Apr 192011
OK, come on. If I don’t have multiple corrects responses within *seconds,* I’ll be surprised.
13 Responses to “What Is This Shiny?”
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OK, come on. If I don’t have multiple corrects responses within *seconds,* I’ll be surprised.
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Enola Gay: Boeing B-29 Superfortress
Bock’s Car. Enola Gay is in the Smithsonian, and earlier posts to this blog were from the USAF Museum.
Because it was part of the “Silver Plated Project” , natch!
Yep, it’s the Enola Gay. Just confirmed it on Wikipedia. That’s assuming Wikipedia is right.
I’m going with Boxcar.
You can’t really get that close to Enola Gay due to the spit guards.
Many decades ago, when my father was in the Strategic Air Command, I wondered why all the nuclear bombers had silver bellys
I remember years ago I had a model of a B-52 by Tamiya and they
said to paint the bottom of the fuselage white to simulate in reality
it would help in heat absorption of a nuclear bomb drop.
reduction of heat absorption….sorry.
Bock’s Car. In the Air Force Museum.
Yeah, I know it’s not the “proper” name of the place — *now.* But I was a kid at WPAFB when they built the thing. We got stationed at WPAFB Nov. 1963. The first thing I remember seeing on the local Dayton news was the furor over the selection of the museum design.
The design that got selected was not the one that was built. Thank ghu! It was a giant triangle, with two ends held up and one end anchored in the ground.
My buddy Steve Tymon and I got thrown out of the 1972 dedication of he place by then-President Nixon. Reason? We had long hair.
Bock’s Car. Without a doubt.
And answer is: Enola Gay at Udvar-Hazy.
Yes, the spit guards are an issue. But this is an issue that can be partially overcome with a telephoto lens and/or a monopod and a remote shutter switch.
You are just taking a nice little tour of these United States, aren’t you?
My dad was in a B-24 bomb group based in Italy during WWII (460th BG, the “Black Panthers”). The reason the natural metal finish originally came in was two-fold:
1. They found out that at the altitude the bombers were attacking from, whether you finished it light gray on the bottom and olive drab on top or natural metal, it looked pretty much the same from the ground, and the olive drab ones were more visible to fighters, especially against clouds or contrails below or beside them.
2. Leaving the paint off not only saved a couple of hundred pounds in weight, but upped the aircraft’s speed by removing the drag created by its rough flat finish. The Liberators gained 10-15 mph by dropping the paint.
> You are just taking a nice little tour of these United States, aren’t you?
Some of them, yes.