Vintage shots from days gone by!

Cyd Charisse. Yum !

 

Cyd Charisse was born Tula Ellice Finklea on March 8, 1921 in Amarillo, Texas.

One of the great stage names ever! Wonder what would have happened if she kept her given name?

And boy could she dance.

The Band Wagon - Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse - YouTube

 

im diggin these photo(s) .... something that is just a memory now ...

 

A NACA High-Speed Flight Station hangar wall meets the nose of a North American F-100A Super Sabre airplane on 8 September 1954.

 

Formation of North American B-25Hs. The two closest aircraft are B-25H-1-NA (S/N 43-4380) "Barbie III" and B-25H-1-NA (S/N 43-4271) "Dolly" of the 1st Air Commandos. (U.S. Air Force photo)

 

They've all got the 75MM cannon nose. Wicked beast.
When I was just a one-striper in the Air Force in 1976, there was a guy up in Dothan, Alabama that had 4 B-25's, and a B-17 for sale, all in ferryable condition, $4,400.00, take your pick and fly them home!

 

Could have been my uncle in the left seat on one of these. He loved the "25".
He thought of it as a large fighter.

 

That model featured the 75 mm nose cannon. Wonder what the plane felt like when that thing went off. Hand fed by the navigator, fired by the pilot. Ground or surface interdiction missions also utilized 4 50 cal machines guns with 400 rounds and I suppose if you added forward firing by the dorsal turret times 6 or seven planes that would be a monsoon of lead falling from the sky. If you think about it this flight of planes would have been replaced with one KC 130 Spooky gunship.

here is the business end of Barbie III



cuttaway illustration

 

From what I understand, when the 75mm cannon was fired, the pilot had to put it into a dive to increase speed because the recoil from the cannon had the potential of stalling the aircraft. Talk about stress on the airframe, but I guess combat put more stress on them than fireing that cannon. I saw a B-25 for sale a few years ago in Central California for $445,000. I guess they have appreciated a little since 1976.

 

A group of onlookers watch one of the Milwaukee Road's Hiawathas run just outside of Chicago, 1940






Union Pacific M-10000 streamliner & rival Burlington Zephyr.



Chicago's North Shore Lines "Electroliner", in service from 1941 to 1976. Both cars are still in service today at the IL Railway Museum.





And my favorite, the Rock Island Rockets, which used to run daily through our city until 1983. Originally built to run EMD engines and train cars built by Budd. There's still two old Rock Island stations in town that are awfully quiet.

 

In case you are wondering, the 75 placement was an adaptation of the main cannon as used in the Sherman Tank.

 

xxx

 

Notice those BIG "cannons" in the nose?----It was a later addition for destroying shipping at low range runs.
My Brother in law piloted a B-25 for 57 missions in the Pacific Theater in 1943, but his "Mitchell" was not equipped with that cannon.

 

Vintage towing, but not a good fit for the vintage tow truck thread.

 

Dothan! Grew up at Ft. Rucker in the 50's

 

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Scott Crossfield made a dead stick landing in that thing and coasted it to the barn but could not stop it.