Transport Bombers

[Glen]

Greeting's one and all .
I was watching the Duke (John Wayne) last night in the Flying Tigers!
And was amused of the part where they take the transport Airplane and turn it into a Bomber Got me to thinking were their any third world Air forces that did that ? I have been told that the China Air force did some C-45's the US Navy had R4D's on Sub patrols are their any others ?
As always Keep em flying

Glen
P.S. What type of Aircraft was that used in the Movie the Flying Tigers ?

Lookie Capt Jim! Wham! Wham !.........................Termights

[Warbird Mechanic]

The USAF C-130 Hercules transport can drop the latest version of the BLU-82 Cookie Cutter bombs and other munitions. I think the plane used in the Flying Tigers movie was an old Douglas DC-2. The flying sequences actually show only a model of one and not the real plane. The German Heinkel He-111 bomber actually started its life as a transport plane for Luftansa Airways back in the late 1930's. Transports being converted to bombers is not a new concept. Bombers being converted to transports also took place. The Boeing XB-15 and Douglas XB-19 experimental bombers became transports during WWII, but were later scrapped.

Jim

[DB2]

I believe the "bomber" in the movie was a Capelis XC-12

[Chris Brame]

The plane used in Flying Tigers was NX12762, the one-off Capelis XC-12 (which was its model number, not an Air Corps designation), an unsuccessful prototype airliner that ended its career as a prop in several movies. By the time it was used in Flying Tigers it wasn't in flyable shape and was only taxied around; its last appearance was in the 1947 movie Dick Tracy vs. the Claw as set dressing in a junkyard, minus its wings.

Note: After the above photo was taken it was modified with a more conventional cockpit enclosure and fewer passenger windows.

[mustangdriver]

Hard to believe as it looked so elegant.

[Larry Kraus]

There's Part 2 of an article by David Nicolle in the May/June 2007 issue of Air Enthusiast Magazine(No.129) about the Royal Egyptian Air Force in the Arab/Israeli conflict in 1948-49.There's a reference to the REAF using C-47's as makeshift bombers.I've also read of the Israelis using C-46's and C-47 in this role by basically opening the rear door and rolling both home-made and aircraft type bombs over the side mostly over urban areas.From what I understand,the three B-17's that the Israeli Air Force used at this time had been demilitarized and also used non-standard (to say the least) bomb racks and sights.

[Steve Nelson]

I read that the main problem with the XC-12 was that it was held together with sheet-metal screws, which had to be tightened after each flight!

As for transports turned into bombers, the Luftwaffe used Ju-52s as bombers in Spain, and of course the Fw-200 was originally designed as a long-range airliner. Many of the Luftwaffe's bombers began life as thinly-disguised "airliners" and "mailplanes" in the '30s, as a way to get around the Versailles Treaty, which forbid Germany from having an air force.

Lockheed developed it's airliners into Hudson and Ventura/Harpoon bombers.

If you want to get really obscure, in the late '30s Douglas sold the prototype of it's unsuccessful four-engine DC-4E airliner (a completely different aircraft from the DC-4) to Japan, where Nakajima developed it into the G5N Shinzan heavy bomber (Allied code name "Liz.") Six were built, but like the DC-4E they were underpowered and overly complex, and ironically ended up serving as transports.


SN

[airnutz]

I read that the main problem with the XC-12 was that it was held together with sheet-metal screws, which had to be tightened after each flight!
SN

....and replace the ones which vibrated out! Probably PK's only quantity restaurant order.
OK, send us 50 gallons of olive oil, 50 pounds of suflaki....oh yeah, and toss
in a box of 1000 PK screws.

An aircraft designed by a Greek restraunteur..yeah..that's the ticket!

Last edited by airnutz on Fri May 25, 2007 5:09 am, edited 1 time in total.

[HOLLOWAYRANGER]

Rumour had it the argies used a herc during the falklands war as a bomber by pushing bomes out of the hatch/loading bay didnt last long twas soon shot down by sea harries,:wink:

[Tulio]

During the "100 Hour War" [Please do not call it "The Soccer War"] El Salvador and Honduras used make-shift bombers out of Douglas C-47s.

