FOX ONE!

For today's quickie, we present a wonderfully atmospheric snap of an anonymous (to us) US Navy F-4J Phantom II loosing an AIM-7 Sparrow during  a MISSLEX.

Enjoy, and go boresight...

US Navy photo

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A Turkey Takes Flight

As y'all know, we luvs-us-sum Tomcats 'round here, as well as 'purty pikshurs. So, today we present a rather lovely snap showing an F-14B of VF-32 'Swordsmen' coming off USS Harry S. Truman's waist cat for a CAS sortie during the Global War on Terrorism. The date was January 24th, 2005, the location was the Persian Gulf.

Enjoy, and move mud, Baby...

US Navy photo by Photographer’s Mate Airman Philip V. Morrill

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Luiper

For today's installment we present a dramatic snap of a South African Air Force (SAAF) Mirage IIICZ just after tuckin' the gear up on takeoff. This particular jet is said to be #802, operated by the Flying Cheetahs of 2 Squadron and flown by Captain Mark Edwards. Dubbed 'MAD MAX' during ACM exercises at Air Force Base Langebaanweg in early 1990, she was lost not too long afterward on February 14th, 1990 after loss of control due to wake turbulence. Captain Edwards went for a ride on the bang seat, and the jet wound up in the water somewhere between Yzerfontein and Saldanha, Cape Town. The type was retired from SAAF service that same year.

Enjoy, and remember kids: jet wash ain't soap...

From: The Dassault Mirage III in South African Air Force service Part 1

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Blunt Blade

Today we bring you a fine shot of a Vought F7U Cutlass, snapped by the man, the myth, the legend - Rudy Arnold. 'Tis the very first Cutlass, to be exact... XF7U-1 BuNo. 122472, though we have no additional intel on the date or location. If we find out more, we'll give a yell.

The Cutlass was a flop in US Navy service, with roughly one-quarter of the production run written off in accidents and twenty-five pilots killed over the course of the type's short time in service during the 1950s. This particular jet was one of those destroyed - she met her demise during a takeoff accident on September 28th, 1949, though thankfully Paul Thayer, the Vought test pilot on that occasion, survived.

Anyhoo, again, we dunno when or where this snap was made, though we're guessing it might have been at Pax River, Maryland.

Whatever the case, enjoy, and watch 'yer step getting in or outta the jet...

National Air & Space Museum (Rudy Arnold Photograph Collection)

Sometime back we featured a rather nice painting of the 'Gutless Cutless', which you can see HERE...


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Super-Heated Sunset

 For today's quickie we bring you a 'purty one... 'tis a silhouette snap from the early-mid '80s showing an F-4S Phantom II from VF-202 'Superheats', one of the fighter RONs from CVWR-20, the US Navy's Atlantic Fleet Reserve Carrier Air Wing.

Enjoy...

From: VF-202 Superheats Facebook page

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Vandy One, Baby!

As the readership may be aware, we love us some Tomcats here at TWW, and we love us some 'purtiness, too. Well, here's one of the 'purtiest Tomcats you'll ever see... 'Vandy One' from VX-9, 'Vampires' as seen in 2002 or thereabouts. Actually, 'twas October 17th of that year, to be precise.

Back in the 1990s, after the Red Russkies threw in the towel and brought an  end to the Cold War, there was alotta reorganizin' taking place in Uncle Sam's arsenal, and the US Navy lost alotta RONs. Among those losses were AIRTEVRON FOUR; VX-4 'Evaluators', which was consolidated with VX-5 'Vampires' to form a new Air Test and Evaluation Squadron, VX-9. 

The new RON inherited the 'Vampires' name from VX-5, and though VX-4 was now gone, some of that squadron's traditions lived on, including the adornment of the skipper's jet, call sign 'Vandy One' ('Vandy' being short for VX-4's full call sign, 'Vanderbilt'), with an overall black paint job and a white Playboy Bunny on the tail. The call sign and black paint were preserved, but the Bunny's days were numbered. The punchy, cheeky little emblem was apparently too suggestive for those with egg on their covers and it soon fell prey to that load of utter horseshit known as political correctness. But, for a brief while in the early years of the new century, it would seem that somebody with a functioning brain and balls enough to tell the flags to take a long walk off a short pier decided to revive the Bunny for the F-14's final days with VX-9.

