Early in my aviation maintenance career, these piston ashtrays were abundant in every line shack. Piston powered airplanes were long gone, but these remained until smoking was banned. They were made long after the war by airline mechanics.Another interesting item I’ve acquired is this top of an aircraft piston made into an ashtray. I’ve heard they made these on downtime during the war.View attachment 175468View attachment 175469View attachment 175470
The pictures Designbum posted got me to take a look at some 1963 Mechanix Illustrated magazines I have hanging around so here are three scans out of them I thought might be interesting. And for the airplane people on this forum one of the magazines has a write-up on the B-70, was that one ever built?
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Had to include a Harley ad!
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Never owned a Spyder but did own a few Covairs back in the day
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Anyone ever see a King Midget in person, they were advertised for many years in these magazines!
My dad had a few Croselys but never a Hotshot.The pictures Designbum posted got me to take a look at some 1963 Mechanix Illustrated magazines I have hanging around so here are three scans out of them I thought might be interesting. And for the airplane people on this forum one of the magazines has a write-up on the B-70, was that one ever built?
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Had to include a Harley ad!
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Never owned a Spyder but did own a few Covairs back in the day
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Anyone ever see a King Midget in person, they were advertised for many years in these magazines!
They built 2. The second was destroyed when an F-104 rolled into it during a G E photo op flight. You have no idea how huge that thing is until you stand under it. It's massive. What's amazing is it could cruise at mach 3 for up to an hour..... eating up over 2000 miles.XB-70 is on display at the Wright-Pat museum in Ohio. I don't remember if they built two or three, but one was destroyed in an accident.
They built 2. The second was destroyed when an F-104 rolled into it during a G E photo op flight. You have no idea how huge that thing is until you stand under it. It's massive. What's amazing is it could cruise at mach 3 for up to an hour..... eating up over 2000 miles.
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I remember taxiing the L1011. From the captain's seat, the nose gear was a long way back. To turn into the gate, you had to taxi a good bit past before starting the turn. It took practice, and any mistake could be catastrophic. When I was at the museum looking at the XB-70, I noted immediately that the nose gear was a long, long way behind the pilot. Taxiing that thing may have been a bigger challenge than flying it.They built 2. The second was destroyed when an F-104 rolled into it during a G E photo op flight. You have no idea how huge that thing is until you stand under it. It's massive. What's amazing is it could cruise at mach 3 for up to an hour..... eating up over 2000 miles.
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Good point, Fred. But there are other reasons for the desirability of the Velocette: there were not very many made, they were among the best of breed in their time, and they were beautiful. None of those things is true of the Hardly Ableson WM, which became rare only because so many were fed to the crusher and shipped to Japan, to be reincarnated as decent motorcycles.