Convair XFY-1 Pogo

Convair XFY-1 Pogo PDF Author: Skeets Coleman
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780942612271
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
In 1947, both the U.S. Air Force and the U.S. Navy sponsored VTOL design studies called project Hummingbird. The rapid development of increasingly powerful powerplants had reached the point where a true VTOL aircraft was in the realm of possibility. The U.S. Navy's firsthand experiences with Japan's Kamikaze taught them the vulnerability of their great mobile peacekeepers, the carrier. Because of this experience the Navy felt that the only way to protect any naval presence in enemy waters was to equip all ships with a VTOL fighter.

Convair Class VF Convoy Fighter

Convair Class VF Convoy Fighter PDF Author: Jared A Zichek
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780996875431
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 40

Book Description
Presents the original proposal for the Convair Class VF Convoy Fighter, which led to the XFY-1 Pogo turboprop tailsitter naval aircraft of the early 1950s. Also included are 2 Army observation VTOL tailsitters from 1955 and the Gamby Vertigo of 1933. This book features 45 images, including rare photos, blueprints, illustrations, and color profiles.

Martin Model 262 Convoy Fighter

Martin Model 262 Convoy Fighter PDF Author: Jared A. Zichek
Publisher: Jared A. Zichek
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 100

Book Description
The Martin Model 262 was an unconventional turboprop VTOL aircraft proposal submitted to the US Navy’s convoy fighter competition of 1950, which ultimately produced the Convair XFY-1 Pogo and Lockheed XFV-1 Salmon. It was a swept-wing aircraft with triple vertical tails powered by an Allison XT-40-A-8 turboprop engine driving 16 ft contra-rotating propellers. The launch and recovery system consisted of a hinged vertical platform mounted on a merchant ship. The pilot approached the platform from the side and hovered vertically just in front of it, attaching the aircraft to the platform with a retractable nosegear spike and landing on two small retractable wing gear. The fighter was armed with four 20 mm cannon and was designed to protect convoy vessels from enemy air attack. In addition to the basic Model 262, Martin also presented Modifications A, B and C, the configurations of which were even more unorthodox than the main proposal. Finally, the book examines the Model 262P, a handsome scale demonstrator designed to verify the basic soundness of the concept. This ebook features a comprehensive text and 56 high resolution illustrations, including detailed schematics, artist’s impressions, and speculative color profiles of these remarkable secret aircraft projects. This is the author’s second book covering the USN convoy fighter competition, the first one being devoted to the Goodyear GA-28A/B, also available in the Google Play store and other bookstores worldwide.

Northrop N-63 Convoy Fighter

Northrop N-63 Convoy Fighter PDF Author: Jared A. Zichek
Publisher: Retromechanix Productions
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 106

Book Description
The Northrop N-63 was an unconventional VTOL turboprop tailsitter aircraft proposal submitted to the US Navy's convoy fighter competition of 1950, which ultimately produced the Convair XFY-1 Pogo and Lockheed XFV-1 Salmon. It was a single-seat high performance fighter designed to protect convoy vessels from attack by enemy aircraft, and for vertical unassisted takeoff from, and landings on, small platform areas afloat or ashore. The N-63 featured a straight wing with pronounced dihedral and a very large ventral T-tail; armament consisted of four 20 mm cannon mounted in large pods on the wing tips. The aircraft was powered by an Allison XT-40-A-8 turboprop engine driving 15.5 ft six-blade dual-rotation propellers. The Northrop convoy fighter was designed to land vertically on a robust central landing strut in a collapsible tailcone as well as small shock absorbers located on the aft ends of the wing pods and vertical stabilizer; these landing support points were spread far apart to enhance stability on the deck. In addition to the N-63, Northrop also submitted the N-63A scale prototype airplane design, a small technology demonstrator powered by an Armstrong Siddeley Double Mamba turboprop. It featured a swappable tail section and auxiliary landing gear which permitted it to take off and land either conventionally or vertically, depending on the proficiency of the pilot. This ebook features 66 illustrations, including detailed schematics, artist's impressions, photos, and speculative color profiles of these remarkable secret aircraft projects, which are sure to appeal to historical aviation enthusiasts and scale modelers alike. This is the publisher's third book covering the convoy fighter competition, the first two being devoted to the Goodyear GA-28A/B and Martin Model 262, both of which are still available from booksellers worldwide in print and digital formats.

