Nevermind that they kept reusing the same flying footage over and over... it was a great show!
That is Bernard Zee in a message he sent to Yahoo group interested in airplanes, his photo essay covers the Planes of Fame Air Show in Chino, Ca.
I have no idea what he is writing about there, so YouTube [black sheep squadron] and see it is a show that features the Corsiar.
Missed that completely. I look back and nothing matches. Not even heard of it. Not even a crossword answer. That must have been when Dad was stationed on Mars and we lived on Phobos.
Joke.
Nor had I heard this.
A major problem for Japan was replacing pilots lost. The selection and training process for pilots could not keep up with the attrition rates. Moreover, experienced pilots were not brought back as instructors to teach lessons learnt on how to deal with the enemy. By the end of the war, most everyone flying were basically inexperienced in combat - being straight out of flight school. Training on the job (for the Japanese fighter pilot) tended to be very fatal...
Little wonder then, that the Kamikaze concept took hold and become the primary offensive method of using planes against the U.S. invasion fleet at the close of the war.
The zero was the first model I put together. We both received model planes. Gifts from one of Dad's friends. First thing, right off the bat out there in 'the patties' the word for off-base housing right next to airbase, among the ganglia of organic footpaths that became streets that over decades a template of another city is daubed until transformed to another.
Glue all over the place.
Worst model ever.
A complete mess. A kid does not trust a dot of glue, it must be a glob. Every touch of glue pulls a thread of glue that does dry quickly to a web of glue connecting every part to each other encapsulating the whole project. It was the smallest plastic model that is possible to buy, easiest of all to assemble, fewest parts of all models and I used a whole tube of glue. That thing really held together.
Glue actually melts plastic, did you notice that?
Glue actually melts plastic, did you notice that?
And the decals sucked. Those take some finesse to put on.
I remember this odd fellow well. Small slight man. At one point he wanted to demonstrate to my father how hard his stomach is and he lifted his shirt and hit himself in the stomach with a bottle whap whap whap and insisted my dad hit him too. So he did. And hurt him. Then felt bad. We thought he was nutters. He was very pleased to emphasize the Zero outclassed our planes while giving me a model of one. Come to think of it, the guy had issues.
Smoke on wingtips shows wind turbulence and vortices.
The show goes on and on and on, plane, plane, plane, pew, pew, pew. The array of airplanes is dizzying, both flying and static.
When you need a crew to come with a ladder to get you down from your jet then I just don't see these things as practical from a consumer's point of view. I do not see much of a consumer aftermarket for these.
Thud. Then tanks.
Then a war enactment that turns out to be the most fun part of the whole day.
I am impressed with the photography. He is using a D-40 and D-200. His framing is competent. He has very good pictures compositionally. And I bet so do a lot of other people.
Canons, Nikon, telephoto lenses.
Here is the thing about telephoto lenses. I'm tempted to draw a picture to explain what I mean. I loved the idea of telephotos because I imagined it was like taking my eyeball out and putting it up there where the ram is on the mountain, closer to where I can see it more clearly, where it is larger in my field of vision and not a tiny speck far away.
And it does.
It does that by compressing space. It compresses rounded subjects with depth into cards. The resulting photograph is like a card with a picture of a bush in front of a card with a picture of a rock, in front of a card with a picture of a ram in front of a card with a picture of another bush and so on, all compressed together with no space between them. You have no idea whatever the distance between bush, rock and ram. The ram could be hiding behind the bush or the bush could be well ahead of the ram. By way of example.
So. To my eye, both actually, some photographs of distant airplanes, especially double airplanes, seem flat. Can you easily tell which plane is in front of the other?
You can work it out, but do you see what I'm noting about flatness? I am not commenting on the photography, that is excellent, I am talking about telephoto lenses. Yes, you are up there and now you are flat. When you get right into it and crop out everything but the one little detail that defines the depth then the flatness affect I'm complaining about disappears.
Quick before the whole post disappears. It is hosted on Comcast and I did not know Comcast offers webspace. I wonder if everything disappears when the customer stop subscribing.
Then a war enactment that turns out to be the most fun part of the whole day.
I am impressed with the photography. He is using a D-40 and D-200. His framing is competent. He has very good pictures compositionally. And I bet so do a lot of other people.
Canons, Nikon, telephoto lenses.
Here is the thing about telephoto lenses. I'm tempted to draw a picture to explain what I mean. I loved the idea of telephotos because I imagined it was like taking my eyeball out and putting it up there where the ram is on the mountain, closer to where I can see it more clearly, where it is larger in my field of vision and not a tiny speck far away.
And it does.
It does that by compressing space. It compresses rounded subjects with depth into cards. The resulting photograph is like a card with a picture of a bush in front of a card with a picture of a rock, in front of a card with a picture of a ram in front of a card with a picture of another bush and so on, all compressed together with no space between them. You have no idea whatever the distance between bush, rock and ram. The ram could be hiding behind the bush or the bush could be well ahead of the ram. By way of example.
So. To my eye, both actually, some photographs of distant airplanes, especially double airplanes, seem flat. Can you easily tell which plane is in front of the other?
You can work it out, but do you see what I'm noting about flatness? I am not commenting on the photography, that is excellent, I am talking about telephoto lenses. Yes, you are up there and now you are flat. When you get right into it and crop out everything but the one little detail that defines the depth then the flatness affect I'm complaining about disappears.
Quick before the whole post disappears. It is hosted on Comcast and I did not know Comcast offers webspace. I wonder if everything disappears when the customer stop subscribing.
21 comments:
"A kid does not trust a dot of glue, it must be a glob."
