ID this aircraft?

Brings back some memories

Very nice pictures.These birds bring back some memories from when I was a kid. I had a paper route and one of stops was a kinda military plane junkyard. Some of the planes were decent others had been purchased as salvage judging by the condition. This guy had some really cool/ rare planes but none were in flying shape. IIRC he had 2 Corsairs one won the air races and the other was still in its military config. The plane I remember best was a P-51 Mustang but it had a dual fuselage like a p38 lightning I forget the model designation. I remember the owner telling me how rare the plane was only about 300 or so made and that he had 2 of the remaining planes. I would guess he would be deceased by now as he was probably in his fifties back then. I wonder what happened to those planes I hope someone got there hands on them and fixed them up to look to look like the ones in the pictures
 
colchester said:
The plane I remember best was a P-51 Mustang but it had a dual fuselage like a p38 lightning I forget the model designation. I remember the owner telling me how rare the plane was only about 300 or so made and that he had 2 of the remaining planes. I would guess he would be deceased by now as he was probably in his fifties back then.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_F-82_Twin_Mustang
http://www.johnweeks.com/p82/index.html

Am guessing your acquaintence was named Walter Soplata? Reason I ask this is there are only 5 examples of this aircraft reamining. Two are at the National Museum of the United States Air Force in Dayton, OH; one is an outside display aircraft in San Antonio, TX; and two others ("former property of the late Walter Soplata") are being restored to airworthy condition.

Building a flyable F-82 is a pretty neat trick - no left hand propellers are known to exist outside of two of the three planes owned by the US Air Force.
 
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Asa Yam said:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_F-82_Twin_Mustang
http://www.johnweeks.com/p82/index.html

Am guessing your acquaintence was named Walter Soplata? Reason I ask this is there are only 5 examples of this aircraft reamining. Two are at the National Museum of the United States Air Force in Dayton, OH; one is an outside display aircraft in San Antonio, TX; and two others ("former property of the late Walter Soplata") are being restored to airworthy condition.

Building a flyable F-82 is a pretty neat trick - no left hand propellers are known to exist outside of two of the three planes owned by the US Air Force.
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Wow that was the guy. Glad to see they will finally get the attention they deserve. Thanks for the links Ill do some more digging now, perhaps they are restored already.
 
squeakie said:
. . . B24's that had a large tail fin instead of the typical twin tails like most all B24's are known for.
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The Privateer.

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Asa Yam said:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_F-82_Twin_Mustang
http://www.johnweeks.com/p82/index.html

Am guessing your acquaintence was named Walter Soplata? Reason I ask this is there are only 5 examples of this aircraft reamining. Two are at the National Museum of the United States Air Force in Dayton, OH; one is an outside display aircraft in San Antonio, TX; and two others ("former property of the late Walter Soplata") are being restored to airworthy condition.

Building a flyable F-82 is a pretty neat trick - no left hand propellers are known to exist outside of two of the three planes owned by the US Air Force.
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one of the problems with high horsepower single engines prop fighters was dealing with engine torque. Some were worse that others, and some were downright scarey! It was fairly common to see a plane literally rotate while setting on the ground, and it wasn't much better in the air. The K4 BF109 (as well as the G10 and G14's) was well known for landing and take off crashes due to the high power output and narrow landing gear track. The Mustang wasn't much better, and the pilot had to be carefull (Robin Olds speaks of this in his book). But just as interestingly is the fact that these planes also turned better in one direction than the other (usually to the right). A good pilot in a dogfight would take advantage of this, and often engage from the left. The P38's and F82's never had that problem due to engines counteracting each other. But they also didn't turn worth a damned. None of the big radial engined fighters turned all that well either. Of course the jets never had that problem, but encountered other problems that were at the time almost unsolvable. The Mustang had inline speed and a good rate of climb; yet was actually much better in a power dive than most anything out there. A TA152 would eat a Mustang alive at any altitude, and out turn it as well. A BF109K4 could climb in a vertical long after it's opponets went into a stall, but as I said was prone to crashes on landing and take off. The Brits built some Spitfires with griffon engines that were faster than most anything out there, but had way too much power for the airframe. Johnnie Johnson spoke of this, and didn't regard them as a Spitfire anymore when they lost their dogfighting agility. Interestingly the twin engined Douglas A26 could turn inside a Mustang or a BF109!! But was also very hard on the airframes when they did this.
gary
 