Messerschmitts Over Sicily

Messerschmitts Over Sicily PDF Author: Johannes Steinhoff
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 0811773647
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 289

Book Description
In an account of unusual power, Luftwaffe ace Johannes Steinhoff recounts the final days of the German air force on Sicily in June and July 1943. Facing crushing odds—including a commander, Hermann Göring, who contemptuously treated his pilots as cowards—Steinhoff and his fellow Messerschmitt 109 pilots took to the skies day after day to meet waves of dreaded Flying Fortresses and swarms of Allied fighters, all bent on driving the Germans from the island. A captivating narrative and a piercing analysis based on the author’s personal World War diary, this book is a classic of aerial combat. A concluding chapter assesses the war's lessons for air forces.

The Battleship USS Iowa

The Battleship USS Iowa PDF Author: Stefan Draminski
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1472827287
Category : Transportation
Languages : en
Pages : 354

Book Description
USS Iowa (BB-61) was the lead ship in one of the most famous classes of battleships ever commissioned into the US Navy. Transferred to the Pacific Fleet in 1944, the Iowa first fired her guns in anger in the Marshall Islands campaign, and sunk her first enemy ship, the Katori. The Iowa went on to serve across a number of pivotal Pacific War campaigns, including at the battles of the Philippine Sea and Leyte Gulf. The ship ended the war spending several months bombarding the Japanese Home Islands before the surrender in August 1945. After taking part in the Korea War, the Iowa was decommissioned in 1958, before being briefly reactivated in the 1980s as part of President Reagan's 600-Ship Navy Plan. After being decommissioned a second and final time in 1990, the Iowa is now a museum ship in Los Angeles. This new addition to the Anatomy of the Ship series is illustrated with contemporary photographs, scaled plans of the ship and hundreds of superb 3D illustrations which bring every detail of this historic battleship to life.

Aces of the Republic of China Air Force

Aces of the Republic of China Air Force PDF Author: Raymond Cheung
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1472805623
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 97

Book Description
The ace pilots of the Republic of China Air Force have long been shrouded in mystery and obscurity, as their retreat to Taiwan in 1949 and blanket martial law made records of the RoCAF all but impossible to access. Now, for the first time, the colourful story of these aces can finally be told. Using the latest research based on released archival information and full-colour illustrations, this book charts the history of the top scoring pilots of the RoCAF from the beginning of the gruelling, eight-year Sino-Japanese War to the conclusion of the Civil War against the Chinese Communists. Beginning as a ragged and very disparate group of planes and pilots drawn from various provincial air forces, the RoCAF gradually became standardised and was brought under American tutelage. Altogether it produced 17 aces who scored kills whilst flying a startling variety of aircraft, from biplanes to F-86 Sabres.

British Aircraft Carriers

British Aircraft Carriers PDF Author: David Hobbs
Publisher: Seaforth Publishing
ISBN: 1848321384
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 402

Book Description
This book is a meticulously detailed history of British aircraft-carrying ships from the earliest experimental vessels to the Queen Elizabeth class, currently under construction and the largest ships ever built for the Royal Navy. Individual chapters cover the design and construction of each class, with full technical details, and there are extensive summaries of every ship's career. Apart from the obvious large-deck carriers, the book also includes seaplane carriers, escort carriers and MAC ships, the maintenance ships built on carrier hulls, unbuilt projects, and the modern LPH. It concludes with a look at the future of naval aviation, while numerous appendices summarise related subjects like naval aircraft, recognition markings and the circumstances surrounding the loss of every British carrier. As befits such an important reference work, it is heavily illustrated with a magnificent gallery of photos and plans, including the first publication of original plans in full colour, one on a magnificent gatefold.??Written by the leading historian of British carrier aviation, himself a retired Fleet Air Arm pilot, it displays the authority of a lifetime's research combined with a practical understanding of the issues surrounding the design and operation of aircraft carriers. As such British Aircraft Carriers is certain to become the standard work on the subject.