The result is what y'all see below - F-14D BuNo. 164604, the very last Tomcat to roll off'a the production line at Bethpage, NY. She served only with VX-9 and never touched down on a boat. Never fired her gun, either, apparently.

Anyhoo, enjoy, test, and evaluate, baby!

USAF photo by Staff Sgt. Shane A. Cuomo

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AM = Awful Monster

For today's quickie, we bring you this fine air to air view of the fairly obscure, much maligned, and short-lived Martin AM Mauler, a type that was a handful in the air and which had a tendency to hop over the wires and barrel into the barrier while landing on the boat.

Enjoy, and rig the barricade...

Project 914 Archives

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SEA Super Tweet

For today's installment we bring you a pretty cool if crapola quality AP wirephoto showing an RVNAF (Republic of Vietnam Air Force) A-37 Dragonfly over the lush jungle greenery of South Vietnam, dropping things that go boom (in this case, a couple'a 500 lb 'snake eyes') on their commie brethren. Oh, and this photo is stamped with the date March 13th, 1972, though y'all should keep in mind that sometimes those stamps were a bit late.

Enjoy, and remember: when in doubt, lay some iron...

 

Project 914 Archives

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With today's quickie we bring you a real beaut... an A-10A from the 81st TFW snapped from a tanker over the North Sea on February 1st, 1988. This jet spent a bit-o-time at the boneyard beginning in 2006, was returned to service and updated to A-10C standards. Your blogmeister isn't sure if she's still flying today, but he'd like to think so.

Enjoy, and go ugly early...

USAF Photo by Airman 1st Class Larry Young

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Stop Worrying...

Today's quickie is a screengrab from the opening credits of the film 'Dr. Strangelove Or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb'. That sequence is composed of official USAF footage showing B-52s doin' the aerial refueling thang, and is one of a few treats for the wingnut to be found in the film.

Enjoy, and remember - if we was flyin' any lower, why, we'd need sleigh bells on this thing...

Screengrab from:  'Dr. Strangelove Or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb'

Oh, by the way... you can watch the whole flick 'fer nuthin' on the Internet Archive, HERE.

'Yer welcome.


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Hoosier Favorite Horse?

For today's installment, we have an atmospheric and just plain cool-lookin shot from 1947 or thereabouts that shows a couple'a P-51 Mustangs (later F-51) from the 113th Fighter Squadron, an Indiana Guard outfit. This was the early days of the Air Guard, when the lines were still a bit blurred between the 'ole National Guard aviation outfits and the new organization called the Air National Guard, hence the 'NG' on the fuselages and tails instead of the eventually-adopted 'ANG'.

Enjoy, and remember - The Air National Guard Protects America...

Original image: M.Kyburz collection (enlarged and enhanced)

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Was the First 'Stealth Bomber' a UFO?

Okay, your blogmeister has to clear that one up right outta the gate - no, the YB-49 was not a 'stealth' aircraft. The technology, and even the notion simply did not exist back then, except maybe in the minds of a few overly forward-thinking aeronautical engineers (somewhat doubtful) and one or three pulp rag and/or radio science fiction writers (much more likely).

Nonetheless, it would seem that the YB-49 did indeed possess certain qualities that fit in with the idea of 'stealth', most notably its reputed small-ish radar cross section (RCS). Your blogmeister has no data, hard or otherwise, to support this, just anecdotal schtuff. But, given what little he knows of such matters, the idea that the YB-49 was kinda-semi-sorta 'stealthy' and had a small-ish RCS is plausible in his mind.

Okay, 'nuffa-dat-schtuff. UFOs? Well, to some, or even many back then, yeah... this thing definitely would'a brought UFO vibes, especially if viewed from the angle at which the photo below was snapped. And people's imaginations... well, this is neither the time, nor the blog. So let's just say that the YB-49 was undoubtedly futuristic for the time, no matter how you looked at it. And maybe a little otherworldly-lookin' as well. But it certainly wasn't flown by little green men of any description, unless the pilot had scarfed down a bad breakfast burrito the morning of a test-flight, but... I don't think breakfast burritos were a thing back then either, so... just forget it.

Come to think of it, forget all'a what you just read, cuz' it was a pretty long-winded way of saying "your blogmeister was just being funny with the title of this-here installment of TWW".

Enjoy, don't take yourselves too seriously, and remember that lead is better for hats than tin foil, but it'll kill you much morely...