TomD said:
Sony Alpha 850

Plus if you're looking for important WWII aircraft, the one below is the only one I've seen of these.

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a lot of the two seat ME262's were radar equiped, and used in a night fighter role. Really too fast for that concept. The JU88G was a much better platform, but the HE 219 was probably as good a night fighter as WWII ever saw (even better than the P61). The P61 was about as good as it got, but in aerial combat the HE219 could out turn it and was much faster, depending on the version even heavier armed. Politics did more to harm that plane than the Allies ever could do! Some folks think that a heavy armed A26 would have been the equal of the Blackwidow. Funny thing about the HE219 is that it could have easilly been in production by late 1942, but Milch hated old man Hienkle. The first trail flight; the plane shot down five bombers and two fighters escorting a bomber formation the following raid. But that was six or eight months after the plane first flew! Same could really be said of the Fw190 D9, as the original concept of the Fw190 was with an inline V12 instead of the radial. (once again Milch was the problem) God must have been on the Allie's side!
gary
 
I love this stuff, great pictures, kinda why I painted my new hunter rifle like a ww2 aircraft, nose art and all

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Here's one you might like, shot this at an air show at Eglin AFB last year.

Side note, I live only around 20 miles from parts of Eglin. I can hear them bombing on a lot of nights, THUMP!, THUMP!

Oh yeah, about the P61, I built a model of one maybe 50 years ago but have never seen one. Sorry. Got just about every Naval aircraft ever made around here though.

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Gary, that is true of any prop driven machine with a single prop.

Back when I ran American Power Boat Association Races, I raced Circle Boats. If you have ever looked at how a V-Drive boat is set up, the prop turns opposite the engine. Straight line drag boats would have the engine sitting backwards in the boat, (behind the driver), and drive off of the flywheel, thus having a left hand prop.

Since we had to turn left all the time, (never right), we set the engine pointing forward in the boat, and drove off the nose of the crankshaft. This allowed the use of a right hand prop, which gave us phenominol left turn capabilities.

The problem was, the darned thing would not turn right worth a darn, but it did not matter.

Torque was always a major concern. In my K-Boat, which I ran an injected methanol burning big block, I would have as much as 1 1/2 inch of down corner on the cavitation plates to keep the boat level. Once you hit top end, it wasn't that bad, excelerating out of the turns was when you could literally screw the thing into the water if you came up on the plate too fast.

In my opinion, the best all around fighter was the P-47 Thunderbolt. Big, rugged, lots of power, and lots of armament..........jackie
 
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There was one comment on the Thunderbolt that I remember from back when I built plastic models as a kid & bought every book on warbirds I could find - that their pilots took evasive action by running from one side of the cockpit to the other.

Never seen one, but they must be big mothers.
 
Of all the models I made/had as a kid the P-61 Black Widow, AD-6 Sky Raider, P-47 Thunderbolt, and a F-105 Thunderchief are all that's left,I hope their still in one piece it's been 35 yrs since I've looked for/at them. HMMMMM next time I go to the folk's I'll dig'em out for the boy :):):)...
 
jackie schmidt said:
Gary, that is true of any prop driven machine with a single prop.

Back when I ran American Power Boat Association Races, I raced Circle Boats. If you have ever looked at how a V-Drive boat is set up, the prop turns opposite the engine. Straight line drag boats would have the engine sitting backwards in the boat, (behind the driver), and drive off of the flywheel, thus having a left hand prop.

