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2006-07-17 Science & Technology

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Posted by Steve White 2006-07-17 00:00|| || Front Page|| [11131 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 Ooooh . . . cool!

Posted by Mike 2006-07-17 01:03|| 2006-07-17 01:03|| Front Page Top

#2 I thought maybe Syria was trying to get theirs off the ground ....

Posted by AzCat 2006-07-17 03:06|| 2006-07-17 03:06|| Front Page Top

#3 ``They'd fly up to the German line, shut the engine off, drop their bombs, start the engine, go back, land, rearm, refuel, go back and do it again ... up to 10 times a night,''

Now that took.... hmm hmm, well it took BALLS!

Posted by Besoeker 2006-07-17 04:30|| 2006-07-17 04:30|| Front Page Top

#4 "Crites said a collection like Allen's reminds visitors `that freedom really isn't free. There was a price that was paid, and these planes played a very big part of that.'"

Would put money on Allen voting "AnyoneButKerry"...

Posted by Bright Pebbles 2006-07-17 07:23|| 2006-07-17 07:23|| Front Page Top

#5 This is cool. Now if we could get the confederate air force and Allen to have a fly in it would be The finest show ever.

Posted by 49 Pan">49 Pan 2006-07-17 09:18|| 2006-07-17 09:18|| Front Page Top

#6 The CAF paradox is that even with pristine restoration, a lot of those old birds just aren't safe. This costs the lives of far too many CAF pilots, and the crashed plane is gone for good.

Eventually, I hope they do what classical car buffs do and re-create those aircraft but out of much stronger materials and safer engineering. Then they can fly the reproductions for the look and feel, and keep the originals in good condition for future generations.

Posted by Anonymoose 2006-07-17 10:45|| 2006-07-17 10:45|| Front Page Top

#7 Someone's already building replica Fw-190s in Germany.

Posted by Mike 2006-07-17 11:49|| 2006-07-17 11:49|| Front Page Top

#8 I went to an air show last month and saw a demo of a C-47 flying with a B-25. I think the C-47 was restored, but the B-25 was all-but-built from scratch.

It was way cool, BTW!

Posted by Xbalanke 2006-07-17 13:59|| 2006-07-17 13:59|| Front Page Top

#9 "Polikarpov U-2/PO-2"

OMFG - a "flying sewing machine"!

Posted by mojo">mojo 2006-07-17 15:43|| 2006-07-17 15:43|| Front Page Top

#10 You cannot restore theose planes to flying specs because quite simply the high-octane fuel they used is no longer produced. To give an example the Hawker Tempest used 130 octane fuel. But jet planes use kerozen not gasoline, Cessnas and similiar airclub planes don't need such high octane fuel and racing cars (at least for Formula One) are restricted to commercially available fuel ie 98 octane at best.

So warbird owners have to reduce engine compression rates in order to use "civilian gasoline". It is perhaps possible for a (hefty) price to have very high octane gaoline specially manufactured for warbirds but given these are 60 year old airframes and engines I don't think it would be a good idea to fly them at top performance.

Posted by JFM">JFM 2006-07-17 16:19|| 2006-07-17 16:19|| Front Page Top

#11 Polikarpov Po-2 image here -- "flying sewing machine" is about right!

Posted by Mike 2006-07-17 16:19|| 2006-07-17 16:19|| Front Page Top

#12 Here's a link to a listing of the full collection.

Some lovely stuff in there.

Posted by Mike 2006-07-17 16:23|| 2006-07-17 16:23|| Front Page Top

#13 That's quite a collection. I volunteer to fly the Spitfire, the Mustang, the BF-109, the P-47, the P-38, the Haybusa, the F-6F, the F-86, the Zero and the Mosquito.

Who wants to fly the Komet?

Posted by Parabellum 2006-07-17 17:28|| 2006-07-17 17:28|| Front Page Top

00:13 anymouse
00:00 Master of Obvious
23:58 mojo
23:52 mojo
23:52 mojo
23:50 mojo
23:46 Fred
23:46 anymouse
23:43 mojo
23:39 anymouse
23:36 ex-lib
23:35 anymouse
23:26 FBH
22:40 pihkalbadger
22:34 Oldspook
22:30 Oldspook
22:27 twobyfour
22:22 bigjim-ky
22:21 M. Murcek
22:19 Robert Crawford
22:14 Manolo
22:14 J. D. Lux
22:13 mcsegeek1
22:11 Old Patriot