Planes you'd never heard of

Have you seen a German 109 close up? Big guys need not apply to those squadrons. That tiny cockpit with with about 2" of elbow room each side.

Tiny one seaters must have been cheaper to produce in numbers. Only the big radial engine models had an ample cockpit.
 
I get a bit confuzzled every time I'm reminded that flying boats/seaplanes aren't standard in every coastal search & rescue agency.

If you're looking for somebody as fast as you can, you need a plane. But to actually help when you do find them, you need to put some people & assets on the surface. Solution? A plane that can go right down to the surface immediately. Except... apparently not.
 
Delvo said:
I get a bit confuzzled every time I'm reminded that flying boats/seaplanes aren't standard in every coastal search & rescue agency.

If you're looking for somebody as fast as you can, you need a plane. But to actually help when you do find them, you need to put some people & assets on the surface. Solution? A plane that can go right down to the surface immediately. Except... apparently not.
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Some seafaring nations seem to prefer the combination of ship and boat and helicopter.

I imagine with a plane it can be difficult to safely land close enough to be of help, but far enough away to avoid the risk of landing on the people you're trying to help.
 
Military plane aficionados have probably already heard of it, but the McDonnell XF-85 Goblin.

Basically a jet engine with a seat, stubby wings, and machine guns added on, meant to be carried inside a bomber and released from the bomb bay to defend against enemy fighters.


EDIT: Speaking of seaplanes, the Convair F2Y Sea Dart, a supersonic seaplane fighter jet, created as a prototype when it was believed that supersonic jets would be unable to launch from aircraft carriers.
 
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Armitage72 said:
Military plane aficionados have probably already heard of it, but the McDonnell XF-85 Goblin.

Basically a jet engine with a seat, stubby wings, and machine guns added on, meant to be carried inside a bomber and released from the bomb bay to defend against enemy fighters.
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And, of course, its precursor, the Soviet Zveno concept, which in its final form consisted of a TB-3 bomber with two Polikarpov I-16s carried under the wings, a combination that carried out several combat missions in the early days of the Great Patriotic War.

Dave
 
Delvo said:
I get a bit confuzzled every time I'm reminded that flying boats/seaplanes aren't standard in every coastal search & rescue agency.

If you're looking for somebody as fast as you can, you need a plane. But to actually help when you do find them, you need to put some people & assets on the surface. Solution? A plane that can go right down to the surface immediately. Except... apparently not.
Click to expand...

Landing conditions have to be just right to land and take off safely.
 
Delvo said:
I get a bit confuzzled every time I'm reminded that flying boats/seaplanes aren't standard in every coastal search & rescue agency.

If you're looking for somebody as fast as you can, you need a plane. But to actually help when you do find them, you need to put some people & assets on the surface. Solution? A plane that can go right down to the surface immediately. Except... apparently not.
Click to expand...

A significant factor is sea state. Flying boats require pretty smooth water to take off. They can land it much worse conditions, which resulted in a number of incidents in WW-II where rescue craft landed and recovered survivors, but were then forced to wait on rescue themselves.

Compound designs, like the V-22 Osprey, that provide the speed of a fixed wing, and the hover capability of a helicopter are a better design than flying boats for rescue operations.
 

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As a WWII aircraft obsessed kid, we had a general aviation airport within bike-riding distance, and in those days security wasn't even an afterthought.

There were some WWII birds on the tarmac - civilian owned - and one of them was this, The F7F:



It was beautiful, loud and fast. The owner/pilot wasn't bothered by kids questions and I believe that's why one of my friends ended up in the AF as a pilot.

I only went as far as jumping out of 'em.
 
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3point14 said:
You weren't kidding about the noise, were you?!
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There were a couple of P-51's flying out of San Carlos at the same time and a bunch of T-6's.

If you were listening, you could always tell when the F7F took off - the twins had a sound all their own - the P51's made their own music but the F7 was my fav at the time.
 
Curtiss F9C Sparrowhawk

A conventional looking if small aircrafted designed to be an airship carried plane, or parasite aircraft.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtiss_F9C_Sparrowhawk


F9C_in_USS_Akron_hangar1932.jpg


C0368715-Curtiss_F9C-2_Sparrowhawk_fighter_plane.jpg


NH-77435.jpg
 
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