Wednesday, April 03, 2019

More NAS Pensacola!

Found an F-4 Phantom II at the NAS museum.
Some stuff opened.
Alas, no boarding ladders.
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Here's an FJ-2 Fury(top), the Navy attempt at making an F-86 into a capable carrier plane.
Didn't really work due to landing gear and other issues, but it does look nice in blue. And that's an F-11F Tiger below.
Another shot.
The F-11 Tiger is famous for being the first jet aircraft to shoot itself down.During a test-firing of its 20mm cannons the pilot fired the guns while in a dive. Eventually the cannon rounds slowed down but the jet did not and as it crossed their path, it was struck by several and damaged, ultimately crash-landing. The pilot, Tom Attridge, survived, but I wonder if he didn't have to paint his own picture on the side of his plane in the space normally used to denote enemy "kills".

And this is a FJ-3. Not am FJ-2/F-86 at all but a redesigned version that was as capable as any of the F-86 variants.
I would like one of these.

Here's my Corsair again.
And an F6F Hellcat.
By now, Paige was starting to get plane fatigue so I had to let her play in the Blue Angels cockpit for a bit.


Found an Me-262, too.

Can't have a Navy museum without a Douglass Skyraider, right? So here's one.

And a Japanese N1K2 "George" is here too. Great plane, but like the Me-262, came along too late to make a difference.

And here's a Curtis P-40.

I'm thinking Paige is now really getting over-planed...
But there's so many more to come. I really had to make it up to her later, but for now, this is MY trip to Mecca!

13 comments:

  1. Oh no! He's opening things on the F-4!

    I am...

    so proud.

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  2. Hopefully you went to the Cubi Bar...

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  3. Heh. No boarding ladder to go 'clunk' into your leg and take a chunk out. Wimps.

    Are you sure they haven't enacted a "No, Murphy, you can't touch" rule yet?

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  4. Looks like you two had a great time.

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  5. Nice Airplanes, pretty Lady. Looks like fun.

    Oh, and the F-4 ladder goes Ka-Chunk, Chunk.

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  6. Boarding ladder was deployable on the Phantoms on board USS Midway...uh, or so I've heard.

    https://lagniappeslair.blogspot.com/2014/06/san-diego-and-oldafsarge-gets-me-in.html

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  7. Nice pics, hope to get to that museum later this year - one of the F-86 'clones' would be awfully nice, wouldn't it?

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  8. Hey Murphy;

    Yep, looks like you had a great time in my favorite museum. Like Old NFO asked, "Did you check out the Cubi Bar, I think Jim's unit is in there on one of the plaques on the wall. Now I am jonesing for another trip down there..LOL

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  9. Bet they removed the ladders after your last visit...

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  10. Beautiful aircraft. Beautiful girl, too.

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  11. Good pics bring back pleasant memories. I took the fiancee (now wife) there after graduating from NTTC Corry Station.

    The only time I was ever late to formation, was because there was an alligator at the foot of the stairs down from our hotel room on NAS.

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  12. That's an awesome museum!

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  13. It's taken me this long to realize that the aircraft just after your Corsair, which you captioned as an F6F, is actually an F4F (or some variant thereof). Mid-wing, rather than the low wing of the Hellcat.

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