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*** September 2024 Image and Video Thread ***

Our second vlog about our last roadtrip is now online: This time we visit Gdansk in Poland and visit the port with a pirate ship. And what about our dog and the 'Benji Burger'?

It is in dutch but with subtitles in many languages:

I really enjoyed your video John! Great work. The footage looks great throughout, especially night time where colours and tone look superb.

I thought the comment "floating Ikea restaurant" was very funny. Probably not something I would enjoy! :D Was that a real pirate ship or a replica?

And I was surprised at the stark difference between the old and new!
 
I really enjoyed your video John! Great work. The footage looks great throughout, especially night time where colours and tone look superb.

I thought the comment "floating Ikea restaurant" was very funny. Probably not something I would enjoy! :D Was that a real pirate ship or a replica?

And I was surprised at the stark difference between the old and new!
Thank you Pete. The pirate ship was a replica, unfortunately....
 
Out cranking a few kms on the bike, & trying to break stuff. Succeeded. Seat has gone to the great graveyard in the sky lol.
240921Es-P1013727.jpg
240921Es-P1013726.jpg
240921Es-P1013722.jpg


Favorite kind of riding -picking my way along animal/human tracks, seeing how far you can get. Involves carrying the bike over obstacles a bit, all part of the fun
 
Winter is coming soon.
I’m in Hawaii, the big island, for a couple of weeks. No winter is coming. At all. Ever. Of course you can go up one of the high volcano peaks, Mauna Kea or Mauna Loa, and get all the winter you want.
 
Today's subject, one of the odder little planes, the XF-85 Goblin:


20240902-SDIM2414 by Travis Butler, on Flickr
Sigma fp, Konica Hexanon 28/3.5

A bit of background first. In the 1950s, the primary long range bomber of the Strategic Air Command was the Convair B-36:


20240902-SDIM2383 by Travis Butler, on Flickr

It was a big aircraft...

20240902-SDIM2385 by Travis Butler, on Flickr
(Too big to fit in the frame all at once...)

20240902-SDIM2453 by Travis Butler, on Flickr
(Even this couldn't get the entire plane in the shot!)

...one of the biggest ever built, and the only piston-engined plane that was bigger was the Spruce Goose.

Yes, piston-engined.


20240902-SDIM2376 by Travis Butler, on Flickr


20240902-SDIM2375 by Travis Butler, on Flickr
(Of course, they had to fit jets in there too...)

The B-36 was this weird piston-engined hybrid relic as jets were taking over the aviation world. Unfortunately for SAC, the B-36 was the only plane big enough to carry the early hydrogen bombs - so until the B-52 finally replaced it at the end of the decade, SAC flew this piston-engined giant.

Piston engines are slow... slow enough that there were genuine worries about the B-36 getting shot down. But the distances it flew were too long for jet fighters to escort it all the way.

So someone had the bright idea... hey, it's got this big bomb bay, why not stick a mini-fighter in there?

Enter the Goblin.


20240902-SDIM2407 by Travis Butler, on Flickr


20240902-SDIM2410 by Travis Butler, on Flickr

Take a little tiny airplane, give it a trapeze hook to lift it in and out of the bomb bay, and the B-36 could carry its own escort with it.


20240902-SDIM2413 by Travis Butler, on Flickr

Unfortunately, while it was apparently a pleasant little aircraft to fly, its performance couldn't match up to contemporary Soviet jet fighters. Worse, it was so small and light that the turbulence from the big B-36 knocked it around when it tried to hook up to the trapeze; the test pilot only managed it three times out of all the test flights. So the little fighter was canceled; sadly, if understandably.
 

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You were at Udvar-Hazy? I *love* that collection, although I must say it's not very organized as a rule.
Strategic Air Command museum in Omaha. Wanted to hit the Udvar-Hazy when I visited a friend in DC a couple of months ago, but unfortunately we didn't get the chance - though we did make it to the original site on the Mall.

Didn't think they had a Goblin, though; IIRC there were only two prototypes, and I've seen the other one at the USAF museum in Dayton.
 
Strategic Air Command museum in Omaha.
Ah. I saw the white ceiling and thought it was Udvar-Hazy. The few times I was in Omaha we were too busy working to get a crack at the SAC museum.

Didn't think they had a Goblin, though; IIRC there were only two prototypes, and I've seen the other one at the USAF museum in Dayton.
To be honest, I don't remember clearly; there's so many aircraft in Udvar-Hazy that it's hard to remember specifics, other than really noteworthy items like the Enola Gay.
 
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