And of course to beat the understeer in autocross, you keep the rear tires loose. Modern cars aren't built to handle that way.
All those drift movies were so silly.

My other buddy had a Mini - Leyland Special imported from Canada, and an 1130cc Inocetti engine he built from block with imported parts and David Vizard's guidance (who dyno'd every possible A-block combination). It was quicker to 90 than a Mustang GT (of course it ran into a brick wall there), but was singularly the most neutral-handling car I've ever driven. The suspension was simply swing arms and giant rubber cones.
(He also had a 1325 Cooper S, but it wasn't in the same league with hydrolastic and the long-stroke motor)

how about some of the hot rods too late for the war that went on to fight in Korea?
F7F Tigercat


F82 Twin Mustang


A1 Skyraider that served through VN

BEAUTIFUL! Great painting of a classic!

Yours, too! Wow! What is/was Walt's full name?

My father, Richard Frost, was also a test pilot with Bell in WWII flying P-39's and P-63's. He had a miraculous survival from a high-speed, high-altitude bailout flying an experimental P-63 in 1944, and went on to work on the Bell XS-1 supersonic program.

[MENTION=160128]1989Pre[/MENTION], and everybody else contributing - thanks for those photos stirring up some great memories.

Geez guys, how could you omit the one WWII aircraft built as a lightweight high performance machine out of Reynolds 531 tubing?

Waiting for the Schneider Trophy machines ....

Thompson Trophy will have to do for now, non-!

Airacobra, 1946

Mustang, 1948

No, that won't do at all. Not as long as the Macchi Castoldi M.C.72 isn't on its list.

Did you know that the Spitfire had engine bearers made with Reynolds tubing? Probably the Mosquito as well.

Corsair, 1947 and 1949. The last piston engine aircraft to win the Thompson. Also considered by the Japanese the best all around fighter they faced.

Oshkosh F2G_2res by L Travers, on Flickr

Oshkosh Marine's Dream by L Travers, on Flickr

I wonder why the War Dept gave the Japanese planes such funny names. It's not like the names are hard to pronounce or write in English letters. This was followed up with all the funny NATO names for Soviet airplanes. Frogfoot? Really?

Where's that weird Schneider racer with the hydrofoil instead of floats?

As long as everyone's posting their favorite warbird...

Boyington actually signed the one in the Smithsonian collection, shortly after they restored it. Underside of the wing.

Sent you a PM.

Funny story, sort of. My father was working at Bell during the X-1 timeframe. After the X-2 accident my mother was getting all sorts of phone calls expressing condolences. One of the casualties of the X-2 shares (or shared) the same last name as my father, but no relation.

My grandfather came over from Austria by himself, at age 9, sometime in the late 1800's. He ran a hardware store in the Riverside section of North Tonawanda. When the war broke out, he shut down the hardware store for the duration and went to work on the line at Curtiss, fitting doors on C-47's. He saw how time consuming the door fitting process was, and designed a fixture in the shop at his hardware store. Sped up production considerably, and he received an award for it. Not bad for a guy with the equivalent of a 3rd grade education.

WW2: Fighters were given men's names. Bombers were given women's names. Much easier to remember than Mitsubishi A6M5 Reisen. Consider also that at the time intelligence on Japanese A/C was meager.

Cold War: Fighters given names beginning with "F". Bombers, "B". Again much easier to remember.

And here is that aircraft.

Udvar_Hazy_27 by L Travers, on Flickr

I understand the system they created, just not the reason for it. They didn't decide to do it with any other country. The pun potential for the Germans was very high. Mister Smith, Twinkle, **** Wolf. And Junkers just stands by itself. My Dad, b. 1935 and 10yo at the end of the war, taught me the joke about "Them fokkers is Messerschmidts!"

My mom's dad served on the Langley and Lexington in the 1930's. One of my uncles did his stint launching Pathers over Korea, another was in Korea after the war. My Dad, bless him, enlisted in 1953 and spent his time in the Army finishing his high school degree and stealing pineapples in Hawaii.

Like I said, much easier to remember and intelligence on Japanese aircraft was not very good. As it was, a good percentage of the time fighters were called Zeroes anyway.

There is always the immortal Daffy Duck line. "Messerschmitts! A mess of Messerschmitts!"

Ironically, Reynolds' primary function in the aircraft industry was as a a supplier of extruded, structural components made from a high strength aluminum alloy known as Hiduminium (HIgh DUty aluMINIUM). They had diversified into Hinduminium products in 1934 and set up a separate factory for their production. Cyclists always think of steel when they think of Reynolds but they were big into aluminum for the aircradt industry. It would be interesting to see what would have happened if they had extended their experience with aluminum into the bicycle frame field.

Another British bicycle tubing manufacturer that was big in the aircraft industry was Accles & Pollack. Their butted CrMo tubing actually came out prior to Reynolds 531.

A. L. Colombo (manufacturer of Columbus tubing) is also known to have manufactured aircraft tubing.

It wouldn't surprise if most of the bicycle tubing manufacturers were involved in aircraft manufacture during World War II. Once the war started, the supply of high strength alloys would have been diverted to the war effort and the companies' experience in drawing tubes with these alloys would be both vital to the war effort and profitable. Tange goes back to the 1920s. Ateliers de la Rive (Vitus) was formed in 1931 and Mannesmann of Germany was producing seamless tubing as early as the late 19th century. Conceivably, they were all involved in war efforts. To not participate would have made it very hard to survive.

FWIW, In the mid eighties I was told that the Cold War names were selected to be mnemonic (F,Fighter, B, Bomber, C, Cargo, M, Maritime patrol and trainers for some reason, H, Helicopters), memorable (Flanker, Frogfoot), and relatively rare in that context. That is, if you're talking about a "firefight" or "foghorn", there's a (admittedly small) chance that you're talking about an actual firefight. Frogfoot? Flanker? Fulcrum? Backfire? Badger? All are pretty clearly airplanes, because it's hard for the common meaning to make sense in context. The person who told me this was an old hand in the Air Force's division that assessed foreign capabilities.

Then there's the tandem.....

a number of P-51s have been modified to incorporate true tandem seating (i.e. one person behind the other). Here's a shot of one example at Oshkosh:




gotta love highly engineered machines, whether on wheels or on wings!


Steve in Peoria

F82s were developed as a night-fighter to carry a big radar and were ground-attack squadrons in Korea.

another hot night fighter was the P-61 with radar-controlled turret guns