Dubbo

Cool Stuff Enforcer. :thumbright:

No need to be sorry mate. It just means I won't have to lend you mine :wink: I guess we can still remain friends.

Here is one of ZCs pictures from the "Missile Gallery" The whole gallery is pretty phalic....

No problemo mate. It's nice that other people are enjoying our experience as well. I hope ZC can get some more pics up and Beebop unloads his camera and does the same....soon

Probably because you, like most of us here, are wondering if you are in fact, still a man.............. And because that's probably where that stench is coming from............ (you really need to get that looked at) :wink:

New stuff. Look at the friggin' detail on that balloon........... (I think I had that game too Enforcer)

Excellent link mate. He really did have a relentless time of it.

Congrats mate :thumbright:

Thanks But I don't see the joke in the 1st one. He's right. She is a good sport.

With a sequin jacket and a cowbow hat you'd be hard pressed to tell him apart from the Dolly Parton look-alike :wink:

Ouch!! Gees that thing dropped out of the air fast when the forward speed was washed off. A test I take it?

Och, and another tought...hehe....a stand-up comedian once said...."imagine IF Hitler would've won the war, we all would speak german, and drive around in Mercedes-Benz and BMW..............(long pauze)...." But as Jeremy Clarkson pointed out, all the satellite navigation systems only work as far as France :wink:

Another beaut photo mate. Are you going to dole these out one at a time? :wink:

Look down you bastard :wink:

Really, really nice photograph. :thumbright: I saw this in Houston a number of years back. Amazing to see. Looking forward to the rest of the pics

Ok. Some final pics from me. Firstly here is a nice shot of Roosevelt's ride - Sacred Cow. I like the way the light coming through the hangar door windows reflects off the fuselage. Ever wonder how many bottles are made from a single barrel of Jack Daniels? Well stop wondering. Count 'em up y'all. You can buy a bottle of single barrel JD (primo stuff) for about $40 US per. You can also buy the whole barrel, bottled up and delivered on a pallet with the barrel, signed by the Master Distiller himself for about $8-10 grand depending on the local taxes. For those of you who fly Red, here is a close up of one of the problems with Blue airfields, a 20mm quadgun. And one of your favourite targets........ I think I remember reading a sign that indicated that Erich Hartmann was one of the last people to pilot this aircraft. I'd never seen one before but they knew I was coming and put it far out of reach. I have been aboard 3 different B-17s in my life and the common factor was that no one was allowed aft of the access door, once inside. So I'd never been able to look into the tail gunner's compartment. Because the Memphis Belle was in pieces I was afforded the rare opportunity to look into the tail gunner's station. The barrels and surrounding shrouding are absent but you can see the ammo trays and the front part of the gunner's seat, which amounts to little more than a bicycle seat. Lonely back here. Now because of the lighting in the museum and the narrow spaces between some of the displays some pics did not turn out as well as others. The following may be a bit dark and the complete aircraft may not be in frame but they are still look-worthy A-36 Apache. Note those dive brakes Bockscar. This is the B-29 which on August 9th 1945 dropped the 2nd atomic bomb on Nagasaki, effectively ending WW2. Zeus has looked through the bombsite on this aircraft previously. Macchi MC200. Another 1st for me. Me 163. This aircraft was captured by the allies when they overran the factory. It appears as though this aircraft would have had a short combat life anyway as it had been sabotaged by the forced labour workers in the factory. V-2 on it's transporter. Hard to see in this pic but it was even harder to photograph. In the foreground you can see the rocket motor from a Komet. Mossie. (I actually had seen and touched one of these before here in Vancouver. It's hidden away at YVR here, privately owned) One interesting thing about the Dawn of Flight thru to the end of the WW2 displays are the way some of them are set up. (See the P-39 above) The most interesting diorama was the B-25. It was set up on the simluated deck of the USS Hornet as one of Doolittle's raiders. Lashed down with canvas covers in place and mannequins loading bombs and checking equipment. Very cool and a little more interesting that just having a B-25 sitting on the floor And this one I figured we could all relate to. Anyway, that's all for now. I hope some of the others throw up some pics as well. Thanks for watching :wink:

LOL. Is it good beer though?

