(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Plane History (photo diary) [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2024-08-16 So, I recently returned from a trip where I saw a lot of planes at the Oshkosh Airshow (four links, for those not checking). We drove back, which was a bit of an adventure in its own right, but we stopped for two days at Wright-Patterson Air Force Museum. It was my second time there, and it is an amazing place. So many different planes, across the sweep of aviation history. It is spread across four hangars, with a few more planes outside. The first day, we basically covered from the beginning to the Vietnam War, so that’s what’s in this diary. All the more modern stuff will be in a separate diary. I only took two lenses for this visit; a 35mm f/1.4 prime and a 24-70mm f/2.8 zoom. If the shot is ground-level, it was probably taken with the prime, and if not, probably with the zoom (probably at 24mm). We started with the old stuff (where I probably took as many pictures of engines as I did of planes. I spent a while here, telling my son about what the different types of engines were, and why they were mechanically different. This extra-large woodwind is actually a primitive wind tunnel. Well-labeled early plane Not the kind of Bugatti I usually envision A pair of V-12’s on a folding-wing biplane? You got it. And from a different angle Pretty sure this was not called a gyrocopter, but I think the name was close. The name was close enough to get me to tell my son about da Vinci’s design. In any event, the first rotary-wing vehicle. Biplane with a rotary engine and a metal prop Early trainer (the YPT-16 on the sign is hanging above), so it isn’t that. Very early simulator. Not sure how that worked. Ok, now we’re getting into WWII stuff. Flying Tiger. I had told my son a little about them when we were at Oshkosh. Jumping ahead to the Doolittle Raid? I read 30 Seconds Over Tokyo when I was a bit younger than my son is now. And from a slightly different angle. Colorfully named B-24 from the African campaign (hence the color scheme) From the other side Bond age plane Memphis Belle P-51 much closer and quieter than in my earlier shots Ju-88 German bomber, I think Me-262 jet fighter. Love the weirdly-organic appearance I forget which cargo plane this is, but they flew “over the hump” (Himalayas) to help the Chinese. From this angle, reminds me of the rebel troop transport from Empire. A-20G. Weirdly, this is not the real Little Joe (fate unknown), but another one done up as a reproduction of it. “Candy-gram for Mongo!” with slightly bigger boom. B-29 with special delivery Nose detail OA-10 Catalina. I know there’s at least one fan around here. Weird plane that I wish I’d experimented more with (different angles) P-61 Black Widow. Also not the original “Moon Light Sonata”, but still very cool looking At this point, we’re going into the Korea/Viet Nam hangar. Not sure if we saw everything here, but definitely not on this day. But weirdly, this F-22 is the first thing you see in here. I tried to capture how big this C-134 is, but I don’t think I succeeded. Probably needed a wider lens; the fish-eye might have been an interesting option here. This BUFF certainly looks smaller than the one that was at Oshkosh, but still huge. I feel like I should know what this is, but not only don’t I, I couldn’t even find it RF-101 in jungle colors. I guess you could call this an early forebear of the SR-71. B-57B Canberra. British design, but American made. Cessna A-37 Dragonfly close support plane. Predecessor of the A-10, I guess. OV-10A Bronco. Another one that I wish I’d experimented a lot more with. HH-3 Jolly Green Giant. Don’t think you want to ask it about peas. A-1 Skyraider. Mostly a SAR plane, near as I can tell. F-105 Thunderchief (Thunderman’s dad?). This is Memphis Belle II, and the art is even reminiscent of the original. Don’t think I took a picture, but my son found a panel in the Cold War gallery from Memphis Belle III. MiG-17. Love this angle for a lot of fighter planes, and it seems particularly good for this one. YF-5A Freedom Fighter. Gotta admit, that name seems awfully… generic. MiG-21 Fishbed. Wild name for an iconic design. F-4 Phantom II. I had a model of one of these when I was ten-ish. Incredibly loud, I’ve heard, although there is a recon version. Wonder what happened to the one window. Another iconic design, with a simulated cockpit off to the side Another F-105, this time getting in HARM’s way. I assume the WW on the tail is ‘Wild Weasel’. Probably my favorite photo on the day. We had gotten a late start in the morning (we’d arrived at our hotel at… maybe 2AM), so we didn’t get as far as we’d hoped. But we still saw a lot of neat stuff. The day after, we had a much longer day (and were exhausted by the time we left), but we made it through just about everything else. Will hopefully get through those pictures this weekend, and get a diary up by Monday. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/8/16/2263272/-Plane-History-photo-diary?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/