because the bladder is much taller than it is wide, since the Skyraider is such a huge airplane; the entire cockpit is essentially on the “upper floor,” and the bladder extends from the basement to the roof…
Spitfire and Hurricane. Having a fuel tank in front of the pilot
My Falco had the same rig, plus another bigger one right behind me in case the first one didn’t do the job. Pretty standard for fighters and fighter-type designs of the era. And even the A-1 Skyraider had an enormous rubber bladder–the only internal fuel tankage–about the size of a two-holer outhouse right behind the pilot.
Well, just to qualify Dick as a person of interest to aviation historians and nostalgics, here’s a photo of his (once) Fleet biplane, recently restored.
I’m just WAGing here, but it may be that the Albatros appealed much more to wealthy American sportsman-pilots than did the somewhat less martial-looking Provost. And was the Provost available over here in the colonies, other than for the Snowbirds?
the L-39 does seem to have more than its fair share of incidents
That would be because it’s inexpensive (you can get one for about the price of a good GA twin) and easy to fly. I have a friend who owns one and have ridden with him. Though he’s smart enough to have gotten substantial professional training before soloing his, his previous experience was owning and flying a Beech T-34 and a variety of GA singles and twins. And his Ferrari…
Absolutely agree. And you’re not being overcorrect, calling a Japanese a Jap is no different than any of the other cultural perjoratives, unless you’re Snookie’s boyfriend and like to be called a Guido…
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