Just out of curiosity - Airplane Guys

Being a sub hunter myself, i thought this photo was rather funny.
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Now THAT is a funny caption!

I do think however, that the nose-gear tires are underinflated. Perhaps a squirt of air would help straighten things out....
 
History...
Piggyback Hero – by Ralph Kinney Bennett In 2003 they laid the remains of Glenn Rojohn to rest in the Peace Lutheran Cemetery in the little town of Greenock, Pa., just southeast of Pittsburgh. He was 81, and had been in the air conditioning and plumbing business in nearby McKeesport. If you had seen him on the street he would probably have looked to you like so many other graying, bespectacled old World War II veterans whose names appear so often now on obituary pages. But like so many of them, though he seldom talked about it, he could have told you one hell of a story. He won the Air Medal, the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Purple Heart all in one fell swoop in the skies over Germany on December 31, 1944. Fell swoop indeed. Capt. Glenn Rojohn, of the 8th Air Force’s 100th Bomb Group was flying his B-17G Flying Fortress bomber on a raid over Hamburg. His formation had braved heavy flak to drop their bombs, then turned 180 degrees to head out over the North Sea. They had finally turned northwest, headed back to England, when they were jumped by German fighters at 22,000 feet. The Messerschmitt Me-109s pressed their attack so closely that Capt. Rojohn could see the faces of the German pilots. He and other pilots fought to remain in formation so they could use each other’s guns to defend the group. Rojohn saw a B-17 ahead of him burst into flames and slide sickeningly toward the earth. He gunned his ship forward to fill in the gap. He felt a huge impact. The big bomber shuddered, felt suddenly very heavy and began losing altitude. Rojohn grasped almost immediately that he had collided with another plane. A B-17 below him, piloted by Lt. William G. McNab, had slammed the top of its fuselage into the bottom of Rojohn’s. The top turret gun of McNab’s plane was now locked in the belly of Rojohn’s plane and the ball turret in the belly of Rojohn’s had smashed through the top of McNab’s. The two bombers were almost perfectly aligned — the tail of the lower plane was slightly to the left of Rojohn’s tailpiece. They were stuck together, as a crewman later recalled, “like mating dragon flies.” Three of the engines on the bottom plane were still running, as were all four of Rojohn’s. The fourth engine on the lower bomber was on fire and the flames were spreding to the rest of the aircraft. The two were losing altitude quickly. Rojohn tried several times to gun his engines and break free of the other plane. The two were inextricably locked together. Fearing a fire, Rojohn cut his engines and rang the bailout bell. For his crew to have any chance of parachuting, he had to keep the plane under control somehow. The ball turret, hanging below the belly of the B-17, was considered by many to be a death trap — the worst station on the bomber. In this case, both ball turrets figured in a swift and terrible drama of life and death. Staff Sgt. Edward L. Woodall, Jr., in the ball turret of the lower bomber had felt the impact of the collision above him and saw shards of metal drop past him. Worse, he realized both electrical and hydraulic power was gone. Remembering escape drills, he grabbed the handcrank, released the clutch and cranked the turret and its guns until they were straight down, then turned and climbed out the back of the turret up ino the fuselage. Once inside the plane’s belly Woodall saw a chilling sight, the ball turret of the other bomber protruding through the top of the fuselage. In that turret, hopelessly trapped, was Staff Sgt. Joseph Russo. Several crew members of Rojohn’s plane tried frantically to crank Russo’s turret around so he could escape, but, jammed into the fuselage of the lower plane, it would not budge. Perhaps unaware that his voice was going out over the intercom of his plane, Sgt. Russo began reciting his Hail Marys. Up in the cockpit, Capt. Rojohn and his co-pilot 2nd Lt. William G. Leek, Jr., had propped their feet against the instrument panel so they could pull back on their controls with all their strength, trying to prevent their plane from going into a spinning dive that would prevent the crew from jumping out. Capt. Rojohn motioned left and the two managed to wheel the huge, collision-born hybrid of a plane back toward the German coast. Leek felt like he was intruding on Sgt. Russo as his prayers crackled over the radio, so he pulled off his flying helmet with its earphones. Rojohn, immediately grasping that crew could not exit from