Me-262s at Large

We got three games of CY6! in Saturday evening.  No, we didn't play long.  The games were just that short!  We played two games of a scenario I had read about somewhere (can't find the reference now) of two Me-262s attacking a lone B-17 protected by four P-51s.  In both games with the B-17, the Me-262s attacked as a pair head on and blew the B-17 out of the sky in a single pass.  They never rolled less than the 31+ column for damage.  Those four 30mm cannon are a lethal combination.  In both games, I flew the bomber, while Perry and Doug split the P-51s and Steve flew the Me-262s. 

The B-17 decaled up with the bling offered by Scale Specialties.

And in flight over Germany with some little friends for support

The last thing the B-17 crew saw two games in a row... 

The third game we played was the Heinz Baer scenario from the rulebook, pitting four P-47s against a single Me-262.  Here Steve continued with the Me-262 while Perry and Doug split the P-47s.  I sat this one out and just refereed. 

Steve's masterful handling of the Me-262 led to first blood when he got a point

blank shot and dropped one of the Thuds. 

 

Circling for position. 

The second Thunderbolt to go down... 

A close pass.  It wasn't long after this the third Thunderbolt hit the dirt and the

lone survivor ran for home. 

  

Steve's masterful handling of the Me-262 faithfully recreated the real life outcome in which Baer took down three of the P-47s while taking no damage himself.  The Thuds got a couple of shots off, but had no effect.  This also saw the inauguration of my home made flight stands.  It's a 1" length of plastic tube glued to a washer, with 1/4" doweling in 1" increments for the rods.  My fighters all have a nail head glued into the underside so I have a magnet on each rod to hold the plane.  The bombers are too big to be held by a magnet, so they have a 1/8" hole drilled in the bottom and I used a pencil sharpener to whittle down a set of dowels enough to fit into the hole and hold the plane up.  Worked like a charm, but some of the dowels are a little snug in the tube and the glue is a bit fragile.  We only had one catastrophe for the night, which wasn't bad.  Heck, I snapped one off just fitting the dowels in it!  





A Small Air Combat Memorial Park

I found these pics in my files and thought I'd better put them up before I forget about them.  This is a small air park just outside Clay National Guard Center in Marietta, GA, which used to be a Naval Air Station.  I wasn't able to get a pic of the B-29 on the Air National Guard side of the base, but these make up for it somewhat.  What caught my eye driving by was the S-3 Viking, for a long time my son's favorite plane.  When I actually stopped to look, I realized they had aircraft representative of a carrier air wing.  So here we go:

Pretty neat stuff.  They had a small variety of other aircraft, Army and Air Force, but these were by far the more interesting.

Army vs. Air Force

Just about the only consolation of being stuck on an air force base in the middle of nowhere for four months (aside from graduating my course, that is - assuming I graduate, of course) is that I'm an aviation junkie and air force bases are like miniature museums with airplanes everywhere.  This one is no different.  Sadly, there is no active flightline.  Although the runways are still here, they have that large 'X' at each end indicating it is no longer active.  We use it for our PT runs once or twice a week.

There are a few airplanes around - including a couple of special ones and another surprise, all of which I'll save for the end of the post.  We'll start off in chronological order, with the older trainers and work our way up to the ultra-cool. 

BT-13A Valiant, basic trainer from 1941 to 1944

 

AT-6/T-6G Texan, primary and basic trainer from 1944 to 1954

 

T-28A Trojan.  This particular plane was carried on the AF

inventory from 1951 to 1976! 

 

So much for the trainers.  They have there own history, but aside from names I really don't know much about them.  The Texan was used as a ground attack aircraft by the South Korean Air Force during the Korean War and the Trojan was used in the same role by the USAF during Vietnam.  And speaking of Vietnam...

 

An RF-4 - not sure of the specific submodel

 

Not sure of the exact submodel of this B-25 - I'm guessing

it's either a trainer or recon version.  Turns out I should have

put this before the RF-4 as the last B-25 was decommissioned

in 1960.

 



A standard C-47 painted to resemble an EC-47 used in Vietnam.

 

Now we get into some more modern fun:

 

RQ-4 Global Hawk

 

RQ-1 Predator.  Hmmm, strangely resembles an aircraft seen

recently over Yerbouti...

 

OK - so now we get on to the really, really cool (at least in my estimation) stuff.  First there was this:

 

Yes, that is an SA-4.  And with it, of course...

 

...is its Pat Hand radar.

 

And even better, we got to go inside the vehicles.  There wasn't much room, even with the seats removed.  I've been in an M1 Abrams, and there is tons more room than in these bad boys although I have to admit that the driver's compartment in these is slightly roomier than the Abrams.  But not much.

 





Inside the missile transporter.

 

Inside the radar vehicle - that's the main radar screen just to the

right of center.

 

And the opposite wall inside the radar vehicle.

 

Now we get to the cooler part of the post.

 

What we have here is a MiG-23 and...

 

I got to check out the cockpit!

 

 

But wait!  That's not all!  We also have (the coolest part) a...

 

MiG-29!  Now don't get ahead of me, folks...

 

Yup, I got to sit in the Fulcrum too!

 

It is a beautiful little plane - much smaller

than you'd expect it to be.  This particular

specimen if pretty messed up inside the cockpit

because they didn't black out the canopy

and the sun here just beats it to death.

 

That's it, folks!  Hope you enjoyed the tour!