The P-51 Mustang had a long career in the US Armed Forces. It wasn’t withdrawn from American service until 1957 (the last such serving Mustang was an F-51D in the West Virginia Air National Guard). It wasn’t entirely removed from military service in other countries until 1984, with the Dominican Air Force.
The Mustang was later developed into various civilian designs, including a plane called the Cavalier Mustang, which featured leather interior, updated avionics, and in some versions, a second seat for a passenger. The Cavalier Mustang was itself later developed into a number of militarized variants, including the Cavalier F-51D and the Cavalier Mustang II, for foreign export.
A final version was developed, at first called the “Turbo Mustang III” and eventually being renamed the Enforcer. This design was initially put together by Cavalier, but later the project was sold to Piper Aircraft, who produced two new airframes with some improvements called the PA-48 Enforcer, and demonstrated for the US Air Force as a Counter-Insurgency aircraft. This last model was built in 1984, the same year the last flying F-51D Mustang had been taken out of military service in the Dominican Republic.
And of course, this isn’t mentioning the famously weird F-82 Twin Mustang, which was essentially two lightweight F-51H Mustangs that were attached at the wings. This plane was designed as a long-range escort fighter and a night fighter, and saw service in the Korean War, gaining the first three Allied air-to-air kills of the war.
Even more obscure than that? The Germans were also developing a number of twin-body fighter planes not entirely unlike the F-82 Twin Mustang, including a twin-body variant of the Bf-109.
The way I understood it, is that all the stockpiles of torpedo imploders in Hawaii were fixed on location, using material available locally and as for a cite, sorry, I read that something like at least 10 years ago (if not longer) and I don’t recall exactly were I read it (I think it was in a Strategy & Tactics issue or maybe a Jim Dunnigan book).
Did you know that this was the symbol of the 3[sup]rd[/sup] Panzer Division in 1940 ?
Talking about the B-17, after the war, the USAF reorganized their B-29s but junked their -17s. Some continued as testbeds and whatnot, but they never fought again after WW2.
The B-29 was hot stuff in 1945, but by 1950 it was reduced to a night bomber since it was dead meat to MiGs over Korea.
The first Soviet strategic nuclear bomber, the Tu-4 “Bull”, was a copy of the B-29, based on three American ones that had been interned and seized after landing there. The Soviet Air Force kept it in service until the mid-1960’s. Airliner and cargo versions never reached mass production. China began and eventually cancelled a program to make a turboprop version.
The atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were made partly with uranium produced by Germany for its own abortive effort, and taken from U-134 when it was captured on its way to Japan to help its own atomic bomb program.
The Army actually has MORE straight leg units than it has in the past. For example, 1st COSCOM lost its Airborne status as of about 6 years ago, and 44th MEDCOM, IIRC about 3 years ago. We still have many paratroopers, but there are not as many units that require Soldiers to be on active jump status.
If you want to read about how the Soviets made their version of the B-29, I would suggest you read Victor Suvorov’s The Liberators for an hilarious account of the program.
Just read the account. The engineers were told to reproduce the plane exactly. In other words, every little production defects on the plane were copied (erroneous rivet holes, communication tunnel painted two different colors [in the original, they probably ran out of one and continued with another], they even had to ask Djugachvili if the dials should be in metric or imperial units and if the markings should be a white or red star :eek::D).
And did you know that this was the insignia for the 45th Infantry Division until the 1930s? (Actually, according to the discussion for the Wikipedia entry, it might have been a mirrored version of that). In any case, they changed their insignia to the Thunderbird. Er, sorry, I meant the Thunderbird.
Also supplemented/replaced by the B-50A, which was essentially the B-29 with the bugs worked out (bigger tail, more powerful engines, stronger and longer fuselage, but basically the same design). The B-50 would also see some service as an air-refueling tanker (much like the B-29), and would also serve as the basis for another tanker, the wide-body KC-97.
Speaking of the KC-97, its max cruising speed was slower than the B-47 Stratojet’s stall speed. The only way the two planes could meet up to refuel in mid air was in a long shallow dive. The KC-97 would run its engines at max power, and the B-47 would idle its engines and apply the air brakes. They would link up and exchange fuel in the dive, disconnect, pull up, and repeat until enough fuel had been passed. This issue eventually led to the introduction of the KC-135 Stratotanker (based on the Boeing 367, the same aircraft that served as the basis for the 707 airliner). The KC-135 is still in service today, the newest example having been built in 1965.
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