the bottom of his plane, ordered his top turret gunner and his radio operator, Tech Sgts. Orville Elkin and Edward G. Neuhaus to make their way to the back of the fuselage and out the waist door on the left behind the wing. Then he got his navigator, 2nd Lt. Robert Washington, and his bombardier, Sgt. James Shirley to follow them. As Rojohn and Leek somehow held the plane steady, these four men, as well as waist gunner, Sgt. Roy Little, and tail gunner, Staff Sgt. Francis Chase, were able to bail out. Now the plane locked below them was aflame. Fire poured over Rojohn’s left wing. He could feel the heat from the plane below and hear the sound of .50 machinegun ammunition “cooking off” in the flames. Capt. Rojohn ordered Lieut. Leek to bail out. Leek knew that without him helping keep the controls back, the plane would drop in a flaming spiral and the centrifugal force would prevent Rojohn from bailing out. He refused the order. Meanwhile, German soldiers and civilians on the ground that afternoon looked up in wonder. Some of them thought they were seeing a new Allied secret weapon — a strange eight-engined double bomber. But anti-aircraft gunners on the North Sea coastal island of Wangeroge had seen the collision. A German battery captain wrote in his logbook at 12:47 p.m.: “Two fortresses collided in a formation in the NE. The planes flew hooked together and flew 20 miles south. The two planes were unable to fight anymore. The crash could be awaited so I stopped the firing at these two planes.” Suspended in his parachute in the cold December sky, Bob Washington watched with deadly fascination as the mated bombers, trailing black smoke, fell to earth about three miles away, their downward trip ending in an ugly boiling blossom of fire. In the cockpit Rojohn and Leek held grimly to the controls trying to ride a falling rock. Leek tersely recalled, “The ground came up faster and faster. Praying was allowed. We gave it one last effort and slammed into the ground.” The McNab plane on the bottom exploded, vaulting the other B-17 upward and forward. It slammed back to the ground, sliding along until its left wing slammed through a wooden building and the smoldering mess came to a stop. Rojohn and Leek were still seated in their cockpit. The nose of the plane was relatively intact, but everything from the B-17 massive wings back was destroyed. They looked at each other incredulously. Neither was badly injured. Movies have nothing on reality. Still perhaps in shock, Leek crawled out through a huge hole behind the cockpit, felt for the familiar pack in his uniform pocket pulled out a cigarette. He placed it in his mouth and was about to light it. Then he noticed a young German soldier pointing a rifle at him. The soldier looked scared and annoyed. He grabbed the cigarette out of Leak’s mouth and pointed down to the gasoline pouring out over the wing from a ruptured fuel tank. Two of the six men who parachuted from Rojohn’s plane did not survive the jump. But the other four and, amazingly, four men from the other bomber, including ball turret gunner Woodall, survived. All were taken prisoner. Several of them were interrogated at length by the Germans until they were satisfied that what had crashed was not a new American secret weapon. Rojohn, typically, didn’t talk much about his Distinguished Flying Cross. Of Leek, he said, ‘in all fairness to my co-pilot, he’s the reason I’m alive today.” Like so many veterans, Rojohn got unsentimentally back to life after the war, marrying and raising a son and daughter. For many years, though, he tried to link back up with Leek, going through government records to try to track him down. It took him 40 years, but in 1986, he found the number of Leeks’ mother, in Washington State. Yes, her son Bill was visiting from California. Would Rojohn like to speak with him? Some things are better left unsaid. One can imagine that first conversation between the two men who had shared that wild ride in the cockpit of a B-17. A year later, the two were re-united at a reunion of the 100th Bomb Group in Long Beach, Calif. Bill Leek died the following year. Glenn Rojohn was the last survivor of the remarkable piggyback flight. He was like thousands upon thousands of men, soda jerks and lumberjacks, teachers and dentists, students and lawyers and service station attendants and store clerks and farm boys who in the prime of their lives went to war. He died last Saturday after a long siege of sickness. But he apparently faced that final battle with the same grim aplomb he displayed that remarkable day over Germany so long ago. Let us be thankful for such men.
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WOW - the B17 story and the video of Avenger ditching are both remarkable.