Since we had to turn left all the time, (never right), we set the engine pointing forward in the boat, and drove off the nose of the crankshaft. This allowed the use of a right hand prop, which gave us phenominol left turn capabilities.

The problem was, the darned thing would not turn right worth a darn, but it did not matter.

Torque was always a major concern. In my K-Boat, which I ran an injected methanol burning big block, I would have as much as 1 1/2 inch of down corner on the cavitation plates to keep the boat level. Once you hit top end, it wasn't that bad, excelerating out of the turns was when you could literally screw the thing into the water if you came up on the plate too fast.

In my opinion, the best all around fighter was the P-47 Thunderbolt. Big, rugged, lots of power, and lots of armament..........jackie
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The P47 was a great plane for sure. But not so great in a dog fight. They just didn't turn well or climb well. But were very rugged. Hard to beat a MK.IX Spitfire as an all around dog fighter. But each one of these planes had the same problem! They didn't do very well below 15K feet. Believe it or not the Allison engined Mustangs were better at lower levels. But there was one exception to this rule. The TA 152H. It flew well at lower levels and was good for 470mph at 43K feet. Close to a hundred MPH faster than it's competetion at 40K feet. late in the war many thought the Hawker tempest might have been the best all around plane the Allies had. It flew well on the deck and was also very fast. Yet also flew well at altitude. A TA152 would turn inside it! One thing that really hurt the Mustang and P47 was the use of 50 caliber machine guns instead of 20mm cannon. The cannon had much better range, and of course it was much more devistating on impact. Early Spitfires used machine guns, but later changed over to 20mm cannon for this reason alone. But I'd have to say that if the Allies could have only used one plane; it would have been the P47 in my book.
gary
 
[Did you know that there is a company in Florida that is manufacturing NEW ME 262's. You can get it in either single or dual seat version.

They actually came up with the original prints and are manufacturing the original aircraft. I believe they modified the nose gear as the original had a nasty habit of collapsing.

The engines are P&W JT-12's (Turbo-Jets) and very reliable. Don't remember the price exactly, but you can have one for the price of a P-51 Mustang.

Be the only kid on your block with one!!!!!!!!!

Bob
 
bob3700 said:
[Did you know that there is a company in Florida that is manufacturing NEW ME 262's. You can get it in either single or dual seat version.

They actually came up with the original prints and are manufacturing the original aircraft. I believe they modified the nose gear as the original had a nasty habit of collapsing.

The engines are P&W JT-12's (Turbo-Jets) and very reliable. Don't remember the price exactly, but you can have one for the price of a P-51 Mustang.

Be the only kid on your block with one!!!!!!!!!

Bob
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I've seen photos of that jet. There's also a company in Germany that is building FW190 A8's. They are using a U.S. built engine (think it is a P&W), but the story goes that there is a Chinese company doing a copy of the BMW801, or something very close to it. They are supposed to be working on a FW190D9 version with somekind of a new manufacture V12 engine (I doubt it's a Merlin). Anyway the plane comes as a kit, and very accurate in profile and performance. I'm surprised that somebody has not done a Mustang or a Spitfire!
gary
 
Roger T said:
Tom, Ever seen/taken a picture of a Northrup P 61 Black Widow ?
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Roger,
Here's a link to a restoration that has been in the making for years in Reading, PA. A couple of machinists I know donated their time for pieces of the project. Many of the parts had to be fabricated from original shop and assembly dwgs.
www.maam.org/p61/p61_rest.htm
 
Here is a Helldiver at the very beginning of restoration after being disassembled and cleaned. This aircraft spent a while at the bottom of Lake Michigan where it was crashed during WWII by a student pilot attempting a carrier landing. This was shot last week at the restoration facility at The Naval Air Museum on base at NAS Pensacola.

Below that a F4 Corsair in about the same stage.

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