April 19, 2005
Aircraft Cheesecake
Tainted Bill has a beautiful pic up of one of my favorite WWII airplanes - the Douglas SBD Dauntless dive bomber.
When I was a kid, I had (among others) a complete range of WWII U.S. carrier-based aircraft models. I was particularly proud of my Dauntless, because I managed to give it both salt-stains and flak damage effects.
Ah, yes......I attribute what I am today directly to those many hours spent hunched over modelling glue and paint thinner.
YIPS from Steve: Indeed, a little known fact was that our name was originally going to be "The LLama Huffers" but it sounded too dirty...
Posted by Robert at April 19, 2005 10:35 AMLooks like you picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue. ;-)
Posted by: Dave J at April 19, 2005 11:50 AMNice pic... me, I've always thought the Dauntless was a lot prettier than the Helldiver. But my favorite carrier aircraft of WWII has always been the F6F Hellcat.
Posted by: Brian B at April 19, 2005 11:58 AMI'm a big Hellcat fan myself. But I think I'd have to give the Corsair the top nod.
(NB - I tried to spell out its full name but got a "questionable content" flag over the, er "F Not 3, Not 5, but ___ -U" bit. Sheesh.)
Posted by: Robert the LB at April 19, 2005 12:29 PMI did model cars most of the time, not planes, but I fell in love with the Dauntless and built it as well.
Posted by: Deliverance at April 19, 2005 01:12 PMOh, I love the Corsair, but even though it was developed as a carrier fighter, most of its WWII career was spent as a land-based fighter, so I sort of give it its own category instead of lumping it in the Carrier-Based category.
IIRC, the Corsair also had the best kill to loss ratio of any fighter in history.
Posted by: Brian B at April 19, 2005 01:52 PMYeah, I thought about the whole land-basd/ship-based Corsair issue too. If you're willing to give it its own category, I'll go along with that.
Posted by: Robert the LB at April 19, 2005 01:56 PMGod, we're nerds.
My father and I used to discuss the relative merits of different aircraft, and he has shaped my opinion of several, thanks mostly to his influence. He was a tin can sailor who spent a lot of time on plane guard in the days just prior to Viet Nam, so I also have a thing for A1D's and Phantoms.
Posted by: Brian B at April 19, 2005 05:32 PMDang! Dave J beat me to it. Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit amphetamines.
Posted by: LF at April 19, 2005 08:30 PM
