Can we please stop hotlinking pics?

You want big? Douglas was working on this big mother,  the SkyPirate. The little engine is P&W Wasp Major. Ed Heinemann came to his senses, eventually designing the superb Skyraider.

I would like to have the opportunity to fly one of these

However, I would not like to pay the fuel bill.

Wayslow said:

Yup. My coworker and I went to the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum yesterday after work. They were doing pilot check rides. The museum was quiet so we had a volunteer tour guide to ourselves. He took us out onto the tarmac to watch them fire up the engines then take off. Very cool.

When I lived in Niagara Falls, I would work Mon-Thurs at a mill in NF NY and from home on Fridays. Most Fridays in the summer around 11AM the Lancaster would be out flying. You would heard it long before you would see it, and then you would be graced by a little black splotch in the sky. Well that's how ot looked from my yard.

914Driver said:

I just saw that this ship is for sale; $96,000.

Unrelated:

Donebrokeit said:

 

Wow, where? What?

pilotbraden said:

I would like to have the opportunity to fly one of these

 

However, I would not like to pay the fuel bill.

I love me some caspian sea monster / Ekranoplanes / Ground effect craft.  Here's a DIY version, no pilots license needed.

After yesterday's pics of the Lancaster I was thinking about other favorite aircraft from WWII.  One ugly duckling I always loved because of function over form was the Lysander.  Not the prettiest thing to take to the sky's, but it was perfect for getting in and out of small French fields at night to drop off spies / counter espionage and or pick up the same / excapees or shot down pilots with the aid of the resistance.  Gret STOL performance for somethign with a max take of weight of over 6,000lb's with best part of 1,000 hp.  I think of it as using a sledge hammer as a scalple.  

Dirigible launched airplanes - for coastal patrol

Yeah, Lysanders are pretty cool, without question.  Being a Miata guy, though, I prefer using a scalpel as a scalpel:

When the Allies captured Mussolini, they imprisoned him in an old castle on top of a mountain.  The Germans dropped a paratroop platoon into the courtyard, including a folded up Fieseler Storch.  The squad recaptured Mussolini, bolted the wings onto the Storch, put il Duce into it with the pilot, and basically threw it off the side of the mountain.

In reply to Duke :

All too true.  THe Storch's stall speed was about half that of the Lysander, something like 30mph which was amazing.  On the upside both had great short field characteristics, but once off the ground the Lysander could get the hell out of there much fast at over 200mph or as with the stall speed, about twice that of the Storch.  That made getting to and from France a whole lot safer.  While fighter pilots grab headlines, I feel the guys going across the channel on dark nights must have been some amazing pilots.  A Lysander was used to sneak Charles deGaul out of France in 1942

Both fascinating planes for sure.  Here's the two together.

They have a Lysander too but it's currently undergoing a complete rebuild following an engine failure and landing. I also built a rubber powered model of a Storch, when I was a kid, it flew like the original.

Both Lysander and Storch are super cool.  The Lysander being powered by a sleeve valve Bristol engine and the Storch by an inverted V-8 air cooled Argus engine.

The Bristol engines are known for being a bit quieter than conventional radials.  Part of the reason the Beaufighter was nicknamed Whispering Death.  Also note the exhaust on the Lysander above, to make it even quieter.      

Wayslow said:

They have a Lysander too but it's currently undergoing a complete rebuild following an engine failure and landing. I also built a rubber powered model of a Storch, when I was a kid, it flew like the original.

 

Cool, glad she'll be back in action.

That reminds me of a personal story.  I am technically the survivor of an aircraft crash!  The summer of 1972 I was three years old.  My father used to fly out of the local flying club to us at Blackbushe airfield which was one of many ew WWII airports that had reverted to civil use after the war.  They had several Austers (a several times removed descendant of the America Taylorcraft) which was a WWII era trainer and observation plane.  The versions they had were three place, two abreast in the front with a rear facing jump seat in the rear.  One had just been serviced and needed a shake down flight.  My father took it up with an instructor for the shake down plus his annual check ride at the same time (yeah, I guess things were different back then) with me in the jump seat in the back.  They were going to do a touch and go, but on final the instructor said 'simulated engine out' and pulled the throttle back to idle.  One on final, before touch down the instructor said 'OK, great, lets do a go around' so dad opened the throttle, but something was wrong after service and the engine actually stopped, so the plane flared, stalled and went nose in!!

Now, I should also mention that my mother was something like 6 months pregnant with my sister and had gone into town to grab some sandwiches and had just arrived back.  As she was walking up to the flight line people came up and started saying 'Don't worry Mrs. Thompson, everyone is OK', much to her puzzlement.  Then she sees the Auster on it's nose with little three year old me running towards her, holding the pillow I sat on, shouting 'Dada bumpad it! Dada bumpad it!' with great glee thinking this was the coolest thing ever.

Now I usually take my fathers stories with a pinch of salt, but this has been well established by my mother and other friends of the family even though I have no personal memory of it as an adult.

As this is the hotlink thread, here's an Auster. 

In reply to Appleseed :

Thanks for the warning brother.

Fairey Swordfish

Basically abandoned brick plant. Pretty cool place to walk around in  

It did not lose a wheel but the Joker still got away.