IIRC, the Hondurans had installed a conveyor in one of their C-47s to roll the bombs our of the door.

They also had a "bomber" [with bomb bay] made out of a T-6.

Cessna 182 and 206s were used briefly in Guatemala during the early 1980s as "bombers" of sorts (dropping mines with very unstable fuzes) and hand grenades, as well as some of them having been armed with a side-firing FN-MAG MG.

Nicaragua employed one of more of their C-47s as bombers, too, during the 1979 war.

One of the most interesting cases comes from Haiti, where a group of mercenaries equipped a Lockheed Constellation with some kind of glass containers filled with explosives, and reportedly "bombed" Papa Doc's palace in Port-Au-Prince.

Saludos,


Tulio

[retroaviation]

Cessna 182 and 206s were used briefly in Guatemala during the early 1980s as "bombers" of sorts (dropping mines with very unstable fuzes) and hand grenades, as well as some of them having been armed with a side-firing FN-MAG MG.


Saludos,


Tulio

I actually knew a guy that blew part of his hand off by dropping one of those mines out of a Cessna 206. It was nothing more than a Claymore (or similar) and when he threw it, the mine hit the door of the airplane on it's way out and went off. Took several fingers and lots of meat off his left hand. I wonder how the Mercenary Insurance Plan is?

Gary

[Django]

Didn't the fledgling Isreali AF use some C-47's as bombers?

[Mark Nankivil]

The Argentinians used a C-130 as a bomber against a British merchant ship during the Falklands. Recently the guerrillas in Sri Lanka used a light plane or two to bomb the Sri Lankan AF aircraft base. I also remember - vaguely - that much the same happened in the Biafran War with DC-4/C-54 or the like being used as a bomber.

Enjoy the Day! Mark

[Tulio]

I actually knew a guy that blew part of his hand off by dropping one of those mines out of a Cessna 206. It was nothing more than a Claymore (or similar) and when he threw it, the mine hit the door of the airplane on it's way out and went off. Took several fingers and lots of meat off his left hand. I wonder how the Mercenary Insurance Plan is?

Gary

Hi, Gary.

They were called "minas Top" [Top Mines] and I never found out why.

There were some videos showing a few of the mines blowing up as soon as they were dropped from the plane; I saw one of the 206s peppered with shrapnel, and we were told it was due to defective fuzes.

Did you know, that when the U.S. administration under Carter, banned the shipment of weapons to Guatemala, there were instances where "gray rain" or sacks full of stones, were used to dump over the guerrilla positions by Air Force Reserve-operated aircraft?

As far as I know, neither the Air Force Reserve, nor the Air Force, hired or had any mercenaries in their ranks.

There were two American citizens who were also Guatemalan citizens, and there was a Nicaraguan Colonel, who flew and were members of the Reserva Aerea.

The Air Force performed valiantly and sacrificed a lot, flying obsolete and inadequate equipment; the warhorses were the IAI Arava, the Pilatus PC-7s and of course, the Cessna A-37Bs, plus the helicopters (206s, UH-1Hs, 212s, 412s, Lama, Alouette and a couple of civilian-registered, but government owned, Hughes 500 Ds, that had bomb racks on them.) And this took place in two main phases; the last phase included the aircraft mentioned above.

During an earlier phase of combat in the 1960s, T-6s, B-26s, F-51Ds, C-47s (one of them was used as a gunship) and T-33s, in small numbers, were employed.

Saludos,


Tulio

[warbirdfinder]

Several years after Western Airlines parked its Lockheed L-749 Connies at Las Vegas Airport in 1969, they were sold to different companies. One group decided to load up some 55 gallon drums of fuel in the passenger compartment. Over the capital of a country in the Caribbean, they opened the rear door and shoved the drums out the back. Not much damage done. However, on landing at another country, customs and others noticed a few holes in the aircraft, etc. and the crew was arrested.