Waco CG-4A Glider

 

In the ‘70s, when visiting New York, I often got my hair cut by a barber in mid-town Manhattan named Tony. He was about my parents’ age and had been an airborne trooper in WWII. Tony told me about his glider landing east of the beaches in Normandy, France, in the early hours of 6 June 1944, D-day. His glider hit the ground hard and disintegrated. Tony, battered and bruised, thankfully, survived the crash and the rest of the war.

 Under contract with the U.S. Army Air Forces from 1942 to 1948, the Waco Aircraft Company of Troy, Ohio, designed and built, along with 16 contactors, 13,909 of the CG-4A multi-purpose gliders. The aircraft had the capacity to carry 13 fully equipped airborne troops, a Jeep, a 75mm howitzer, six medical evacuation litters or several specialized packages, e.g. a field weather station, of up to 4,197 pounds (1,904 kg). The CG-4a was 48 ft 8 in (14.8 m) long, with a wingspan of 83 ft 8 in (25.5 m) and a gross weight of 7,500 lb (3,402 kg). It was most often towed by a Douglass C47 Skytrain. The glider was used by the U.S. Army Air Forces, the U.S. Navy, the Royal Air Force and the Royal Canadian Air Force.

 Designed to be light, the CG-4A was built with a frame of wood and some aluminum tubing wrapped in painted canvas. The main wheels, under the wings, were only used for take-off. During flight, the whole wheel assembly would be disconnected, and the glider would land on the skids on the bottom of the body. When the aircraft was used to carry cargo, like a Jeep, the entire cockpit would be hinged upward allowing access to interior. Unfortunately, if the plane stopped abruptly on landing the cargo tended to jump forward killing the pilots. The CG-4A was nicknamed “The Silent Death Trap”.

 #Waco #CG-4A #glider #D-Day #WWII #Normandy #Blender #Cycles

 

 

Douglas C-47 Skytrain

Douglas Aircraft Company built over 10,000 of the C-47 Skytrain, a military version of the Douglas DC-3. They were employed extensively in North Africa, Europe, Asia and the Pacific. The plane played a crucial role in the D-Day invasion of Normandy during World War II. Specifically, on June 6, 1944, over 1,000 C-47s were used to transport and drop about 13,000 paratroopers of the 82^nd and 101^st Airborne Divisions behind enemy lines. These aircraft were vital for delivering troops and supplies, and they also towed gliders carrying more soldiers and equipment to protect the American troops landing on the Normandy beaches from German reinforcements.

 #Douglas #plane #C-47 #Skytrain #Normandy #D-Day #Blender #Cycles

Douglas DC-3

 In 1951, at the age of 10, I had my first airplane flight. My father worked for Studebaker, the car and truck manufacturer. The company plane, a DC-3, was being sent from South Bend, the company’s H.Q., to pick up my dad at Pittsburgh. As a courtesy, the pilots arranged for me to ride along. What a thrill! Unfortunately, there was a serious thunderstorm, and we couldn’t land in Pittsburgh. So, we went somewhere else to refuel (and grab a few sandwiches) for the return home without my dad. I guess he got back some other way.

The first Douglas DC-3, initially built for American airlines, was delivered in 1935. It had 21 passenger seats in two rows of two seats each. The plane was an incredible success; over 90% of commercial flight in the world were made by DC-3s by 1939. By the end of civilian production in 1943, Douglas had built 607 DC-3s. In its military version, the C-47 Skytrain (see following posts), over 16,000 of the planes were produced by Douglas in California and contractors in Japan and the Soviet Union. In 2023 an estimated 150 of the planes were still flying.

I could only find two black-and-white photos of the Studebaker corporate plane and they had different liveries. So, I made the model with a paint-job that might have been like the real plane. The tail number was copied from one of the photos and the company logo on the tail was the official Studebaker logo in 1951.

#DC-3 #Douglas #plane #Stdebaker #Blender #Cycles

B-25B Mitchell

Following the order from the US Army Air Forces in September, 1939, North American Aviation built 9,889 B-25 medium bombers at two plants in Inglewood, California and Fairfax, Kansas. The plane was first used in combat in April, 1942, in the Doolittle Raid to bomb Tokyo and two other cities in Japan: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doolittle_Raid. The B-25 saw combat in the Pacific, Middle East and Europe during   WWII.

