Great War truck Posted April 11, 2015 Share Posted April 11, 2015 I have just got back from two weeks in Maryland and Virginia. I was not sure if I would find very much of interest to me, but was amazed by what I found. Here are some photos from the Smithsonian museum (not the one in central Washington, but the one by Dulles airport). Some of these will be very easy to identify, others not so. Anybody fancy having a go? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Great War truck Posted April 11, 2015 Author Share Posted April 11, 2015 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Great War truck Posted April 11, 2015 Author Share Posted April 11, 2015 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Great War truck Posted April 11, 2015 Author Share Posted April 11, 2015 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Great War truck Posted April 11, 2015 Author Share Posted April 11, 2015 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Great War truck Posted April 11, 2015 Author Share Posted April 11, 2015 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Great War truck Posted April 11, 2015 Author Share Posted April 11, 2015 These photos were taken at the Smithsonian at the mall which attracts most visitors: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Great War truck Posted April 11, 2015 Author Share Posted April 11, 2015 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
N.O.S. Posted April 11, 2015 Share Posted April 11, 2015 Thank you Tim for posting these. My favourite is the last one - a 'flock' of vintage planes captured in mid-flight. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spanter Posted April 11, 2015 Share Posted April 11, 2015 Very nice pictures there, definitely a place I need to visit thanks for posting them Steve Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
simon king Posted April 11, 2015 Share Posted April 11, 2015 is the Spirit of St Louis down for a refurb? - those definitely aren't the original wheels.............. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pzkpfw-e Posted April 11, 2015 Share Posted April 11, 2015 Fandabidosie!:clap: I heard that the Heinkel 219 was near to completion. The Horton HoIX/Gotha229 is going to take some mending to get it up to the same standard. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lowfat Posted April 11, 2015 Share Posted April 11, 2015 Like all the German secret stuff Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WCMatt Posted April 12, 2015 Share Posted April 12, 2015 I live less than 200 miles away from that place and have never been........... Matt Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sean N Posted April 13, 2015 Share Posted April 13, 2015 Here are some photos from the Smithsonian museum (not the one in central Washington, but the one by Dulles airport). Some of these will be very easy to identify, others not so. Anybody fancy having a go? Oh, go on then. 1 - Westland Lysander 2 - Vought Corsair F4 3 - Northrop P-61 Black Widow 4 - B-29 Superfortress 'Enola Gay' (couldn't miss that one!) 5 - Lockheed P38 Lightning 6 - B-29 again 7 - P38 again 8 - Hawker Hurricane 9 - Grumman Hellcat 10 - B-29 again 11 - Junkers JU-52/3M 12 - De Havilland? 13 - Republic P47 Thunderbolt 14 - Seen it in NASA / USAF photos, but no idea of the designation. Something Hiller? Didn't the pilot stand in the cage / platform? Hiller behind, because it's written on it! 15 - Dornier Do335 16 - Horten H111 17 - Arado AR234 18 - Kawanishi 'George' 19 - Japanese floatplane, don't know the make 20 - Arado AR234 again 21 - Focke Fa330 autogyro 22 - Kugisho Okha piloted bomb 23 - Dornier D0335 again 24 - ...and again 26 - Heinkel He219 27 - Messerschmitt Me163 28 - Something Japanese - Nakajima? 29 - Nieuport 28 30 - Space shuttle 'Discovery' (difficult one) 31 - Is that a US copy of a V-1? 32 - Some missile 33 - Discovery again 34 - Halberstadt CL.IV (bit of a giveaway on the side!) 35 - Halberstadt again 36 - Spad, not sure what model 37 - Same Spad 38 - Nieuport again 39 - Republican Thunderchief in front, F4 Phantom, Huey, Sikorsky, Chance-Vought Corsair (piston & jet!), F14 40 - Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird (probably caught out here, I can't remember how to tell the difference between the variants) 41 - F4 Corsair again 42 - Lysander again, not sure about the yellow thing, Northrop flying wing, Northrop Black Widow again. 43 - Sikorsky something or other 44 - No idea 45 - Curtiss P40 46 - Same as 43 47 - Sikorsky, can't remember the model - the one that developed into the Westland Whirlwind? H19? 48 - German glider! 49 - De Havilland again? 50 - Something Italian - Macchi? 51 - Another Spad, different model? 52 - Spitfire, don't know what mark but a later one 53 - Maxim machine gun with synchroniser!! (difficult, that one!) 54 - Ryan 'Spirit of St Louis' 55 - V2 56 - N-A P51 Mustang (another hard one!) 57 - Mitsubishi Zero 58 - Same Zero 59 - Messerscmitt Bf109 60 - Some drone or other 61 - Bf109 again 62 - Fokker D7 63 - BMW WW1 aircraft engine, I'd guess from the BMW badge and the general style 64 - Pitcairn PA-5 Mailwing (difficult!), Boeing 247 (only because I saw it on TV the other day), Douglas DC3 65 - Some pusher, no idea 66 - Pitcairn etc. again, Ford Trimotor, 747 front end That's a heck of a collection, very impressive. Thanks for the photos, Tim. If I'd realised how many there were I might not have started writing this! Now you have to mark it... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Great War truck Posted April 13, 2015 Author Share Posted April 13, 2015 Crikey. That's very good. I think you got all of those right. The V1 is a German V1 assembled from parts. The following rocket (32) is an Honest John. There are four there which you didn't know and admittedly, neither do I. Move to the top of the class. