Max the Mad Russian
Hands off Ukraine! Feet too
Indeed. But in 1958? Maybe Avro Shackleton?
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Cold War revisited
- Thread starter HeyJoe
- Start date
Indeed. But in 1958? Maybe Avro Shackleton?
Much more likely, you are right.
the Shackleton looked similar but cockpit was faired into fuselage. My bet is a Lancaster due to raised greenhouse cockpit area.
Max the Mad Russian
Hands off Ukraine! Feet too
Why then grounded (iced this time) aircrew stated American aircraft? But OK, who they were to know the difference...
I know a Marine hornet guy that had to divert to Midway. They went as a section of F-18D’s and he said other than all the birds there were a few female biologists there to study the birds and they had an impromptu party.
My story isn’t a divert, as we were intended to land there, but we spent about a week on Wake Island on our way to Japan in December 2011 because of a problem with the island’s fuel. December 8th (across the dateline from Hawaii) was the 70th anniversary of the first Japanese attack on the island and we spent it snorkeling in the shallow lagoon over the wreck of a Japanese bomber.
That is a RCAF Lancaster 10AR. The fuselage was extended and additional gear was added for area recon. Along with the US they took part in “ferret operations” to snoop out the capabilities of Soviet radar. The USN used old PBY4 Privateers and the USAF used old B-29’s and newer aircraft. About 200 men died on those mission as the Soviets shot down.
You can read a bit about it here.
Secret Casualties of the Cold War
Gary Powers wasn’t the only one. More than 200 airmen were shot down while spying on the Soviet Union.
Max the Mad Russian
Hands off Ukraine! Feet too
Thanks. That is why I'm far from being keen on Soviet fighter aviation after WWII. There's nothing to be proud of.
Max the Mad Russian
Hands off Ukraine! Feet too
D3A or B5N? In lagoon of Sand Island rests D3A killed by PT boats'. 50, AFAK
I don’t remember and I don’t know if I could have known then. It was mostly a wing and engine that was visible
We had a crew divert to Midway when they lost an engine on the way to Wake from Hawaii. They called the airfield and on approach and landing had at least half a dozen bird strikes, then they ran over a one or two as they taxied to park. They come to find out later that when they called the field before they landed a couple of guys hopped into a pickup truck then drove down the whole length of the field to throw gooney birds into the back of the pickup to get them out of the way.
The plane up being stuck there for 3 weeks, most of the crew left after a week but the flight crew was stuck for another 2 because of the complicated logistics of getting a replacement engine to the island (via a USCG C-130) and the fact that the first replacement engine didn't work.
We stopped at Wake several times but they were usually short, just an hour. But I was on a NALO one time and the XO of the VR squadron was one the pilots and he wanted to swim at Wake, so we stopped for ~6 hours so we could all go swimming. Two vivid memories from that stop were the beer vending machine that I showed off to my fellow squadron mates who flew in right behind us and couldn't drink while I partook and one of the maintainers who took off her pants to go swimming in her thong, I departed quickly at that point.
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When I worked for the American Battlefield Protection Program I worked mighty hard to convince my boss we needed to do an evaluation of Wake Island to define the battle. He never went for it...was always stuck on the Civil War. We did do Saipan and Guam.
To be fair, it was the Cold WAR.
Wake is really cool to explore. Tons of evidence of the battle, ruins of the Pan Am clipper base, etc. Got stuck there on the way to Japan and on the way back so probably a little over two weeks there total. There were a shitload of rats the first time, so many that it was more remarkable to say where you didn’t see a rat than where you did. No rats the second time, just poison everywhere that they had scattered from the air. I haven’t been back since but I hear the rats are still there.
I got bored, and I see there are some burn marks visible on the runway on Wake that look like the very distinctive hot nozzles of a harrier. Our maintenance officer needed to do a high power and without an actual high power ramp, the runway can do in a pinch. The AF wasn’t pleased about the runway. Remember that @STOVLer?