Never Call Me a Hero

Never Call Me a Hero PDF Author: N. Jack Kleiss
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0062692364
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 405

Book Description
Hailed as "the single most effective pilot at Midway" (World War II magazine), Dusty Kleiss struck and sank three Japanese warships at the Battle of Midway, including two aircraft carriers, helping turn the tide of the Second World War. This is his extraordinary memoir. NATIONAL BESTSELLER • "AN INSTANT CLASSIC" —Dallas Morning News On the morning of June 4, 1942, high above the tiny Pacific atoll of Midway, Lt. (j.g.) "Dusty" Kleiss burst out of the clouds and piloted his SBD Dauntless into a near-vertical dive aimed at the heart of Japan’s Imperial Navy, which six months earlier had ruthlessly struck Pearl Harbor. The greatest naval battle in history raged around him, its outcome hanging in the balance as the U.S. desperately searched for its first major victory of the Second World War. Then, in a matter of seconds, Dusty Kleiss’s daring 20,000-foot dive helped forever alter the war’s trajectory. Plummeting through the air at 240 knots amid blistering anti-aircraft fire, the twenty-six-year-old pilot from USS Enterprise’s elite Scouting Squadron Six fixed on an invaluable target—the aircraft carrier Kaga, one of Japan’s most important capital ships. He released three bombs at the last possible instant, then desperately pulled out of his gut-wrenching 9-g dive. As his plane leveled out just above the roiling Pacific Ocean, Dusty’s perfectly placed bombs struck the carrier’s deck, and Kaga erupted into an inferno from which it would never recover. Arriving safely back at Enterprise, Dusty was met with heartbreaking news: his best friend was missing and presumed dead along with two dozen of their fellow naval aviators. Unbowed, Dusty returned to the air that same afternoon and, remarkably, would fatally strike another enemy carrier, Hiryu. Two days later, his deadeye aim contributed to the destruction of a third Japanese warship, the cruiser Mikuma, thereby making Dusty the only pilot from either side to land hits on three different ships, all of which sank—losses that crippled the once-fearsome Japanese fleet. By battle’s end, the humble young sailor from Kansas had earned his place in history—and yet he stayed silent for decades, living quietly with his children and his wife, Jean, whom he married less than a month after Midway. Now his extraordinary and long-awaited memoir, Never Call Me a Hero, tells the Navy Cross recipient’s full story for the first time, offering an unprecedentedly intimate look at the "the decisive contest for control of the Pacific in World War II" (New York Times)—and one man’s essential role in helping secure its outcome. Dusty worked on this book for years with naval historians Timothy and Laura Orr, aiming to publish Never Call Me a Hero for Midway’s seventy-fifth anniversary in June 2017. Sadly, as the book neared completion in 2016, Dusty Kleiss passed away at age 100, one of the last surviving dive-bomber pilots to have fought at Midway. And yet the publication of Never Call Me a Hero is a cause for celebration: these pages are Dusty’s remarkable legacy, providing a riveting eyewitness account of the Battle of Midway, and an inspiring testimony to the brave men who fought, died, and shaped history during those four extraordinary days in June, seventy-five years ago.

VTOL Military Research Aircraft

VTOL Military Research Aircraft PDF Author: Mike Rogers
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 9780517576847
Category : Airplanes, Military.
Languages : en
Pages : 248

Book Description
A comprehensive history of vertical take-off and landing aircraft examines VTOL experimentation, development, and deployment, as well as the different types of VTOL aircraft from tailsitters to vectored jets