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The Ongoing Mystery Aircraft Thread Part Deux.

Further evidence found by just googling B17 photos, one shows the crew positions & the Radio operator is amidships about that position in the fuselage.
Not all photos though show that tube, but there are others, other than Sally B showing it.
As for the other question....dont know where to start at the moment!
Keith

h**p://tonytessitore.smugmug.com/MuseumofFlight/B-17/i-FVJLhXs - this shows the installation of the tube and aerial complete with heavy lead weight.

(Doctored link, just add 't's)

Images 7, 21,25,& 29 all show the trailing aerial.
K
 
lefty said:
Hope you don't mind if I digress - please, somebody tell me what this odd attachment is to the B-17 in question ? There's a dram of single malt going....
Click to expand...
Check out the antenna on a B-25, if that's any guide:
1932451_10152082950748666_2038283389_n.jpg
 
Moses , having scoured the Balkans, finally stumbled upon the Loening PA-1 from the Big Apple :icon29:

Dan ,that's the best picture I've seen yet of the B-17 trailing aerial, but actually it helps to convince me that the object in my photo is not an aerial. It's on the wrong side of the aircraft, in the wrong place, and it is pointing forward.

What I think now, as suggested by someone else, is that is simply a mirror on a pole hung out of the waist gunner's position, to assist in training the ball gunner. Can't see it as a permanent fitting or else it would show up in other photos.
 
Mike, not sure that your direction is correct. If you look to the left & above the ball turret you can see the cut line of the wing to fuselage fillet - this is the trailing edge of the fillet, so forward direction is to the left. And my guess is that on different marks of the B17 could have the aerial tube in a different place, but its not that far removed from the Radio op position. They may also have found that the position shown in your picture the aerial wire could have fouled the guns, suggesting that your photo shows an early model!
Keith
 
OK, I am outgunned by a who;le squadron of ball turrets. Aaaaaargh !:rocket:

Moze's jumbo-wheeler looks very Latécoère:
 
OK, so it's Mafia-sponsored. Presumably it's armored too......with a cocktail cabinet. That little putt-putt motor must have had a helluva job getting that heap of ironmongery off the ground.
 
12 cylinder putt-putt at that. One of the design team went on to build a top tier WWII fighter 13 years later.

They do look like the mafia hehe.
 
Question is - what's it FOR ? Something that vast with no windows, no apparent cargo space apart from the Walmart trolley underneath ?? Got me beat.
 
This was going to be a trans-atlantic airliner. The trolley is the radiator!

It is diesel powered...
 
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This one was parked at the same airport as the previous Loening. :biggrin-new:

Built in 1929 and was lost in a hangar fire in 1931.
 
Columbia Aircraft Uncle Sam...

From Wikipedia - Closed cockpit high-wing monoplane with a 450 h.p. Packard 2A engine. Span 60 ft with 1400 gallon gas tanks.[SUP][5][/SUP] Single development aircraft for a planned 50-passenger transoceanic transport. Test flown in 1930 using water ballast in long range tanks, logging twelve flights[SUP][6][/SUP] but found to be under-powered. Destroyed January 1931 hangar fire with engine and instruments removed.

Mike gets the point for this one.
 
Indeed a "Uncle Sam" special. :very_drunk: for Mike.

It sure had a European look to it.
 

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I now know what threw me Moses....you said earlier that it was diesel powered, but looking at the Packard engine list the 2A-1500 was petrol (sorry gasoline) powered. I also misread the number of exhausts in the picture & thought it was a 12 cylinder W layout!
Packard were the first apparently to produce a diesel but it was an air cooled radial. Later on they made a turbo diesel V16, but dont know when!
Great fun this thread, gets one thinking along different lines! Long may it last.
Keith
 
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