Imagine the terror of those roughly 20 young Americans in the two Flying Fortresses as they struggled for their lives. Most of them were likely within a few years of 20 or so.

Pretty tough for people who we now mainly consider as "children" who are often not capable of wiping their own noses without Mommy's help.
 
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What a shame about the Sea Fury - again, glad about the crew.

On a completely different note, and recognizing that it is not really directly related to aircraft, please allow me to present something totally different....
While it is clear that the German-based British propagandists such as Lord HawHaw were traitors in the truest sense of the word and fully deserved to be shot and pissed-on, I have learned that their counterparts in the Pacific theatre were more victims than criminals.
The History Guy and Mark Felton are, in my view, two of the finest producers of YouTube content - check ‘em out!
Pete
 
Found this [wiki link] when looking for more information on the air race, leading edge for the time. The design of the aircraft certainly went to the De Havilland Mosquito as well, even the spruce went too. My father flew Beaufighters over Germany during WWII, he often talked about the Mosquito, the speed and maneuverability and i think more from a design perspective as he was an artist and art lecturer post war. Interesting read......


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Havilland_DH.88_Comet
 
In Newsweek today, apparently a mechanic was working on an old Piper, had the motor running and it rolled away on him and took off! :yikes:

Plane Mysteriously Takes Off Without Pilot, Flies Over a Mile Before Crashing
By Soo Kim On 5/7/21 at 7:00 AM EDT
An unmanned plane in Nebraska flew for around a mile and a half—traveling as high as 200 feet in the air—before crashing into a cornfield in Merrick County.

The vintage aircraft—reported to be a 1941 Piper model, according to Nebraska's Lincoln Journal Star—mysteriously took off with apparently no one aboard from the runway of the Central City airport at around 7:30 p.m. local time on Tuesday while it was undergoing maintenance, the Merrick County Sheriff's Office said.

The plane flew out of control while a technician went to check his work during the maintenance, according to Merrick County Sgt. Jake Bauer.

There were no injuries reported from the crash. The scene was cleared by the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board, according to the sheriff's office, which posted images of the damaged 80-year-old plane.

Bauer explained the plane is a simple aircraft with no automatic starter or key ignition. It needs to be propped by hand to get started. The engine could easily rev up to a level that would not allow the pilot to catch the aircraft, he added.

The Piper J-3 plane was first built in 1937 and "remains one of the most recognized designs in aviation," according to the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum.
 
In Newsweek today, apparently a mechanic was working on an old Piper, had the motor running and it rolled away on him and took off! :yikes:

Plane Mysteriously Takes Off Without Pilot, Flies Over a Mile Before Crashing
By Soo Kim On 5/7/21 at 7:00 AM EDT
An unmanned plane in Nebraska flew for around a mile and a half—traveling as high as 200 feet in the air—before crashing into a cornfield in Merrick County.

The vintage aircraft—reported to be a 1941 Piper model, according to Nebraska's Lincoln Journal Star—mysteriously took off with apparently no one aboard from the runway of the Central City airport at around 7:30 p.m. local time on Tuesday while it was undergoing maintenance, the Merrick County Sheriff's Office said.

The plane flew out of control while a technician went to check his work during the maintenance, according to Merrick County Sgt. Jake Bauer.

There were no injuries reported from the crash. The scene was cleared by the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board, according to the sheriff's office, which posted images of the damaged 80-year-old plane.

Bauer explained the plane is a simple aircraft with no automatic starter or key ignition. It needs to be propped by hand to get started. The engine could easily rev up to a level that would not allow the pilot to catch the aircraft, he added.

The Piper J-3 plane was first built in 1937 and "remains one of the most recognized designs in aviation," according to the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum.

This is world class
I don't know anything of Aeroplanes but I have heard of a " Flight Manual "

A typical flight manual will contain the following: operating limitations, Normal/Abnormal/Emergency operating procedures, performance data and loading information.

if the Pilot is at the Bar stool on his fifth Whisky this morning
And the throttle Position at " Full "
DO NOT Yank the propeller
Or you will look like Jesse Owens at the 100 m Dash at the Berlin Olympics.
At the same time figuring out what you will tell the Boss and the Aircraft Owner

I have heard of people falling out off fast boats losing the boat
And adjusting idle on Automatic shift cars in drive position.
But this is the first time someone is losing a Plane
This is how legends are made
 
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In Newsweek today, apparently a mechanic was working on an old Piper, had the motor running and it rolled away on him and took off! :yikes:

Plane Mysteriously Takes Off Without Pilot, Flies Over a Mile Before Crashing
By Soo Kim On 5/7/21 at 7:00 AM EDT
An unmanned plane in Nebraska flew for around a mile and a half—traveling as high as 200 feet in the air—before crashing into a cornfield in Merrick County.

The vintage aircraft—reported to be a 1941 Piper model, according to Nebraska's Lincoln Journal Star—mysteriously took off with apparently no one aboard from the runway of the Central City airport at around 7:30 p.m. local time on Tuesday while it was undergoing maintenance, the Merrick County Sheriff's Office said.

The plane flew out of control while a technician went to check his work during the maintenance, according to Merrick County Sgt. Jake Bauer.

There were no injuries reported from the crash. The scene was cleared by the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board, according to the sheriff's office, which posted images of the damaged 80-year-old plane.

Bauer explained the plane is a simple aircraft with no automatic starter or key ignition. It needs to be propped by hand to get started. The engine could easily rev up to a level that would not allow the pilot to catch the aircraft, he added.

The Piper J-3 plane was first built in 1937 and "remains one of the most recognized designs in aviation," according to the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum.
This has actually happened before... maybe not this good a distance record :rolleyes:, but it's happened. And it's easier than you'd think..... bein' as how there's no parking brake and all. To start a Cub, you have to pull down on the right side of the prop. The entry door is on the left side, behind the lift struts. You either walk around behind or in front of it after the engine starts. Sounds to me like the mechanic had the throttle set a tad too high and it got away from him. Hand propping a Cub by yourself really isn't a good idea. Don't ask me how I know that. :whistle:
 
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