Well ZC has a couple of group shots and Beebop has a few with the subjects facing the camera as well. They were going to post some pics here and yet we wait. I would like to see some of the pics taken with Zeus' 30 Gigapixel Super SLR GTS V8 Turbocharged 5 litre Canolta camera. It looked like it would do a good job. I will post more of mine later

The War of the Rats by David L. Robbins This was given to me by ZC on our recent trip down there and is a great read. It is a novelised account of the battle in Stalingrad, focusing on the sniper duel that was made famous by the movie "Enemy at the Gates" (The movie was based on this book). Now I said it is a great read, but that doesn't make it historically accurate. In fact, there is is one character in the book that the author admits is a fictional one but adds that this composite character "lives an authentic a life in Stalingrad as could be devised for him" (This guy is actually my favourite character) The writer also admits freely that 2 of the other main characters who are non-fictional, have their backgrounds presented "with some details imagined or altered for dramatic purposes" Which kind of throws the whole accuracy thing out the window. But with that in mind, the novel gives a chilling account of the war in Stalingrad and the conditions faced by both sides. In that regard it is a great read. One real sticking point with me is the writers referral to everything German being "Nazi". I know that doing this has been popular over time but I find it inaccurate and annoying. My grandfather and uncles were not nazis although they fought in WW2 inthe Luftwaffe and the Wermacht. In this book many times the writer refers to nazi fighters, bomber, tanks, bullets, rifles et cetera. I can understand the Russian characters referring to everything German as nazi in their speech, but not the writer in his descriptive passages. Aside from this, and as long as you are not expecting precise accuracy, this is a really good look at life and death in Stalingrad for those 6 months. :thumbleft:

You are indeed welcome Beebop. And I have to agree with you about meeting everyone. :thumbright: Continuing on..... So that was Saturday done. Early Sunday morning we all got up and Mr and Mrs Zeus-cat took us out to shoot rockets. Wahoo!! I had never done that before and in fact, had never seen it done even. We had a lot of fun and managed not to blow up or otherwise break any of Zeus' rockets. Preparing to launch. As you can see, the Zeuses are busy running around whilst Beebop and Quasi drink coffee :wink: A hell of a lot of fun. After a quick lunch at ZC's place we went back to the museum to finish of the tour. Mrs ZC got us onto the base and over to the Presidential Aircraft and R & D hangars where we spent over an hour poking around. A lot of history there too. This was Eisenhower's Columbine III, a Lockheed Constellation that was in fact his third transport aircraft, Columbines I & II also being Constellations. #1 was his transport when he was a general & #2 was his 1st presidential aircraft. #3 served him from 54 until 61 and was retired by the USAF after Eisenhower left office. All of the larger presidential aircraft allow access to the interiors which was very cool. Included in the collection are Truman's C-118 "Independence", Roosevelt's C-54 the "Sacred Cow" and SAM 26000, the first aircraft to use the call sign "Air Force One". (This 707 took Kennedy to Dallas in 63 and transported his body back to Washington. LBJ was sworn in on board. It remained in service carrying all the presidents from Kennedy to Clinton from 1962 until 1990.) This is a shot in the R&D hangar. It is stuffed full of curious aircraft all presided over by the XB-70 Valkyrie. That thing is huge!! In this pic you can also see a Chance-Vought XC-142 tilt-rotor prototype and the Bell X-5 which was the world's 1st swing-wing aircraft (Although they had to be adjusted on the ground) Here is Quasi with his beloved X-15. That is one mean aircraft. After these hangars we went back to the museum proper and finished off the 2 display hangars we had not yet seen. These included the Korean War gallery, the SE Asia War gallery, the Cold War gallery and beyond (missiles and NASA stuff) The highlights of these last galleries were the F-82 Twin Mustang, the B-52, the F-22 and the B-36 Peacemaker After this was all over we bid the Zeuses a fond farewell and headed back to Nashville and then after a day there, said "So long" to the Quasis & retreated with great sadness all the the way back to BC Canada. What a great trip!! It was truly an experience. Thanks (publically) to both Quasi and his family and Zeus and his family for being such generous hosts. Their hospitality made the trip.

