I know this photo is fuzzy, but it is the best I could do with an iPhone 8. These are historic warbirds from the Cavanaugh Flight Museum in Addison, Texas. Several of them did a “Freedom Flyover” last night at Addison’s Kaboom Town before the fireworks. They perform every year and also had red, white and blue smoke trailing from the aircraft, but I didn’t get a good photo of it. A single plane will also do loops, twists and turns while trailing smoke and often fly in low over the crowd. It is quite a spectacle. The only vintage aircraft I have ever been in was the plane where Lyndon B. Johnson took the oath of office after John F. Kennedy was assassinated. It was on display at the Frontiers of Flight Museum in Dallas. It is quite remarkable how airplane design has changed over the years. It is so sleek and streamlined today compared to the clunky and unwieldy designs of yesteryear. However, vintage aircraft can still be very functional. Let’s learn more about it.
According to Wikipedia, antique, classic, heritage, historic, veteran or vintage aircraft are aircraft of an obsolete type which have been preserved beyond their normal life. Their owners are typically aviation museums, armed forces or private enthusiasts. Sometimes they may be maintained in an airworthy condition, so that they can be flown at air displays or on public occasions.
For example, the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight maintained by the United Kingdom's Royal Air Force consists of RAF aircraft from World War II and regularly takes part in official celebrations, such as its flypast at the wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton in 2011 — over 65 years after the aircraft were constructed.
Organizations devoted to such aircraft include the Antique Airplane Association, the Historic Aircraft Association and the Vintage Aircraft Association.
A warbird is any vintage military aircraft now operated by civilian organizations and individuals or, in some instances, by historic arms of military forces, such as the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight, the RAAF Museum Historic Flight or the South African Air Force Museum Historic Flight.
Restored warbirds are a frequent attraction at air shows. Highly modified — as well as "stock" warbirds — can also frequently be seen at air races, since World War II-era fighters are among the fastest propeller-driven airplanes ever built. Some of the most popular warbirds for races are the North American P-51 Mustang, Hawker Sea Fury, Grumman F8F Bearcat and North American T-6 Texan.
Although the term originally implied piston-driven aircraft from the World War II era, it is now often extended to include all airworthy former military aircraft, including jet-powered aircraft. Vintage jet aircraft in airworthy condition, however, are much rarer due to technical complexity.
Sometimes, modern production aircraft such as Allison V-1710-powered Yakovlev Yak-9s from JSC A.S. Yakovlev Design Bureau in Russia and replicas and reproductions of vintage aircraft are called "warbirds," such as Messerschmitt Me 262s built by the Me 262 Project and Focke-Wulf Fw 190s by Flug + Werk; these aircraft can include any one of a large number of different designs from between World War I and the late 1930s, when military aircraft design was less complex. Such replicated warbirds may even be powered by vintage engines from the era of the aircraft design being flown, as Cole Palen and others associated with his institution did at Palen's Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome aviation museum with accurate and airworthy reproductions of the Fokker Dr.I, Fokker D.VII, Fokker D.VIII, Sopwith Camel and Sopwith Dolphin World War I aircraft.
Restoration process
Vintage warbird or classic aircraft restoration is the process of taking aircraft from the previous era and performing processes such as maintenance, repairs and refurbishments in order to restore the aircraft to its original military configuration minus any working weaponry. According to “Classic Warplanes,” some of the tasks performed on these vintage aircraft include:
- Structural repairs.
- Standard maintenance.
- Interior and exterior paint.
- Decals and stamps.
- Upholstery replacements.
- Control heads and radios.
- Parachutes, ejection seats, and ejection seat cartridges.
- Rewiring.
- Replacement of real weaponry with nonoperating replicas.
Air shows
There are several different types of warbirds such as the fighter, trainer, bomber, jet, transports, utility, etc. Examples of aircraft types include the North American P-51 Mustang, Vought F4U Corsair, Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress, North American T-6 Texan, Beechcraft T-34 Mentor, Messerschmitt Bf 109, Hawker Hurricane and Supermarine Spitfire.
There are warbirds air shows all over the world annually. “Warbird Alley” claims that some of the best-known air shows that feature warbirds are:
- Alliance Airshow – Fort Worth, Texas.
- Dayton Airshow – Dayton, Ohio.
- History of Flight Airshow – Geneseo,
- Indianapolis Airshow – Indianapolis, Indiana.
- Warbirds over the Beach – Virginia Beach, Virginia.
- Warbirds over Monroe – Monroe, North Carolina.
- Warbirds over Wanaka – Wanaka, New Zealand
In Europe, one of the best known warbird air shows is the annual Flying Legends arranged in Imperial War Museum Duxford in UK. La Ferté-Alais air show in France collects warbirds annually too. Warbirds fly also in most of the Shuttleworth Collection flying days in UK every summer.
Best warbirds
According to the July 18, 2014 article “Top 100 Warbirds” at flyingmag.com, below are a few of its selections.
100 Northrop P-61 Black Widow
Employed in the U.S. Army Air Forces during World War II, Northrop's P-61 Black Widow was put into service in 1944 and retired about a decade later. Equipped with two Pratt & Whitney R-2800 Double Wasp radial engines spinning four-bladed propellers, the airplane had twin-booms and a center fuselage — a boxier version of the P-38 design. The multipurpose fighter could be armed with cannons, machine guns, bombs or rockets and was the first dedicated American night-fighter. A P-61 named "Lady in the Dark" has been credited with the final Allied air victory before VJ Day. After the war, the P-61 was employed for thunderstorm research. Of about 700 produced, only four Black Widows still exist. Three are on display at museums and will likely never fly, while a fourth version has been under restoration for decades by a team in Reading, Pennsylvania that hopes to one day return this beauty to the skies.
