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!

I'm still here--and with more aircraft!!

Sorry for the lack of posts. The trouble I'm having with this PC makes posting less fun than chasing French Quarter gals.

But I caught one last week and took her to Pensacola to see the Naval Air Museum, a place I've always wanted to visit. And I was not disappointed.

It's actually on the base, so get ready for the 100% security check.

Hey look--an F-14!

And just inside (after another security checkpoint), there was this Douglas A-4 Skyhawk!

And here is the only SBU-2 Vindicator left in the world. And this one only survived after being lost overboard during carrier training in Lake Michigan and being recovered and restored 47 years later! (Shown with Paige for scale.)

And here's a T-28 Trojan trainer hanging above a Grumman F9F Panther jet. Yep. I'm happy in here. And Paige is somewhat confused, as before we got here she had no idea that the Navy had airplanes.

And I found a Corsair!

Here's a Vought F7U-3 (not a 3M as marked...tsk!). Not one of the more successful early jets; they were under-powered and problematic and over a quarter of them were destroyed in crashes and they killed 21 Navy pilots and four test pilots before being withdrawn from service.

And here's a few older ones...A Grumman F4F-3 below, and a sweet Beechcraft UC Traveler above.

And here's an F3F-2 biplane. This one was also ditched at sea off San Diego in 1940. Rediscovered by the Navy in 1988, she was raised in 1991 and restored and here she is today.

By this time, Paige was like "Why are there so many?" Poor girl didn't even know yet how much she was about to learn.

More to come. Stay tuned.













































https://www.navalaviationmuseum.org/nnam/virtualtour/

Now that was a good (long) week-end.

Aaron from The Shekel came down Friday to catch the air show and hang out for a few days, and the G-rated version of this week-end's events can be seen on his page. But I just dropped his hungover self off at the airport and it looked like he at least made it inside so now the stories can begin.

Friday night I took him to work with me at a music venue where I labor part time. He put a couple pics up but I notice he omitted the best part of the entertainment. And of course there were adult beverages

Next day was airshow day, and it was good.

More on this later.

Then it was out for dinner and a second line parade--Aaron's first--and another show, this one where we were just spectators. But the adult beverages flowed free.


Sunday came and we went out to the swamp for a bit, and then came back and took kayaks out on Bayou St. John. We rewarded ourselves for that with another foray into the French Quarter and a few more adult beverages.

Yesterday we hit the Louisiana National Guard museum at Jackson Barracks.

It looks great now but it was completely destroyed during Hurricane Katrina and the pictures they have of the hundreds of historic guns ruined by submersion of the floodwaters is enough to make you cry. So we came back to my place and walked down to the Quarter to get some adult beverages to make us feel better.

I think we started out at R Bar (as seen on NCIS New Orleans) for a beer. Then I took Aaron to get some gifts for his kids and we had a few dozen oysters and some more beer Then it was into a bar where a lady friend of mine works, and she made us a couple of specialty cocktails that weren't exactly light on the rum, because she's a good friend. From there we went to Popeyes to grab some chicken on the way to the ferry dock and we went over to The Crown and Anchor, a nifty English Pub on the West Bank, to meet another lady friend of mine. We had a couple more beers, and a few whiskey shots, then caught the last ferry back in a downpour. And then because *someone* hasn't learned to use the bathroom before leaving a bar, we had to stop into another bar so he could go. And it's rude not to buy anything when using a bar's bathroom so we had a couple more tequila shots each and then I took him to a local pirate bar to get him his first Absinthe drink.

He seemed to like that 124-proof concoction, or at least that's what he told me a dozen times or so between there and the next bar, where we stopped in to see Janet the bar dog.

While we were there we ran into some Las Vegas cops here for a conference. We talked, they bought us a couple more beers, and then we invited them to join us for midnight burgers at Clover Grill, a Bourbon Street institution. Those guys were pretty hammered too, and wanted more drinks, so I steered them all to Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop and got Aaron a Hurricane because he hadn't had one yet and it's his last night. There we met a few members of a bridal party from Toronto, Aaron's home town, and one of us tried (and failed) to pick up the bride-to-be. (OK, that was me. Aim high, right?) We finally walked back to my place again.

I thought that it was a pretty good night, but Aaron seemed to have picked up a case of the flu somewhere along the way as he was still quite green and slow-moving this morning.

Good times...good times.

Just Plane Cool

I got to KNEW this morning right when they opened. Had to get there early to get my pics before all the people who have been put n this earth specifically to get in front of whatever I want to take pictures of could show up.

Here's a nifty C-47.

And a T-6 Texan.

Bell P-63 King Cobra, one of just four left.

A P-40.

A Goodyear FG-1D. (WANT!!!)

A General Motors-built version of the Grumman F4F Wildcat known as an FM-2.

Supermarine Spitfire Mk9.

Can't have an airshow without a P-51 Mustang or three. (There were two here.)

Grumman TBM Avenger.

The B-17 that has been taunting me the last two days.

And Fifi, the B-29.

Yeah, this was gonna be a good day. No power in the 'verse could mess this day up. And these are just a prelude of pics to come.