Most Beautiful Aircraft

[SUU23]

That tail looks a bit wabbit. What ship?

Curtiss CW21, interceptor. 1x30 cal, 1x 50 cal. 4,500 ft per minute climb rate (Spitfire 2,600 ft per minute climb rate)

 

[W21A]

should have been a contender door the planespotters thread.

 

[SUU23]

should have been a contender door the planespotters thread.

I did consider that, but thought bugger it!

 

[robinrocket111]

A nice quick Curtiss

That’s got a touch of the Commonwealth Boomerang to it.

 

[Cloth bomber]

That’s got a touch of the Commonwealth Boomerang to it.View attachment 553199View attachment 553200

I thought the cockpit/ nose looked very Voight ( Corsair).

 

[Cold_Collation]

I thought the cockpit/ nose looked very Voight ( Corsair).

As opposed to John?

 

[Maninthestreet]

A nice quick Curtiss

The tail will fall off that design. Pretty on paper though.

 

[robinrocket111]

I thought the cockpit/ nose looked very Voight ( Corsair).

Cockpit and canopy definitely, bags of vision.

 

[smartarse]

 

[Wooden Wonder]

View attachment 552979
You know the saying “if it looks right....”

Apparently not in this case. The RAF lost a fair few in the early 50’s, 37 in one year alone.

The Old Man was intended to go to Germany to fly them but he and his mate Ron, from Hatfield, volunteered to go to Malaya to fly Hornets. As he has always said : “If you’re still alive, you made the right decision.”

 

[chrismcd]

IIRC, when the Italians tied their colours to the Nazi mast, some of the Italian Air Force took part in bombing Britain.
It was generally ineffective, as I recall. German planes were closer, and quicker.
Anyone else remember this?

Fiat Br 20's - this is the usual photo that turns up!

Shot down by Stanford Tuck

 

[Themanwho]

Fiat Br 20's - this is the usual photo that turns up!

View attachment 553407
Shot down by Stanford Tuck

ISTR the press got it wrong, Tuck's squadron shot them down, but he wasn't flying (injured? can't remember - I'll dig out his memoir). Tuck was a famous fighter pilot, and the press were a sucker for an Errol Flynn moustache:

 

[TamH70]

View attachment 552979
You know the saying “if it looks right....”

Apparently not in this case. The RAF lost a fair few in the early 50’s, 37 in one year alone.

The F-86 Sabre? In British service?

 

[Maninthestreet]

The F-86 Sabre? In British service?

Yep we had some just like the B29, B47 and I'm sure a bunch of other stuff I can't be bothered to remember right now.

These guys would have remembered such.

F-86 Sabres XD707 and XD730

F-86 Sabres XD707 and XD730, Kinder Scout

aircrashsites.co.uk

 

[robinrocket111]

The F-86 Sabre? In British service?

We had 370 of them ordered, built in Canada. We retired them 22 June 56.

 

[Wooden Wonder]

We had 370 of them ordered, built in Canada. We retired them 22 June 56.

My friend has her dad’s Mach 1 certificate from Canadair in ‘55.

 

[Stovepipe]

They were retired because the priority was Hunters and Scimitars,not because they were bad or ineffective. Sabres were always popular aircraft to sell on and always found a ready market.

 

[beefer]

We had 370 of them ordered, built in Canada. We retired them 22 June 56.

There was a problem with early models...

“In his memoirs, Gen. Chuck Yeager relates to a story where the flight didn’t go according to plan, or his expectations. As a young USAF test pilot, he was asked to fly the then new F-86 Saber to determine why several had unexpectedly crashed. Several Sabers had last been seen flying at low altitude, inverted before crashing with no survivors. Yeager mounted his Saber to determine the cause of these tragic accidents. I short order, he had his answer. Once inverted, the ailerons on his Saber would lock up and become immovable. Once the aircraft was rolled right-side-up, he regained aileron control. Upon detailed inspection after the flight, it was determined that a crucial bolt in the aileron assembly process had been installed incorrectly, leading to the jamming of the controls when inverted. When the manufacturing process was inspected at North American Aviation, it was determined that a factory worker was installing the bolts upside-down, because they were installed that way on every other NA aircraft he had built in his lengthy career at NA (P-51, T-6, etc.)”

Basically the fitting instructions called for the bolt to be fitted upside-down and held in place by the nut. The old guy thought best practice would be to put the bolt in from above so that if the nut came off it wouldn’t drop out. This killed a couple of pilots but the guy wasn’t told, they just retired him early (or so it says in the biography)

 

[RBMK]

Sabres had nasty low speed high AOA issues - google "Sabre Dance" ditto the F-100.

 

[Wightsparker]

They were retired because the priority was Hunters and Scimitars,not because they were bad or ineffective. Sabres were always popular aircraft to sell on and always found a ready market.

Possibly Swifts? I think the latter were intended as a fall-back in case the Hunter was not successful. Scimitar was an RN strike fighter.