99 Sopwith 1-½ Strutter
Sopwith's World War I two-seater got its nickname from the two sets of struts that supported the top wing — one long, full-size pair and a second pair of shorter struts. Designed early in the Great War, the 1 ½ Strutter was the first British pursuit ship or fighter to use the front-engine configuration. Not coincidentally, it was also the first British combat aircraft with an interrupter-gear, linking its forward-firing machine gun to the engine camshaft so it would not fire when the propeller blade was in the way. Like most WWI models, the 1 ½ Strutter had a short-lived superiority and was quickly surpassed by the faster, more powerful Albatros series. Still, with its long range the 1 ½ Strutter was useful as an escort for long-range bombing missions.
98 Polikarpov I-16
Somewhat resembling the GeeBee racers of the era, Polikarpov's snub-nose I-16 was different in two distinctive ways when it emerged in the mid-1930s. It had a cantilever wing — internally supported, so it required no struts — and it had retractable landing gear. The fighter was designed around Pratt & Whitney's R-1820 radial engine, but the type wound up using less powerful Russian radials. The I-16 saw combat in the Spanish Civil War, where it went head to head with Germany's top fighter, the Messerschmitt 109. Later, I-16s saw service for China during the Sino-Japanese war. When Germany's "Operation Barbarossa" turned the fury of the Luftwaffe on Russia in June 1941, most I-16s were destroyed on the ground before they could take off to intercept. Unlike Britain, Russia did not have radar to warn of incoming raids. Russian I-16 pilots would take advantage of the I-16's superior maneuvering capability to battle the Me-109s, often resorting to ramming their enemies in suicide attacks.
97 Kawasaki Hien
The Kawasaki Ki-61 Hein was an all-purpose fighter of the Imperial Japanese Army Air Force that used a license-built version of the liquid-cooled Daimler-Benz DB 601 engine. At first it was mistaken by the Allies to be a Japanese license-built version Messerschmitt Bf 109. But the Hein was a home-grown fighter from the start, and it outclassed the Allied P-40s it faced in the early days of the war. In fact, in 1941 it was one of the fastest fighters in the world with a top speed of 370 mph. A re-engined version of the Hein known as the Ki-100 with a Mitsubishi radial also proved an extremely formidable interceptor fighter against B-29 Super Fortresses, climbing in large strength to well above 30,000 feet to meet them when it was introduced in the spring of 1945.
96 Panavia Tornado
Developed in the mid-1970s, the Panavia Tornado was the product of an engineering partnership among Great Britain, Italy and West Germany. The twin-engine multirole fighter uses a variable-geometry wing that allows it to excel in low-level enemy penetration missions. The Tornado featured the then-new concept of fly-by-wire control, which made it an easy airplane to fly fast and low. The Tornado can also land in incredibly tight spaces thanks to its ability to sweep its wing far forward while deploying full-span flaps and leading-edge slats. Nearly 1,000 Tornadoes have been built, and the airplane remains in service with the British, German and Italian air forces.
95 Bristol Beaufighter
The Bristol Beaufighter was a British twin-engine long-range heavy fighter that played a decisive defensive role during the German Blitz in 1940. Equipped with an early airborne intercept radar, the Beaufighter was modified early on to serve as a nighttime interceptor, accounting for half of all Luftwaffe bombers shot down in the early days of World War II. Though lacking the speed and maneuverability of the World War II era fighters that followed, the Beaufighter had something airplanes like the Supermarine Spitfire and Hawker Hurricane lacked — the endurance to remain aloft and continue to fight for long periods. The rugged Beaufighter also saw service in North Africa, serving as a daytime bomber escort and ground-attack platform. It also served in the Pacific Theater, most notably in India attacking Japanese lines of communications in Burma and Thailand and in the southwest Pacific on anti-shipping missions.
94 Lockheed Martin F-35
The F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter is the latest manned fighter aircraft to be developed in the United States. Now in the final development phase of the program, Lockheed Martin has designed three versions of the F-35, a conventional version for the Air Force, a short takeoff/vertical landing version for the Marine Corps and a carrier variant for the Navy. Powered by a Pratt & Whitney F135 engine capable of producing 50,000 pounds of thrust, the F-35 can reach speeds of Mach 1.6. The thrust vectoring system was developed by Rolls-Royce. In addition to its supersonic and STOVL capabilities, the F-35 has radar-evading stealth capabilities, a precision targeting system and a system that detects aircraft and missiles and provides enhanced day and night vision within a sphere around the airplane. In addition to a sophisticated touch-screen avionics suite, pilots will utilize a helmet mounted display system rather than a HUD. The F-35 has been designed to carry as much as 18,000 pounds of weapons both internally and externally.
93 Mitsubishi Betty Bomber
Introduced to the Japanese arsenal in 1941, the Mitsubishi G4M, codenamed "Betty" by the Allies, possessed above average speed and range, making it a potent weapon as a land based naval bomber. The G4M carried a combination of cannon and machine guns that made it a dangerous adversary, especially in the early days of World War II. But like many Japanese airplanes, the cockpit and fuel tanks weren't well protected, providing a weakness that Allied fighter pilots soon learned to exploit. As newer and better American fighters entered the Pacific Theater, the advantage the Betty Bomber held quickly disappeared. All told, the Japanese built around 2,500.
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