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Classic Wings Magazine WWII Naval Aviation Research Pacific Luftwaffe Resource Center
When Hollywood Ruled The Skies - Volumes 1 through 4 by Bruce Oriss


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PostPosted: Sun Dec 17, 2017 2:17 pm 
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Interesting stuff.

Part 1

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PostPosted: Sun Dec 17, 2017 2:17 pm 
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Part 2

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PostPosted: Sun Dec 17, 2017 2:22 pm 
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Part 3

NACA Photos below taken at NACA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field CA

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Northrop P-61A Black Widow towing P-51B to release altitude of 28,000 ft over Muroc Dry Lake, California for in flight validating of wind tunnel measurements of drag

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Last edited by Mark Allen M on Sun Dec 17, 2017 2:33 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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PostPosted: Sun Dec 17, 2017 2:24 pm 
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A few more NACA P-61 photos

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PostPosted: Mon Dec 18, 2017 9:11 am 
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Im nit picking, but the 1/3 scale model in the wind tunnel is of a P-51A not a p-51B.


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PostPosted: Mon Dec 18, 2017 9:57 am 
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AH! for the love of 1 or two more viable project P-61s. . . .

Tom P.


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PostPosted: Mon Dec 18, 2017 10:35 am 
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the P-61 is the ugly girl at the party that you still strangely attracted to.


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PostPosted: Mon Dec 18, 2017 9:48 pm 
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Love the P-61 pics!!

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PostPosted: Wed Dec 20, 2017 9:16 pm 
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That must have been pretty spooky for the P-51 pilot! Without engine power, would he have had to rely on batteries to operate the radio and other accessories, or would a wind-driven generator have been used? Too bad none of the pictures or documentation show the plane's serial; but by cross-referencing accidents at Muroc on the AAIR site I found it was 42-12111:
Attachment:
NACA P-51 accident.jpg
NACA P-51 accident.jpg [ 68.42 KiB | Viewed 587 times ]

Anyone care to dig up the accident report and see if there are any photos? Looks like the pilot survived.

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Pilot: "Flap switch works hard in down position."
Mechanic: "Flap switch checked OK. Pilot needs more P.T." - Flight report, TB-17G 42-102875 (Hobbs AAF)


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PostPosted: Thu Dec 21, 2017 10:25 am 
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Chris Brame wrote:
That must have been pretty spooky for the P-51 pilot! Without engine power, would he have had to rely on batteries to operate the radio and other accessories, or would a wind-driven generator have been used? Too bad none of the pictures or documentation show the plane's serial; but by cross-referencing accidents at Muroc on the AAIR site I found it was 42-12111:
Attachment:
NACA P-51 accident.jpg

Anyone care to dig up the accident report and see if there are any photos? Looks like the pilot survived.


An airplane without power is just a glider. Gliders fly all the time. Test pilots in the 40's and 50's didn't get spooked.


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PostPosted: Thu Dec 21, 2017 10:34 am 
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Muroc is a dry lake and is part of Edwards AFB (now). The space shuttle and lots of rocket powered X-planes landed there unpowered.

P-51 landing gear free-fall and lock by gravity without hydraulic power. The gear handle mechanically releases the landing gear uplocks (same on a T-6 BTW). The downlocks are like a door latch and lock mechanically. A pretty simple system!

The only battery power needed would be for radio communication, though they likely had some kind of paper recorder on board to collect flight data during the actual test.

I wonder how the crash happened? Problems in towing? A mid-air collision?


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PostPosted: Thu Dec 21, 2017 1:49 pm 
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bdk wrote:
Muroc is a dry lake and is part of Edwards AFB (now).

I wonder how the crash happened? Problems in towing? A mid-air collision?



The write-up says the tow rope released at low altitude and a forced landing was required.


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