 The B-25 had a wing span of 67 feet 7 inches (20.6 m) and a length of 53 feet (16.15 m). It had an operating range of about 3,000 miles (5,000 km.) The plane carried a crew of five: pilot, co—pilot, bombardier, radio operator/navigator, gunner.

This model is based on the stripped-down plane captained by Lt. Colonel Jimmy Doolittle and caries the sparce livery used on the raid.

 #B-25 #bomber #WWII #Blender #Cycles

 

Locomotion No. 1

 

In 1825, the steam engine Locomotion became the first engine to haul passenger carriages on a public railway. The engine was built by the Robert Stephenson Company under a contact with the Stockton & Darlington Railway to be run on the S&DR’s 25-mile track in North-East England. It weighed 7.5 tons (about 6.6 metric tons) and could manage a top speed, downhill, of 15 mph (24 kph.) Unfortunately, in 1828 the boiler exploded killing the driver.

 A replica of the engine was built in 1837 using some of the original parts and compatible parts from other engines. This engine was used as a static display by the S&DR and is currently on display at the National Railway Museum in York, England.

 This model is based largely on the 1937 replica. Because of the complexity of the mechanical components on top of the boiler, it was difficult to understand from photos how it all fit together. Until, that is, I stumbled on a 200-page report by railway historians Michael R. Bailey MBE, DPhil, MA and Peter H. Davidson MA (Cantab.). titled Locomotion No. 1, An Assessment of its History and Modifications Through Archaeological and Archival Study. This document turned out to be a treasure trove of explanations, diagrams and detailed photos of the whole engine.

#Locomotion_No_1 #S&DR #steam_engine #railway #history #Blender 4.1 #Cycles

 

B-24D Liberator Bomber

 In 1939, under a contract from the U, S, Army Air Forces, Consolidated Aircraft Corp. of San Diago designed a new heavy, long-range bomber, the B24. Its first flight was made in December of that year. Over the next six years, over 18,000 B-24s were built by Consolidated and under licence by Ford, making it the most produced military airplane in history. In addition to the USAAF the plane was in service with the U. S. Navy, the Royal Air Force and the Australian R.A.F..

With a wingspan of 33.5m (110ft) the B-24 had a range of 4,600km (2,800 miles), making it ideal for antisubmarine bombing in the mid-Atlantic.  It had a bomb capacity of 3,630 kg (8,000 lbs) and was armed with 11 .50 calibre machine guns. The plane was manned by a crew of 10: Pilot, co-pilot, navigator/bombardier, radio/radar operator, flight engineer/top turret gunner, ball turret gunner, two side gunners and tail turret gunner.

I chose to model the B-24D Strawberry Bitch, Serial Number 42-72843 mainly because the name was intriguing, but I was not able to find anything about the origin of the name. The plane flew over 50 combat missions between September 1943 and June 1944 with the  512th Bomb Squadron of the 376^th Heavy bomber Group based at Cairo, Egypt.

#B-24 #bomber #WWII #USAAF #Strawberry_Bitch  #Blender-4.1 #Cycles

Lockheed P-80 Shooting Star

In the spring of 1943, the U. S. Army Air Force (USAAF) realized that both the Germans and the British were seriously ahead developing jet-powered fighter aircraft. The USAAF gave the contract to quickly develop an American jet fighter to Lockheed’s Skunk Works (a super-secret, internal development group) in Pasadena. 150 days later the P-80 shooting Star, powered by a donated British Halford H1 engine was ready for testing. The final version of the plane was adapted to accommodate a wider Allison J33 American built engine.

The P-80 had a maximum speed of pf 933 kph (580mph), a cruising speed of 703 kph (437 mph) and a range of 1,754 km (1090 miles.) The plane was 105 m (34 ft 6 in) long with a wingspan of 11.85 m (38 ft 10 in). A couple of the prototypes saw some recognisance missions in the late months of the war in Italy. In all, 1,715 P-80s were built. In addition to the USAF and the US Navy the plane was used by several countries in South America.

This model and its livery are based on the F-80C version of the Shooting Star as it was in Korea in 1950 while assigned to the USAF 8^th Fighter-Bomber group, now displayed at the Museum of the USAF in Dayton, Ohio, USA.

#WWII #jet #fighter #plane #Lockheed #P-80 #Shooting_Star #Blender #Cycles