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spanter Posted April 13, 2015 Share Posted April 13, 2015 Sean good work, I couldn't believe anyone tried them all I agree with you except: 12 Curtis Jenny 42 the yellow thing is a Ryan PT22, the same type as Harrison Ford force landed 43 Sikorsky R4 44 Kellett XO-60 last real attempt at a usable military autogyro 48 Grunau Baby, nice little glider saw one last year 49 Curtis Jenny 50 Macchi MC202 65 Voisin VIII Maybe between us all we can do the full set? Steve Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sean N Posted April 14, 2015 Share Posted April 14, 2015 Signs of a miss-spent youth making Airfix kits & reading Speed & Power. I was quite surprised how many I did know, but that might be more a reflection of how many iconic aircraft the Smithsonian has rather than any expertise on my part. The Curtiss Jenny I should have got, it's obvious now you say but I just couldn't think of it & I always have trouble telling aircraft of that era apart anyway. De Havilland was a stab in the dark as I couldn't think what it was! The Sikorsky I wouldn't know, apart from the obvious / iconic ones I'm not good on helicopters. Similarly I'd never have got the Ryan trainer, the Kellett, the Voisin or Grunau, and I must admit the Macchi was a bit of a guess & I wouldn't have known the model. There are a couple of others, like the Pitcairn, I wouldn't have got if the names weren't in the photo! If I'd realised how many photos there were I might not have started! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spanter Posted April 14, 2015 Share Posted April 14, 2015 Sadly I start to lose interest once everything was built completely of metal and they stopped using avgas on aircraft so this was right up my street as I volunteer on aircraft of this period. The Ryan PT22 is a lovely aircraft to fly in with it's 'happy' 5 cylinder radial popping away up front. Steve Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Enigma Posted April 14, 2015 Share Posted April 14, 2015 Impressive collection! Some very rare items if not all. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
datadawg Posted April 15, 2015 Share Posted April 15, 2015 I live less than 200 miles away from that place and have never been........... Matt Same here!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wattie Posted April 15, 2015 Share Posted April 15, 2015 Nice to see the Enola Gay on public display after being neglected for so many years. Excellent pictures need to go and visit.:-) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WCMatt Posted April 15, 2015 Share Posted April 15, 2015 Nice to see the Enola Gay on public display after being neglected for so many years. Excellent pictures need to go and visit.:-) The Enola Gay receives a lot of attention from the wackos out there which I find curious because Bock's Car the B29 that delivered the second bomb has been sitting in one piece* for years-decades even at the airforce museum In Ohio without so much as a peep from those who would pour blood & ash upon the EG..... . * Before the creation of the current Smithsonian avaition museum only the forward section of the fuselage was on display at their old facility. Matt Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WCMatt Posted April 15, 2015 Share Posted April 15, 2015 Same here!! Funny how that works? Matt Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sean N Posted April 17, 2015 Share Posted April 17, 2015 (edited) Had a look at the Smithsonian website to fill in the gaps as no-one else is chipping in! The Hurricane is apparently a IIc. The Kawanishi George's proper designation is an N1-K2 Ja Shiden The Flying Platform is a Hiller 1031-A-1, apparently the second prototype. The Japanese float plane is an Aichi M6A1 Seiran. 28 was a Nakajima, a J1N1-S Gekko night fighter, known to the US as Irving. Apparently this is the last in the world, the others having variously been used as kamikaze weapons or scrapped by the US after the war. Apparently the yellow V-1 is a JB-2 Loon, an American copy of the V-1 built by the Ford motor Co. which missed the war but was used in the late '40s to give personnel experience of handling missiles. The missile I had no idea about is a Little John surface to surface missile, a smaller more mobile version of the Honest John with a range of 23 miles, in service only briefly in the '60s. First Spad is an XVI two seater with a 240hp Lorraine engine, which the Smithsonian says was "slightly faster than the Spad XI, but had a lower ceiling and the same poor handling qualities"!! The autogyro is, as Steve said, a Kellett XO-60 from 1943. Apparently they had a PTO clutch which spun the rotor up to lift speed before take off, allowing the pilot to make a jump take off and then shift power to the propeller for forward movement. Sounds a bit haphazard, and supposedly they were prone to accidents. In the end they were killed off by... ...the green helicopter, the Vought-Sikorsky XR-4C prototype, is the world's first mass production helicopter and the first with a single rotor. Also flew as the Hoverfly with the RAF. The silver one is a Sikorsky H-19, in fact a YH-19 and the first one of the model built. The glider is, as you say, a Grunau Baby II B-2 from 1944. They're much more complimentary about the second Spad, an XIII, of which they say "The fast and rugged Spad XIII was among the most successful fighters of World War I, in a class with the legendary Fokker D.VII and Sopwith Camel... The aircraft was particularly noted for its robust construction and its ability to dive at high speed" Spitfire is an HF MkVIIc with a Merlin 61 I think the drone / UAV is a Predator, it's difficult to tell from the photo but it looks closest to the Predator in the collection. BMW engine is a Model IIIA which was used in the Fokker D7 among others. The pusher is as Steve says a 1916 Voisin 8 with a 220hp Peugeot engine, built as a night bomber. Edited April 23, 2015 by Sean N Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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