It Wasn’t The Most Beautiful Plane…

in WW2, but its pilots loved it – considering it to be a flying tank. Of course, I’m talking about the P-47 Thunderbolt.

I’ve just come across a fantastic video – on order from General Hap Arnold it was shot in color during the closing months of WW2 in the ETO with the 362nd Fighter Group.

Coupled with the color film are interviews with former squadron members many years later, on what it was like in those days.

A few things I learned:

Some Beautiful Aerial Cinematography

I don’t know how they did it, but check out this   1957 film of the Air Force F-86s. It only has a 2:08 duration, but what scenes. Someone on the Facebook group wondered if Paul Mantz filmed this.

Dunno.

 

Update 12-27-2018 – From the Vimeo Site: 

JET PILOT (1957) produced by Howard Hughes was shot between 1949-1951. Beautiful aerial cinematography in this Cold War film. The  US Air Force allowed the use of: F-86 / B-36B / F-94A / EB50A / T-33A and the Bell X-1 that first broke the sound barrier. Shot on Kodak’s first color negative film 5247.

‘Splosive Bolts

By lex, on April 23rd, 2011

Still actuating on naval command-at-sea pins:

TRAP

By lex, on March 23rd, 2011

The US Marines embarked aboard an amphibious ready group us a “rapid response planning process”, or R2P2 to prepare for each of the 22 roles and missions that a Marine Expeditionary Unit (Special Operations Capable) is expected to be able to accomplish. They can go from warning order to execution using a cookbook process shaped by real-time intel in three hours. Watching the unit leaders go through a confirmation brief with the MEU commander prior to execution is an amazingly detailed experience – the first time.

TALES FROM MY YOUTH: The Adventure of the Green Iguana

When I arrived at Wurtsmith AFB on December 8, 1978, I remember expecting a crack bomber unit embodying steely-eyed discipline, Spanish Inquisition-level devotion to regulations, and a certain sunglasses-silk-scarf-and-grin panache that would indeed tell you that you were an elite, entrusted with the Nation’s Survival In It’s Darkest Hour.

SERE

 By lex, on July 27th, 2010

Meet ARM 1/c Oliver Rasmussen, native of Wisconsin, who lived off the land in Hokkaido, Japan after his plane crashed during an air strike:

Back to the future

Posted by Lex, on March 22nd, 2008

Air Force wants to see coal fuel take off  **