CODE ONE - Special Cockpit Edition

[Valcor]

Hello All

I found this to be interesting...I hope everyone else does also.

http://www.codeonemagazine.com/test/archives/2007/articles/jan_07/cockpits/cockpits.html

Valcor

[idekkers]

great magazine, forgot about that one.

few observations :
the F35  pit is just boring, the F117 pit is the biggest mess i've ever seen,
and how the f*** can a kc130 land on a carrier ?

Ido

[Auke104]

great magazine, forgot about that one.

few observations :
the F35  pit is just boring, the F117 pit is the biggest mess i've ever seen,
and how the f*** can a kc130 land on a carrier ?

Ido

How about the F-104 cockpit About that KC-130, some time ago there were some trials letting KC-130/C-130's take off from carriers(With JATO?). I never saw pictures that they landed those things. Presumably those trials were held close to land. The pictures shows one taking off.

[Nikolas_A]

The C-130 was tested as a possible Carrier Onboard Delivery (COD) a/c.

No JATO used, IIRC only the brakes were improved, everything else was stock.

Testing was successful, but is was considered unpractical, especially since no fighters could be parked on the deck, leaving the carrier unprotected


Nikolas

[Nikolas_A]

More info

Most impressive:

"The last landing I participated in, we touched down about 150 feet from the end, stopped in 270 feet more and launched from that position, using what was left of the deck. We still had a couple hundred feet left when we lifted off. Admiral Brown was flabbergasted."

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjNyQvhsQE8" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjNyQvhsQE8</a>

[Valcor]

The mother of all cockpits!

I started working on aircraft when I was 14 years old. The first aircraft that I turned a wrench on was a B-36 Peacemaker. I was involved with an air museum which was in the process of moving a static B-36 display from one side of town to the other side of town.
 
One of the most complex cockpits I have ever seen was in the B-36. The aircraft had a pilot, co-pilot, engineer and co-engineer station upstairs.

Pilot's station

CODE ONE - Special Cockpit Edition

Pilot's Turbo panel

CODE ONE - Special Cockpit Edition

Engineer's station

CODE ONE - Special Cockpit Edition

Valcor

[Wildcat]

Valcor....those pictures look very much like they were taken at the Pima Air & Space Museum.  Is that the move you helped with?

[Sledge]

Wow, does Pima have a B-36 now?  It really has been a long time.  I have to get down there for a visit!!  I thought the only B-36 on display in the world was at Wright-Patterson.

[Wildcat]

Welllll...as a matter of fact we do.  The fuselage is still in two pieces from it's move to Tucson from Fort Worth (sorry, Falcor)...but she be up on her gear again and the cockpit is almost pristine!

There are four Peacemakers left....Carswell AFB, Wright Patterson AFB, Offut AFB....and ours.

There have been a LOT of changes....new hangar....new seaplanes exhibit....new SR-71 exhibit (a/c raised on stands about 3 feet)....and today, if the aviation gods are friendly, we'll be getting the last flying Avro Shackleton taildragger....  http://www.warbirdalley.com/shack.htm

Let me know when you feel like a visit, Sledge.  I know the Exhibits Coordinator rather well.   

[Valcor]

Valcor....those pictures look very much like they were taken at the Pima Air & Space Museum.  Is that the move you helped with?

No, unfortunately I was not involved with the move to Pima County. The Pima group was well equipped to handle the move. I was glad to see the aircraft go to a good home where it would be reassembled and displayed for the public. The outdoor environment in Arizona is much better on aircraft than the wetter environment of the DFW area.

That move was a sore subject for a lot of people in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. We wanted to keep the Aircraft here in the area but unfortunately there was not enough community support (money) to display it properly. Because of lack of support from the surrounding community we lost a complete aircraft museum. We had accumulated a world-class museum but there was not enough money or support to maintain it.

In addition to the B-36 we had a B-52, KC-97, F-100, F-86, F-89, F-111, B-58, T-33, P-2 Neptune and a F-105 just to name a few. The Dallas Fort worth area lost a huge attraction for this area. On some occasions we would get two to three hundred people a day visiting the museum. We had visitors come in from all over the world to look at the unique aircraft displayed here in Fort Worth. The shame of it is that many of those aircraft were built right here in Fort Worth and now we will never be able to get them back to this community.

Here is the link to the images I used for my post. http://www.simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2376009

Thanks
Valcor

[Wildcat]

Those are pretty recent.  In case anyone's wondering why the tail is doing a wheelie, that's how one puts together a B-36 without a crane.  The nose will be lifted to an appropriate angle, and the two ends carefully moved and bolted together.  There are large girders that pass through the bomb bay and wing carry-through that mate with similar girders in the tail section.  Hundreds of small bolts need to be fastened.  Lots of fun.  Glad I work in Exhibits, not Resto!!

[Ka-Bar03]

A Great early ColdWarrior! Lots f great planes from that erra. I've seen the one at the USAF museum and it is really a behemoth.

[maestro209]

Welllll...as a matter of fact we do.  The fuselage is still in two pieces from it's move to Tucson from Fort Worth (sorry, Falcor)...but she be up on her gear again and the cockpit is almost pristine!

There are four Peacemakers left....Carswell AFB, Wright Patterson AFB, Offut AFB....and ours.

There have been a LOT of changes....new hangar....new seaplanes exhibit....new SR-71 exhibit (a/c raised on stands about 3 feet)....and today, if the aviation gods are friendly, we'll be getting the last flying Avro Shackleton taildragger....  http://www.warbirdalley.com/shack.htm

Let me know when you feel like a visit, Sledge.  I know the Exhibits Coordinator rather well.   

Wildcat,

You forgot one.

RB-36 at Castle AFB

CODE ONE - Special Cockpit Edition

(Image #1)

CODE ONE - Special Cockpit Edition

http://www.elite.net/castle-air/mattbearup.html

http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=37.367117,-120.578781&spn=0.003551,0.008234&t=h&z=18&om=1


>Maestro

[Valcor]

Great Shots Maestro!

Do you have any other images you can share with us?

I remember working in the Texas heat in the cockpit. That canopy was just like a magnifying glass. I also remembered that the front and aft throttles were interconnected with each other. The version that was located at Fort Worth was a featherweight version designed for high altitude missions. A large amount of equipment had been removed just for this reason.

The original idea was to restore the bird to flyable status. I am not sure that would have been a good idea. If that huge plane ever crashed into a populated area it could have done a great deal of damage. Each of the six 4360 engines was as big as a large SUV. I could stand flat-footed inside the wing fuel cell and have about 3 inches of headroom to spare (I am 5'7"). There was a catwalk inside the wing. Once you got past the landing gear opening and the first inboard engine you had to crouch down to make your way to the outboard engines. The wing was so high off the ground that falling through the landing gear opening could have been fatal.

Each engine had it's own 50 gallon oil tank embedded in the wing for inflight servicing. Radial engines use a large amount of oil. The engineers could add oil in flight as needed.

The massive propellers were hollow. At the end of the propeller was a small opening, which allowed heat to flow through the entire length of the propeller for deicing.

Valcor

[Wildcat]

I may have the Carswell AFB '36 mislocated.  Thanks for the correction.  Concur about heat in the cockpit.  In the Arizona desert, it's nasty in summer. 

I heard about the attempt to bring the former Fort Worth / Pima aircraft back to flyable status.  Since museums get these aircraft with the provision that they not be restored to flyable condition, the USAF was not amused.  A team showed up at some point after the engines had been returned to running condition and corrected the situation with a bit of demilling.  Bummer.  That would have sounded so cool.  We ran the Shackleton's engines today...all four of 'em, and it was tres visceral.  Going to do it one more time tomorrow morning before we defuel the aircraft for restoration and display.  Cool bird, the Shack.

I'm 5' 7" myself.  I see the openings for the B-36 wing inspection tunnels on the wing roots....hope to test that height measurement myself! 

