IBob

So, 26 were built for lendlease to WW2 Russia.....of which 7 were lost on the N Arctic delivery route...and just 10 of the remaining 19 were accepted into service???

I recall seeing grainy b & w footage of an aircraft of similar configuration. It was taxiing in a really nasty short choppy sea, bucking wildly. And the engine fell out, first rising as though to fall back on the fuselage, then mercifully dropping down forward.......

I heard that this or something like it was found at the back of an RAF hangar in the '60s, and that one of the more accomplished (but more reckless) ATC cadets looped it on a dare.......(

Harold the Helicopter....as featured in the Thomas the Tank Engine books....)

Westland Harold???

The top pic looks like a Rans S6 Coyote?

Enormous tail fin.............

That's terrifying!........deep respect for the test pilot/s........

Oh dear:

Service Ceiling:

10,000 ft (3,000 m) (estimated), 3 ft (0.91 m) (actual)

Thinks: I could overtake one of those........)

I saw a Trimotor at Strathallen in Scotland in the late '70s. We couldn't believe how slow the approach was, it seemed to take forever to come over the fence.
Someone had found it in Spain, and it was on it's way to a collector in the Sates, flying 'over the top' which was probably the safest route. We tried to get a jump from the thing, but the ferry crew were understandably not interested.

We later heard that it had struck head winds on the next leg and turned back, having burned a significant portion of available fuel without actually clearing the coast. No news after that, so no doubt they made it....eventually.

ZK-AFF in the pics belonged to New Zealand Aerial Mapping, based at Bridge Pa near Hastings.

I can remember it being flown by the company founder, Piet Van Asch, for the lolly drop for the kids at an airfield open day in the '70s,. They were using an AeroCommander by then, but kept the Monospar airworthy.

The reduction boxes on the Pobjoy rotaries made a curious clattering noise.

Sadly, it was lost in a hangar fire, some time in the 80s, I think

Apparently they are a great aircraft, and unusually enjoyable for the pax too, as they get to see over the top........)

https://www.airliners.net/photo/Untitled/Beagle-A-109-Airedale/915402

This guy is located and flies regularly from our local field......)

That's the guy!!!!

8 minutes ago, pmccarthy said:

I will gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today. JWW. He gave his name to a bomber and a hamburger chain. Not bad for a cartoon character.

As I recall, he also kept a small camp stove under his hat, complete with warm hamburger.......

Also know as the 'Wimpy', after the character J Wellington Wimpy in the Popeye comic strips.

OME  Paramushir is an Island off the Kamchatka Peninsula, occupied in WW2 by the Japanese, with multiple airstrips and bases. A Russian translator showed us round the little museum there. On the wall was a picture of a Russian general of Mongolian extraction, who he said should have been shot. The story he told went as follows

In addition to extensive military operations, the Japanese had a Russian POW camp on Paramushir. With the end of the war in sight, they loaded the POWs on boats, took them out to sea and dropped them over the side.

On Aug14 1945, the Japanese unconditionally surrendered. However, the Russian general, wishing for a decisive win on his CV, requested and was granted leave to 'take' Paramushir by force. Russian troops arrived by ship Aug18, however, they put in to the wrong bay, and 2 of every three drowned while trying to reach the shore. The history books say that sporadic fighting then continued until Aug23, however the translator told us the Japanese met the Russians with white flags and were machine gunned.

It is a fishing island, and the locals said they were fishing up bones for years.

The main fishing town was wiped out in 1952 by the Severo Kurilsk tsunami. The locals told us the KGB visited the survivors and cautioned them against talking about it. The local theory is that the tsunami was the result of a bomb test.

In 1983 commercial flight KAL007 'strayed' into Soviet air space and was shot down. One theory in the West was that the incursion was deliberate, intended to provoke the USSR into lighting up all their defence gear, much of it on Paramushir, so the US could get a look at it. We asked the translator about that and were told the official line: supposedly Russia had shot down 15 enemy aircraft that day, unfortunately one turned out to be civilian. I don't think he believed it: there were a lot of Russians jokes about their own propaganda.

In 1986 when I was there, the island was still littered with old munitions, the local children periodically blowing bits off themselves while playing with them.

It's a place of severe winter weather, and there are fewer people there now.

51 minutes ago, onetrack said:

There's scenes in the clip showing the pilots strafing Japanese lifeboats and rafts - something that didn't sit well with many Allied personnel. But this was a result of the Japs previously shooting down crew in parachutes who had baled out of a stricken B-17 - as well as strafing Allied survivors in the water.

 

As result, it was seen as "fair game" to do the same to the Japs. There was also the aim of simply eliminating as many Jap military fighting men as possible, to ensure they couldn't launch more attacks.

I worked alongside NATO troops in Germany, late '60s early '70s.
I heard a few stories about things that happened during WW2 there, the reasons and the justifications. Now, when I read back about those same events and incidents, I find the stories are sometimes quite different, and usually nothing like as clear cut as what I was told back then.

It can be very hard to arrive at what actually happened and why. The victors get to write the history in the first instance, and the propaganda can last a very long time.

I have learnt to be wary of the official line.

Terrific mass Mitchell takeoff footage from the original Catch 22:

7 hours ago, kgwilson said:

 ........3 of which were immaculately restored by Avspecs at Ardmore NZ for American Billionaires.

KGWilson, I believe (at least) one of those was an all new airframe build, since the airframe of the original donor aircraft was too far gone. Which meant they had to make moulds for the fuselage.

If they now own the moulds, they must be uniquely placed for further rebuilds.

Another very special aircraft........sigh...........)

Lovely........)

I don't remember the wing tanks on the ones at Heathrow.

I do remember that long nose gear set forward at just the right angle.

Whoever designed that aircraft made something very special.

Wasn't there a freight version with a reinforced floor...popular latterly in S America for various naughty activities???

Very beautiful aircraft: I remember seeing them at London Airport as a kid.

Must have been robust too: I seem to remember one was used as a storm chaser, used for studying hurricanes......