Another fun morning flying around SoCal...

[slodave]

Planes, planes and more planes. My dad and I took off from Van Nuys this morning for a quick flight. We went up to Santa Paula and he did a few take offs and landings, then we flew over to Camarillo, where it was my turn for a couple of take offs and landings. We had a little excitement after take off... I had grabbed my camera from the back before we took off to photograph this...

Right after take off, there was a loud whistle.... I forgot to close the back door! What to do??? I was sitting in the co-pilot seat and ended up squeezing thru the pilot/co-pilot seats into the back - which makes things fun as the plane rocks back with the weight distribution change. Closing the door was no problem and I squeezed my way back to my co-pilot seat. I did have a brief moment where I thought I might fall out of the plane, but I'm OK.

These were at Camarillo airport...






Hmm, something is not quite right..




Great day to be in the air. Not too hot yet and calm air.

[widgeon13]

The one in the grass looks like a "Murphy Moose" but never seen one with a twin tail.

It was a nice day to fly, even back East.

[BlueSideUp]

That 310P looks like it was nice before the noisy landing.

[Grezdlitn]

Not certain but I think the one in the grass is actually a ex-french liason aircraft. "Broussard" if my memory serves me correct.

[Joeaksa]

Nordun Norseman possibly?

[red-beard]

I thought the confedate Airforce were the only ones with really operational WWII B-17s and B-25s. It's good to see a few still out there flying.

[slodave]

I have no idea what it is. There were a few more old military planes around Camarillo, but out of camera range.

[slodave]

The B17 is called the Aluminum Overcast and it's a bomber that you pay ($400) to fly in. It's in California thru mid May and then it heads up to Oregon. It was purchased for $750.00 in 1946 as Military Surplus.

http://www.b17.org/

[slodave]

It's a Max Holste MH-1521 Broussard.

[Joeaksa]

The B-17 is owned by the EAA I believe and flown around the country on tours.

[911pcars]

I managed a self-guided tour through the nook and crannies of an old B-17 at the March AFB air museum. Movement inside is tight, walking along narrow catwalks and climbing up and down the different sections of the non-insulated fuselage. I take my hat off to the flyboys of that era.

Sherwood

[BeauBlues]

We had that same B-17 at long beach giving rides about a week ago. To date I have seen two functional B-17s giving rides to people. They are pretty cool.

[Normy]

Back when I flew for Connie Kalitta, the drag racer who looks like a janitor and who's vocabulary would make a sailor, a truck driver, and Richard Nixon blush all at the same time.... I watched a B-17 fly in and out of Willow Run Airport in Ypsilanti, Michigan one day.

That B-17? That thing is weak! It barely climbs out. It's angle of climb is very gentle, even compared to a fully-loaded 747, which is a huge PIG. The empty B-17 that I watched barely climbed better than the Cessna 340 that took off after it.

-Back in the 1930's and 1940's, we didn't have the metallurgy that we have today. These days, a 997 GT2 will make 530 hp from 3.6 liters displacement. The B-17 had 11 liter twin-row radial engines at each place, and each of these made about 1200 horsepower. The B-17 motors have NO WHERE NEAR the output of the GT2 engine. Why?

Metallurgy. Today, we can produce valves and pistons that will NOT have the heat problems or the sealing problems that many current VAG products' from around the world will undoubtedly have. And it is more than just minor electrical glitches in an 11 year old car!
The laws of physics have not changed since 1935, when the radial engines on the B-17 were designed. ONLY the metallurgy has gotten better! That GT2? It has high boost, but so does the B-17 engine [it is centrifugally supercharged via a set of elegant planetary gears]. But that B-17 motor is still just barely able to make 1 hp per cubic inch, or 61 hp per liter.

[Normy]

Since my last point was truncated....

Here's the rest from the camera.

[Joeaksa]

Normy,

One thing you are forgetting. Throw much of the metalurgy issue out of the argument. Its correct but its not the main thing here.

First our oils back then were not 1/10th as good as the are now and engines were worn out after as little as 25-50 hours. The ME-262 engines were lucky to last 25 hours and this was due to both metalurgy AND oils that would not take the jet engine temps.

Second of all on why the B-17 was climbing slow was that back during the war and until the 1970's we had 115/145 "Purple" avfuel. It was made for wartime use and thats a large part of what won the war for us was that we had the fuel that allowed our airplanes to produce more power without detonation, which allowed us to fly higher, futher and carry a bigger load.

Refineries stopped making "purple" gas years ago but I still remember using it on my SCCA Austin Healey race car. Crank the advance up there and it could care less but that was with excellent gas. These days the old WW2 engines have to retard their timing to operate with 100ll fuels and they are way down on power, so cannot make the boost that they were normally limited to, which keeps them from climbing so fast.

Simple answer, long to explain. Read the ops manual on a P-51 and see what the boost limits are. Then talk to a Mustang pilot today and see what he can use without grenading the engine with todays fuels. Bet that its half the limits...

Joe