Good to know I wasn't the only kid whose planes and cars had permanent glue smudges.
The Zero tended to burst into flame when hit, not having self-sealing tanks.
Also no armor for the pilot or anything else.
If you got into early balsa models, there was still quick-drying testors glue, which was great for spreading on finger tips and then peeling off.
With me, it was ships.
And the Krauts had the same problem with pilots.
On my visit to the Chino air musemum back in the early eighties, I missed meeting Boyington by about two minutes. I did get to see his car driving off down the road though.
That's a great museum by the way, highly recommended.
And yes, hardin, peeling glue off finger tips a pleasant memory.
I loved Black Sheep Squadron.
We're about 15 minutes from Chino, so we get semi-regular fly-overs from classic planes.
The best wasn't over Chino, but when I was in the mountains a couple of years ago. No idea why there, but right above us (and above around us), some Mustangs were having a mock dogfight with some Zeros.
That's quite near on par to watching two ravens in a dogfight with a hawk in midair. The birds win because the hawk was taking it very seriously, which neither the pilots nor the ravens were doing.
"Glued to the tv" is a great expression. I wonder if any parent actually got so frustrated that he actually glued his kid to the TV.
The Commemorative Air Force Wing out of South St. Paul, MN, has the following planes:
•North American B-25J Mitchell
•Harvard MK IV
•Vultee BT-13 Valiant
•Ryan PT-22 Recruit
•Stinson L-5A Sentinel
•North American L-17 Navion
I believe that it's also called the Confederate Air Force.
I see what you did there, Chip...started with glued, ended with glued...
I never got into the the Black Sheep Squadron.
My son never did many models when he was young, but yes, the decals are a bitch to slide off properly onto the car.
I remember watching some episodes dubed in Spanish.
I used to build model Battleships, which were rather easy being Big and similar .
Then, my Aunt gave me a model of the USS Constitution (old ironsides). To her a ship was a ship, but the sails, masts, bows, and various ports were simply beyond my ability.
It never got completed but stayed in dry dock undergoing repairs - forever.
The only good thing about "Baa Baa Blacksheep" were the planes.
I used to build model Battleships, which were rather easy being Big and similar .
Then, my Aunt gave me a model of the USS Constitution (old ironsides). To her a ship was a ship, but the sails, masts, bows, and various ports were simply beyond my ability.
It never got completed but stayed in dry dock undergoing repairs - forever.
I was a huge model enthusiast back in the day.
Ships, Helicopters, tanks and the muscle cars of the day like the GTO and the Barracuda. Also those great Aurora Monster Model Kits with Frankenstein and Dracula and the Wolfman.
Eventually I graduated to huge sailing ship models.
But then I discovered girls and that was the end of that.
But then I discovered girls and that was the end of that.
Yeah, they really get mad when you want to glue their stuff together.
The CAF changed it's name to Commemorative Air Force because of complaining PC Yankees.
@AllenS/
"Commemorative Air Force" is the pussy PC name that the original Confederate Air Force (Est 1951, Mercedes Tx, Rebel Field, later moved to Harlingen, TX) was forced into using in 2002 (iirc) by the Feds in order to continue using certain Federal facilities, etc. and to stop PC pressure groups from interfering with fund-raising. (See the Wiki hist on this subj)
(I might add that this same sort of PC bullshit was responsible for the Louisiana ANG fighter wing having to change its motto and patch--a grinning raccoon flashing his ass to the viewer, along with the official Flag of Acadiana--from the "Coon-ass Air Force" because some black AF Maj in Nevada (iirc), totally ignorant of what a South Louisiana "Coon-Ass" was, complained that it was racist and HQ, AF decried a very unique, historical and cultural identifier be scrapped.)
@Paddy O, Deb, et al
Black Sheep Squad was an attempt to ape the success of McHale's Navy/Phil Silvers' Bilko (You'll Never Get Rich), etc., but was a pale (no pun intended--honest :) ) comparison.
@rhardin/
Zero pilots didn't wear parachutes, either, both to save weight and to allow the pilot maximum flexibility to shift around in the cockpit to track the movements of his opponent. The theory was that heavy armor and heavy self-sealing tanks wouldn't be needed if the lighter weight allowed one to out-maneuver one's opponents.
Virgil,
McHale's Navy clone? Sgt Bilko?
It has WW2 in common but was a very different show, a drama. More like Magnum P.I. in tone. Some character development, some humor, some ensemble emphasis, but it had decent drama and plots, and gritty enough. Of course, I watched it mostly when I was a young teenager and it was on television a lot. In my daytime rerun rankings, it was on par with Magnum, a bit better than White Shadow, more adult than Little House on the Prairie, much more serious than Love Boat, and tighter in focus than Fantasy Island. Twilight Zone is in its own category.
I skipped school a lot...
"Baa Baa Black Sheep" was "12 O'clock High" for juvenile delinquents.
LOL. Troop probably calls it best. Magnum PI is a good analogy, Paddy O--BSS being an early example of the "dramedy" I guess. Although I think you underplay the comedic aspects in the plot-lines of Black Sheep. Also remember, McHale's Navy did, after-all, have it's combat scenes, tho fewer. But the analogy to Black Sheep still holds, I feel, as both were combat operations taking place on behind-the-front islands in the WW II Pacific Theater and both had the wheeler-dealer Catch-22 Milo Minderbinder aspect to many/most of their episodes..
And Bilko? True enough US-based and post-war and played for full comedic effect. But again, the wheeler-dealer Milo Minderbinder effect being (imho) the thread that connects them all.
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