Edwards Air Force Base / Air Force Flight Test Center Website

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Víbora Chilena

 Today, a quickie. 'Tis a Fuerza Aérea de Chile (Chilean  Air Force) F-16C shown prior to delivery while still in the US-of-A...

San Diego Air & Space Museum

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His and Hürjet

For today's installment we present a 'purty pikshur of a cute little jet... the Turkish Aerospace Industries Hürjet, to be exact. Your blogmeister doesn't know a whole helluvalot about this bird other than it's a trainer and light attack aircraft, and that Turkey and Spain have placed orders for the type to replace their ancient T-38s and F-5s, respectively. Oh, and the US Navy is also a potential future operator, as they're lookin' to replace their T-45 Goshawks. But they're lookin' at numerous contenders and will undoubtedly take a while to make up their minds.

Anyhoo, enjoy the pikshur...

Turkish Aerospace Industries

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Out of the Gate

Today's installment of TWW is somewhat nostalgic for your blogmeister, as the photo below was taken by his Dad at the Geneseo  Airshow back in the 1980s sometime... 1983 or maybe '84... during the days of the original National Warplane Museum.

Anyhoo, 'ole Bruno's snap shows Bob Ferguson in his P-51D 'Ain't Misbehavin' being... well... Bob Ferguson. That fella always gave a thrill from gear up to touch-down.

Enjoy, and run 'em hard but don't put 'em away wet...

Norb 'Bruno' Donacik photo

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A Cadet and His Kaydet

For today's quickie we have this fine hero shot of an unknown (to us) US Army air cadet at Douglas Army Air Field, Georgia with his Stearman PT-17 Kaydet, serial number 40-1840 or 40-1848... your blogmeister's tired old eyes can no longer tell the difference, and Photoshop ain't helpin' too much anymore.

Anyhoo, enjoy the pikshur, and take care-o-yo-Mk Is, folks...

Original Image From: The Cadet flyer - Winter 2008

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A Whale is Born

 Though they don't show up here too often, your blogmeister holds a great affinity for birds of the Curtiss variety. His Grandfather worked at Curtiss-Wright in Buffalo, NY, and helped to build several types there, including the P-36, P-40, license-built P-47s, and the C-46, which is the subject of today's installment of this-here cyber rag.

April 11th, 1942. The first C-46A, serial number 41-5159, rolls out of Curtiss Plant #2 at the
Buffalo Airport in Cheektowaga, NY.

Enjoy...

Project 914 Archives (S.Donacik collection)

If you'd like to see more of the C-46, please check out THIS PAGE from your blogmeister's website, The Hawk's Nest.


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Thunderous Hammers Forge Iron Swords

For the most part, we here at TWW don't dive into the 'why' of what people do with their things with wings, even when they're carrying things that go boom under those wings. And we're not about to start now. Your blogmeister will simply remind the readership that this is an aviation photo blog, and we share cool and sometimes 'purty pikshurs of airplanes. Regardless of our personal feelings about the horrible shit that's happening in the world, we show the birds.  Period.

Now, with that said, here's an Israeli F-15I Ra'am flown by the Hammers of 69 Squadron, Israeli Air Force setting out on a sortie with the officially stated intention to hit Hamas targets in Gaza on October 15th, 2023, just days after the horrendous Simchat Torah massacre of October 7th.

IDF photo

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Putting a Cat to Bed

As the readership may or may not be aware, we luv us sum 'purty pikshurs 'round these parts. Same goes for the Grumman F-14 Tomcat. So this time 'round we figured, what the hey, why not do both?

So here's a real looker for y'all - a beauty of a shot snapped late in the evening 'somewhere in the Atlantic', showing an F-14B (née A+) from either VF-11 'Red Rippers' or VF-143 'Pukin' Dogs', tied down for the night and receiving some end-of-day TLC. Both RONs were embarked aboard USS George Washington (CVN-73) as part of Carrier Air Wing Seven (CVW-7) during November of 2003.

Chocks and Chains, Baby...

U.S. Navy photo by Photographer’s Mate Airman Konstandinos Goumenidis

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Vark in the Dark

For today's quickie we present a way-cool snap from June of 1990 showing Major Stephen R. Webber of the 2874th Test Squadron makin' a cockpit check before taking a General Dynamics F-111 Aardvark for a nocturnal test flight outta McClellan AFB in California.

Enjoy and remember... night-time is the right time...

Ken Hackman photo

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