Another Interesting Tv Night

[red750]

Was watching Great Planes on Turbo Max. Tonight's aircaft was the Bell Airacobra. A couple of interesting points:

 

In a fly-off in England against the Spitfire and a captured Me 109, the Airacobra out-turned both of them, but the Spitfire could outclimb the Airacobra. Britain chose the Spitfire, but the US military ordered 2000 Airacobras for a total of $75 mill.

 

The non-adjustable metal seat of the Airacobra was designed for pilots up to 5 ft 8 in, and no more than 200lb.

 

The Airacobra was fitted with a car style door with wind down window, which was difficult enough to get into with a parachute on, but would have been a nightmare to get out of with the slipstream complicating matters.

 

While I was watching this, my wife was watching a program called Britains Hidden Heritage. She called out that they were showing an Avro Vulcan. The presenter, who said he had dreamed of flying in a Vulcan as a child, got to climb into the cockpit, showing how cramped it was. He was then taken up in a high performance single somewhat like Matt Hall's Red Bull racer. From overhead, he watched the Vulcan take off, and once it was airborne, they flew in formation for a while. The Vulcan had to maintain a nose high attitude to fly slow enough for the single to keep up. The Vulcan peeled away to the left, then rolled back to the right to move up closer to the light aircraft. Nice air to air footage. For a couple of minutes the light aicraft flew behind and below the Vulcan, before the Vulcan powered away leaving the light plane behind.

 

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[red750]

Great Planes on 7TWO right now. Super Guppy.

 

 

[Old Koreelah]

I'm learning lots.

 

Before the nose cargo door is opened, mobs of control cables have to be disconnected. The Guppy is based on an old pre-hydraulics Boeing.

 

Preflights include checking not just fore and aft CoG but also vertical CoG of the cargo. Too high and it might not pull out of a bank.

 

 

[red750]

I've watched two landings so far. They wheelbarrowed both. Less Guppy pilots than Shuttle pilots.