So, turns out there’s a few of us who have a hard on for aviation so why not share it all on this thread.
Ide like to start off with this beuty…
B-17G-25-BO 42-31713 Snake Hips arrived at the 327th Bombing Squadron of the 92nd Bombing Group in February of 1944. It flew on operations continuously from then, surviving totally unscathed until the August 24th mission to Merseburg, when the bomber took a 88mm flak round hit directly in the bomb bay. Miraculously, the full load of bombs did not detonate, although ball turret gunner Sgt Gordon V Wescott was fatally wounded by the shell’s explosion. Pilots 2ndLt John Bosko and 2ndLt Curt H Koehnert fought to keep the bomber aloft, and they aborted the mission. On the way home the hydraulic system caught fire and burning fluid spread over the floor of the fuselage and the catwalk of the bomb bay. Engineer S/Sgt Peter W LaFleur tried to put the blaze out with a fire extinguisher, and when this ran dry, resorted to tearing the flaming insulation from the walls with his bare hands. The bombs were then jettisoned, although there were five ‘hang-ups’, in other words bombs that did not drop and stayed in the bomb bay, and the crew knew that the damaged bombs could explode at any moment. Bombardier S/Sgt Jerome E Charbonneau, working perilously on the slippery, burning catwalk in the wide open bomb bay, directed the waist gunners and the the radio operator as they defused the bombs and made them safe.Midway over the North Sea two engines died from fuel starvation, but the crippled bomber finally made it to Woodbridge, Suffolk, where Bosko ordered the crew to bale out. He couldn’t leave the controls himself because the plane was so badly damaged that it would have fallen out of the sky the moment he released the controls. He finally succeeded in safely landing one of the most badly-damaged B-17s to make it back to the UK.That kind of heroism is rare indeed. Needless to say there were Medals of Honour all round for this one.
just pottering around youtube and spotted a video of an Air Show my dad flew in in 1992.He flew an aircraft called the F-111 and it retired later that year…now there’s a story i tell me mates that when he was doing his final display…he upped the throttles so he could give the crowd a ‘hot’ flyby…he went to full afterburner and flew infront of the crowd…thing is…he went alittle too fast and when he brought the nose up he stretched the airframe and busted all the bloodvessels in his nose…he landed shortley after and when the oxygen mask was removed…there was blood absolutley everywere… anyway…its at 1:20…and for the fuucking christ of me…i can’t believe someone filmed it…AND IVE FOUND IT…!!!Ive just e-mailed him the link…he’s gonna trip!!!
Me and my mates used to go to the Fairford airshows for a laugh, most impressive jets for me are the loudest ones really, they make your whole body shake when they take off - like the old F15 Eagle, or the F18s.
Most scary of them all for me is the B1-B, a massive bomber that looks like a fighter…first time I saw it I was walking down through the shop/stalls at Fairford and heard the most unbelievable noise of something taking off, then this massive thing loomed from above the burger stalls - scared the sh*t out of me! :w00t:
I am in aerospace and support production of most aircraft military and civil - get the pleasure of going to the big airshows and around factories making some of the aircraft - as an engineer I love the industry and I have had the pleasure of meeting some active pilots flying harrier aircraft and heading to Afganistan at the time - they are pretty amazing guys. Never piloted an aircraft but do enjoy being a passenger just wish the airport experience was more pleasant. Not sure it gets me sexually aroused though :crazy:
