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Tag: <span>airplane</span>

Tag: airplane

Korean War MiG 15 – Old Photo

Korean War-era MiG 15 photographed at NAS Willow Grove in 1989
Korean War-era MiG 15 photographed at NAS Willow Grove in 1989

Admittedly, this is a fairly horrible scan of a print. But you don’t see a MiG 15 very often these days, so I figured the photo was worth the effort even if it was not as good as we might have hoped. Those interested in military aircraft history know that the MiG 15 was a formidable fighter during the Korean War. This one appeared at the NAS Willow Grove Air Show in 1989. It was there that this photograph was taken.

Every couple of years, as I recall, NAS Willow Grove hosted an air show. This image, and the two that were in the previous two posts, were taken during the show of ’89. At that time I was experimenting with Agfacolor color print film. Unfortunately, Agfa film of that time did not seem to have the same quality color as other films, not the least of which was Kodak’s Kodacolor. But, before one blames the old Agfa film for the problems with this photo, it is necessary to point out that the scanning was done using older Photoshop’s built-in WIA support. And that software, to be blunt, did not do a particularly good job. Acrobat X Pro creates a better scan, but there are other issues that I was not in the mood to deal with. Ah, well, we can’t have everything, can we?

Fuddy Duddy at NAS Willow Grove

Fuddy Duddy B-17 at NAS Willow Grove in 1987
Fuddy Duddy B-17 at NAS Willow Grove in 1987

This photo is a scan of a photo featuring the famous B-17, Fuddy Duddy. B-17s were, of course, Boeing bombers from WWII. However, according to the Lyon Air Museum Web site Fuddy Duddy was built under license by Douglas Aircraft. Lyon’s site further says that this bomber was used as VIP transport in the Pacific Theatre and appeared in several movies including Tora, Tora, Tora.

The picture above was snapped in 1989 at NAS Willow Grove during their popular air show. Since then, Fuddy Duddy has periodically flown in air shows around the country. It is interesting to note that the airplane has out-lasted NAS Willow Grove, which closed in 2011.

The Airplane Progresses

The question came up recently about how the Santa Claus airplane project has been going. Well, here is a quick view of the thing so far. Notice that we have the wings attached and the engine nacelles attached. We have to add the horizontal stabilizers, final coatings, propellers, landing gear, …