Brilliant stuff

As some of you are aware, the 4 founding members of the Hellhounds recently all got together in Dayton Ohio for the 1st time. Beebop and I had flown to Quazi's place in Nashville TN and after a couple of days as Mr & Mrs Quazi's guests, we drove across Kentucky to Zeus-cat's place. What a trip. Nashville is a really interesting place, made all the more interesting with Quazi's commentary and direction. We also happened to be there during the week of the CMA Music Festival which added to the experience. After visiting some local sights, including a full scale Parthenon originally constructed in 1897 - who knew? -, a trip to the Jack Daniels distillery :drunken: and a drive around the local celebrity mansions and haunts, we piled into Quazi's car early Friday morning and drove off across Kentucky to Dayton. We arrived just before noon and had enough time to get to the USAF museum at Wright Patterson and do the tour of the restoration projects hangar. There are 2 hangars and it took most of the afternoon to go through them. Highlights include a Beaufighter which saw action in New Guinea - According to our guide the RAAF had this one in Australia and wanted one that could be made flyable. The USAF museum had one still in a crate and wanted one with combat history. So they swapped. (Be interesting to see the crated one fly) They also had a P-47 they were restoring Some MiGs, missiles, jets and a Ryan Vertijet By far, the most exciting find in the restoration hangars was THE Memphis Belle. As I have pointed out, few people have touched this piece of history. Even fewer have licked it. Let's just say that my DNA is now on the paintwork It had been displayed after the war at the Memphis National Guard armory, sitting outside in the elements. In 1987 the Memphis Belle Memorial Society had the bomber moved to Mud Island in the Mississippi River where it was displayed in an open-sided pavilion and so deteriorated even further. In 2003 she was disassembled and moved to a facility in Millington TN for restoration but the MBMS was unable to raise enough funds to do it. The USAF museum (who own the aircraft) decided to take the aircraft back and in 2005 it arrived at Wright-Pat. Vandals had completely gutted the interior including all the instruments, fittings and a lot of the wiring. It was also discovered that the restoration work done previously on the aircraft was incorrect. They estimate 10 years before it will be ready to be put back on display. We were in Dayton for 3 days where Mr and Mrs Zeus-cat generously looked after us. The second day started out with a trip to Huffman Prairie which is where the Wright brothers established the first flying school. There is a reconstruction of their hangar and the catapult that was used to launch those early Wright Flyers. Surreal to be standing in that much history. Afterwards the rest of the day was devoted to the museum again and we managed to get through 1/3 of it, starting at the dawn of flight, through WW1 right to the end of WW2. There is a lot to take in on this part of the museum and we took our time soaking it in. Here are some pics...... This is actually a CASA version of the Ju52 and is outside in the airpark for now. Quite the interesting array of aircraft out there and a reconstruction of a WW2 control tower with some Quonset huts. Strawberry Bitch. Big aircraft. A real Ju88. Never seen one of these before. Unable to lick. If you don't know what this is, you are probably reading these forums by mistake A Dora A Schwalbe. And a P-39Q painted to represent a 57th Fighter Squadron aircraft serving in Alaska during the Aleutian campaign There were a lot of interesting displays including this one of the engine and cannon assembly from a P-39 I could fill this with pictures all day so I will take a break now and post some more info and pics later. To be continued............

Exactly my friend....exactly

Heh heh...you are in a mood huh?

Most of the aircraft there - and there are a lot - will never fly again. As artifacts they will be preserved that way. I am torn between seeing them flying and seeing them preserved. That Blackbird-type aircraft behind the Piper is actually the YF-12A from which was developed the SR-71. Quite a different aircraft up-close with different wings and a retractable ventral stabiliser.