Patrick HMD

This is an early production bird with the air scoop starting at the front of the cowl. Later, the front extension was eliminated. The early birds also had a supplementary air scoop on left side of astrodome. This is a later war production with what I refer to as a camel hump or humpback air scoop. These are all powered by Pratt&Whitney motors. The bottom air scoop for the oil coolers remained the same throughout the production. There is a distinct difference between these and the Wright powered birds which had totally different air scoops both top and bottom and bigger round cowlings too. The location of the radio mast was closer to the front on the early birds with a 12 volt system. The later productions had the mast mounted about midways on the fuselage with a 24 volt system.

They were both basically the same exterior wise. The 'B' was a high altitude variant for use in the China/India/ Burma theater flying the hump route. They had two stage superchargers added to the twin wasp engines for better performance at higher altitudes.

GASP! Man, oh man, oh man! You're making that bird come alive!

Some brave guys there. The mosquito is such a turn on. The hot rod of the skies, back then.

The tow line is there. You just have to look real hard to see it. I'm thinking they were experimenting with different types of aircraft. This was one of them. They also showed a P-38, a B-25, and a B-17 doing a triple tow. Just the B-17 doing the triple.

Used as a glider tow.

Wow! Awesome pics. Thanks. That was all news to me. I was under the impression that cast hulls were limited to early production. That HVSS suspention gives the Sherman a pure balls, heavy duty appearance. Thanks for the enlightment. I'm less ignorant on Shermans now. So many variations. Again, beautiful pictures.

Easy eight bogies (HVSS) under a cast hull? Really? Never seen that before. Is that for real? I'm no expert on armored vehicles, so excuse my ignorance.

Strombecker made recognition wood models for the gov. during WW2. I bought their B-29, P-61, and B-24 models back in the day. (1950's) I also did one of their escort carrier ship models. That might be a strombecker that guy is holding in his hand. Here's some very interesting history about the company.

Hope you get well soon Amigo. I love C-47's, my favorite, the most beautiful. most elegant, must rugged airplane ever made by man, IMHO. Not to mention it's impressive record. 80 plus years later, and still trucking. How do you top that. With a turbine engine conversion, it could go another 80 years with that hell for stout air frame. A perfect example of 1930's slide rule engineering.

Thank you for that. I'm a big fan of the piston engined Douglas family of airliners.

That's one hot shot pilot. Looks like he was having fun. Thanks for including the C-47. Can't get enough of those old gonnies, one of my most favorite.

I was using wikipedia as reference. They say 40 ft. 1 1/2 in. long. Now just how accurate that is, I don't know. I've heard they are error prone at times. Thank your for your service.

The length of the Skyhawk is a little bit over 40 feet. So you divide that by 14 and you come up with 34.285 inches long. (BIG) Simple math. Sorry, I don't do metrics, my least favorite option. My brain doesn't like to function in that mode. Be following this one.