[snippy_about_it]

Click Here to select the video - How to Fly the Northrop P-61 "Black Widow"

Watch the World War II training film used to familiarize new pilots with the Northrop P-61 Black Widow night fighter "live" over the Internet. (Real Audio)

Tomorrow we cover Part Two of The U.S. Army Air Forces in World War II, Conquering the Night, "Training for War"

[carton253]

Good Morning...

I've come to the Foxhole for some sanity after having to spend 3 hours, in class, listening to some liberal professor smugly insult everything I hold dear, which is God, country, and family.

I simply detest liberals.

[SAMWolf]

Good Morning Snippy

Because of inadequate funding and official disinterest

Sadly this was probably true of most military endevours, especially between wars. Interesting thread.

[SAMWolf]

Nice to see the P-61 acually flying. Good find on that video.

[Iris7]

Howdy, Snippy!

Think that second photo may be of a Gotha. Have to ask Mr. Gage.

Now to what I know. A hardware sort of guy, I have great affection for the Double Wasp - the Black Widow's engines. That machine was the first wartime over 2,000 horsepower aero engine in mass use, I believe. Very well cooled, extraordinarily rugged ("Gabby" Gabreski flew his Thunderbolt back to England with a 20 mm hit in the engine, one of the cylinders was blown clean off, I mean, GONE!!! Try THAT with a darn Merlin!!), and truly massively powerful for it's day, the Double Wasp was the epitome of American engineering.

(Well, the B-29 was pretty cool, and the gaseous diffusion plants were way cool, but nuclear weapons are simple alongside such wonders after the physics were sorted out. That cost some good men, by the way. "Fat Man and Little Boy" is quite historical about that.)

Our stuff may have made the Europeans sneer at "crudeness", at raw "cubic inches", but by Harry those radials exposed the English and German engines for what they were, expensive, handmade, heavy, low in power, fragile, unreliable, and just darn aesthetically displeasing. Talk about doing things the hard way, and not even doing it well!