[Gunner]

Let me know when you feel like a visit, Sledge.  I know the Exhibits Coordinator rather well.   

I hope that invitation is open to me as well, Wildcat!
I'm just up the road in Phoenix, and it's been years since I've been to the museum. I need to come down anyway to get pics and measurements of the Thunderbird Phantom on display at the American Legion post in Vail.


I'm going to help with the skinning of a new 3D Phantom model we are going to use for a vintage show.

[maestro209]

Great Shots Maestro!

Do you have any other images you can share with us?

Valcor

Valcor,

Thanks! Umm more shots of the B-36 or of anything else at the museum? I have a couple more of the internal forward compartment / radio stack area just aft of the bombardier navagator station. I'll post my other photo's below. The gent in the cockpit photo, who will appear in the photo's below, is my friend Joe "Gonzo" Johnson of the Deltahawks. I didn't take as many photo's of the B-36 as I should have. I was overwhelmed by the fact I was going into the airframe! Castle, aside from Chino, PIMA, and the USAF museum, I feel is a true gem. It's one of the finest aviation museums with a range of the entire cold war. They are missing some individual fighters or some unique variants of fighters, but it's a nearly complete selection of everything SAC had from 1946 through 1985.

For those who don't know the B-36 has a nose wheel entrance for the crew, it's very similar to the B-29. The first station you come to is the "green house" under the nose at the forward end of the airframe. It's a multi crew station that seats (I believe) 5 or 6 crew in a very tight space. To give you an Idea of how cramped, Joe is about my size and I only had about 8 inches to the ceiling. Then you exit that compartment to the rear on the pilots/airframe left over a bulkhead hump onto a small single person platform. From this platform you get access to the "cockpit" green house where the pilots and engineers sit. You also get access to the radio stack if you were to continue aft, also the bubble windows and the two pressurized tubes. These tubes lead to the aft of the aircraft crew compartment. One is for maintenance and the other runs the full length of the aircraft to the aft compartment where there were sleeping bunks, a cooking grill, the aft machine gun firing stations and tail gunner.

Castle has a "open cockpit" day something like twice a year and we went to this one in October.

Here is a shot on the opposite side of the fuselage from the middle "platform" which separates this area from the bomber/nav section to the right of the image behind the mass of wiring and radios. This area is HUGE! it's got to be some thing like 10 feet to the top of the fuselage at the high part.

CODE ONE - Special Cockpit Edition

This the a shot from the other side of the fuselage looking back to where I took the picture above. It's showing the other bubble window and one of the radio stacks
(Image #2)

CODE ONE - Special Cockpit Edition

Here is the wiring running across the top of the fuselage. Taken from the same location as the first image in this post. (airframe right)
(Image #3)

CODE ONE - Special Cockpit Edition

That's all I have this time Valcor. I'll do better next time.

[Valcor]

Thanks Maestro!

Great shots!

Open cockpit day? Wow, that might be worth the time to fly out there. Did you get a chance to go into the B-52 cockpit? As big as that aircraft is it sure was hard to get around inside. The B-36 was much easer to work on inside the cockpit and it had a lot more room. Every time I worked on the B-52 I always left the aircraft bleading. Haha!

Thanks for the images and the info.

Valcor

[maestro209]

Thanks Maestro!

Great shots!

Open cockpit day? Wow, that might be worth the time to fly out there. Did you get a chance to go into the B-52 cockpit? As big as that aircraft is it sure was hard to get around inside. The B-36 was much easer to work on inside the cockpit and it had a lot more room. Every time I worked on the B-52 I always left the aircraft bleading. Haha!

Thanks for the images and the info.

Valcor

It's only worth it if you fly into San Jose, stop by to say hello and then we fly out in a light plane!

Because the Castle Museum is really in an out of the way part of California they don't get as much traffic as they would like. Having said that they are struggling to make ends meet and are starting to charge to get into their more popular airframes. This day they were charging to get into the B-52. It was only $5 and I would have happily paid the amount, but because they we offering a "guided tour" with the cost of the ticket. That meant they had to "schedule" each entrance, which we didn't know about until it was full.  Ooops our bad. Next time we will know in advance and we'll be repaired.

