pampa14's Aviation Click Bait

Not sure if this helps any but ...
This source http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/baka%20bomb states the first use of the term was in 1945.
and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamikaze states

http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,797562,00.html states

http://www.militaryfactory.com/aircraft/detail.asp?aircraft_id=483 states:

Looking at http://www.damagecontrolmuseums.org/WWII/ww2v1/Summary%20of%20War%20Damage%208Dec44%20to%209Oct45%20USN.pdf on page 63 (PDF page 65) the term "Baka Bomb" is used in the official report. This is a rather interesting document on its own by the way.

 

Undoubtedly one of the most interesting weapons used by the Luftwaffe during the World War II, the Mistel. The following link shows a full report and photos:

http://aviacaoemfloripa.blogspot.com.br/2011/02/mistel.html


Hope you enjoy and I count on your visit!

 

Bah, those Germans always stealing superior russian technology. First sloped armor now putting one thing on top of another thing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zveno_project

WW2 some of the wierdest stuff got tried.

 

Interesting. What was the overall goal of the weapon (main function).

 

Parasitic aircraft was not a uniquely Russian idea....

"USS Macon (ZRS-5) was a rigid airship built and operated by the United States Navy for scouting and served as a "flying aircraft carrier", designed to carry biplane parasite aircraft, five single-seat Curtiss F9C Sparrowhawk for scouting or two-seat Fleet N2Y-1 for training. In service for less than two years, in 1935 Macon was damaged in a storm and lost off California's Big Sur coast, though most of the crew were saved."



"Mistel (German for "mistletoe"), was the larger, unmanned component of a composite aircraft configuration developed in Germany during the later stages of World War II. The composite comprised a small piloted control aircraft mounted above a large explosives-carrying drone, the Mistel, and as a whole was referred to as the Huckepack ("Pick-a-back" in British English, "piggyback" in American English), also known as the Beethoven-Gerät ("Beethoven Device") and Vati und Sohn ("Daddy and Son").

The most successful of these used a modified Junkers Ju 88 bomber as the Mistel, with the entire nose-located crew compartment replaced by a specially designed nose filled with a large load of explosives. The upper component was a fighter aircraft, joined to the Mistel by struts. The combination would be flown to its target by a pilot in the fighter; then the unmanned bomber was released to hit its target and explode, leaving the fighter free to return to base. The first such composite aircraft flew in July 1943 and was promising enough to begin a programme by Luftwaffe test unit KG 200, code-named "Beethoven", eventually entering operational service."

"...it was decided to use the Mistels against their bridgehead at Küstrin instead. On 12 April 1945, Mistels attacked the bridges being built there, but the damage caused was negligible and delayed the Soviet forces for only a day or two. Subsequent Mistel attacks on other bridges being thrown across the Oder were similarly ineffective."

 

..based on the British Short Mayo Composite, a piggy-back long-range seaplane/flying boat combination produced by Short Brothers to provide a reliable long-range air transport service to the US and the far reaches of the British Empire first flew in 1937

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_Mayo_Composite

I compiled the article below from the papers of Horst-Dieter Lux, Mistel engineer and test pilot, who worked for Lockheed post-war

http://falkeeins.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/horst-dieter-lux-kg-200-mistel-test.html

 

Good info. Thank you GS.

 

The link below shows an extensive collection of photos of various types of aircraft used in World War II applied with this, which is undoubtedly the most famous of all Nose Art:

http://aviacaoemfloripa.blogspot.com.br/2011/02/bocas-de-tubarao.html


I hope you enjoy and I count on your visit!

 

Just looks wrong on that poor P-47

 

No worse than that on the L-4 "Moby Dick Jr."

 

More than you would think, the theme has been around for sometime

 

Nice to see ol' "Ropey" (the Lancaster) made it onto the list. Always liked that one.

 

The attempt was to make the aircraft fierce. Some look comical.

 

The following link shows a full report and photos of the fighter-bomber version of the Me-262 used by the Luftwaffe during the Second World War:

http://aviacaoemfloripa.blogspot.com.br/2011/02/messerschmitt-me-262-2a-sturmvogel.html

I hope you enjoy and I count on your visit!

 

I was just watcing Blitz Street on Youtube, which shows the blast effect of 25, 250, 1000 ... Kg bombs and the V1 that hit Britain during the blitz.
- the V1 had pretty much the same explosive payload as the Cookie.

Thought for sure there must be a testing film of Cookies. Yep. Kuddos to Periscope films.

This is a silent film. Created by the Ballistics Research Laboratory at Aberdeen, Maryland this
movie shows tests of 4000 lb "blockbuster" munitions, most likely the Mark V and Mark VI.
Blockbuster or "cookie" was the name given to several of the largest conventional bombs used
in World War II by the Royal Air Force (RAF). The term blockbuster was originally a name coined
by the press and referred to a bomb which had enough explosive power to destroy an entire city block. cont....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CiAr0ulR18

 

In July 1942, the United States captured the first Japanese Zero fighter. The link below provides information and photos of this aircraft, called the Akutan Zero:

http://aviacaoemfloripa.blogspot.com.br/2011/02/akutan-zero.html


I hope you enjoy and I count on your visit!

 

Nice, but #'s 9, 11, 15 & 16 are not #4593 recovered from Akutan. FWIW, I have the originals of photos of #2 & #7.

 

There's a decent book called Cracking Zero Mystery by Jim Rearden.

 

Jim Rearden, circa 1987, wrote a two part article on the subject for "Alaska" magazine which appeared in the September and October issues of that year. By the spring of the following year he was expanding his work into the book you mentioned, Cracking the Zero Mystery, ultimately published by Stackpole in 1990.

This book was republished in 1995 with some minor edits and retitled to Koga's Zero: The Fighter that Changed World War II.

There was also a Japanese language edition published in 1993. The first 3000 print run of that edition as I understand it sold out in about three weeks.

I have all three of these editions, the two "Alaska" articles and copies of most of the back and forth correspondence between Rearden and my father, not to mention copies of most of the evaluation reports written on this plane and five or six original prints of photos taken in a hangar at NAS San Diego in 1944, such as #'s 2 & 7.

#9 is an A5M3 and #'s 11, 15, & 16 are A6M5s.