Another bummer is they have a B-47 but they were/don't open it up. they say it's way to small to get a large number of people through. I say bah have them go up through the bottom and out the top canopy and down a large set of air stairs! Along with the boomer chair and cockpit in (SN 11) KC-135 being blocked off! But hey I can run around a B-29 interior and many other airframes! GRRRR .....

To add insult to injury their prize possession the SR-71 is in the parking lot, which requires $0 dollars to see! I have no idea why the politics are so messed up at that museum but hey it's some times in our favor some times not!

(Image #4)

CODE ONE - Special Cockpit Edition

Hero shot!

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(Image #5)

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(Image #6)

CODE ONE - Special Cockpit Edition

The museum is in need of some TLC in spots and unless it's an open cockpit day they really don't get many visitors. It's a shame for such a great museum.

>M

[Valcor]

Fantastic Shots Maestro!

Those are some of the best images of an SR-71 cockpit that I have seen. The light was perfect. I really enjoyed the images.

Thanks
Valcor

[thebeev]

great pics there!

[KK]

Great shots Maestro, thank's for sharing.

Any change to get the last two in higher resolution?

Klaus

[Zandor]

Awesome aircraft,  I got to take a close look at one in Huntsville, AL at the Space Center.  

FYI.... I got to talk to a few of the folks they have doing the simulators for Space Camp and Fighter Challenge, say they are quite impressed with the cockpits going on here at VP ( pretty good coming from the folks at NASA   )

Later!

Michael "Z"

[Ka-Bar03]

Would love some high rez pics of the pitshots too. nice! What a marvelous plane, spanning what? 30-40 years? The first shot really projects the length and sleekness.

[Wildcat]

Nice pix of the SR cockpit, Maestro!  I'm jealous - we have an SR here at Pima but it's too much of a bear to get the pit open, I'm told.  I've been jonesin' to sit in that pit ever since I started to work here.

[maestro209]

 

gosh guys, thanks for the compliments!

OK guys, I can give you Hi Rez copies of my shots. All but the ones with Joe in them. I don't have permission to distribute his image. I'll relabel them with numbers to make things easier.

Here is what I need from those who wish Hi Rez photo's

1)tell me which numbers you would like.

2) the max resolution of my Camera is (aprox.) 3000 x 2000 pixel @ 24 bit. If you wish a size smaller please tell me what size you require.

3) I'll be sending all images via email so I'll need an email address. Please PM me with your contact information. Also make sure your inbox can take large files (most have a 3MB to 5MB limit)   

4) I do take pictures for a living, so please respect the rights of the image taker, that'd be me. I'm happy to use the NFL model "intended for the private use, any rebroadcast with out the express written consent of the NFL ... errr me .... is strictly prohibited."

I think that about covers it.

>Maestro209

[maestro209]

Oh yeah and I've added in some other photos not shown here. Some F-106 pit photos, a different angle of both the front and rear SR pits. They'll be included in the Hi Rez emails.

>M

[Valcor]

Hello Everyone!

I thought I would share one of my favorite image links with everyone. Most of these images are from the local Fort Worth, Texas area taken by Keith Robinson http://www.pbase.com/keith1959/. From the images you can see there is a large amount of aircraft activity in this area because of military and civilian aircraft operations.

After looking at the aircraft check out the scenery at the TCU football games!

I hope everyone enjoys the images.
Merry Christmas
Valcor:beer:

I think that is a Harpoon(?) and a Harm being tested on a Block 60 UAE aircraft.

CODE ONE - Special Cockpit Edition

CODE ONE - Special Cockpit Edition

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[Bazooka]

Well Valcor....at least you included "THE GREATEST " aircraft of all time in your pics


Bazooka

[Valcor]

Yes, I do like the Classics. Haha!

Valcor

[Dunk]

It looks like it is full of bullet holes though.

That is Israel's version/design of the f-16 D I believe.