Another great one Mike. Cool subject matter.

Welcome, Melissa! My first awareness of the DC-4E came from an enlarged B&W photo of the plane flying over New York City. Looking closely, I saw that it was a Douglas DC-4. That didn't compute, so off to Google! That failed prototype had an afterlife for the record books. There's a short video of that lovely bird in motion on the Web, accompanied by Kay Starr singing "Love With a Capital You," which has an interesting story, itself.

My first flight was on a DC9, the day I left for Air Force basic training. It flew from Manchester, NH to Boston, then to San Antonio via Atlanta. That was a B707. (1972) I became an Air Force firefighter stationed at SAC bases Loring AFB, Maine, and Andersen AFB, Guam. Watching this video, there were at least two pictures showing Crash Fire Rescue trucks protecting the aircraft. I suggest an episode about the crash equipment that protected the aircraft. In Air Force terms, they were called "Aerospace Vehicle Firefighting Vehicle" back in the 70s. We called them crash trucks or crash rigs. A good place to see the military history is at Fire Trucks At War.

Great video and terrific supporting images, top notch.

My first flight was on a Boeing 727 and, as a 4y/o boy, I was crushed it wasn't a 707.

This is the best thing I ever saw.

Great, GREAT subject matter Mike - thanks for making my Sunday morning!

The F14 Tomcat surely must be one of the most elegant designs from any manufacturer. It's flowing lines and perfectly proportioned form are a joy to behold. Grumman weriat the top of their game at this point in my opinion.

Another great subject Mike! I Love the Douglas commercial evolution story as my mother was a flight attendant on a DC-4! Keep ‘em coming!

That was a fun one . Think of all the planes that were tested at Edwards back in the day, and continues now. A slower pace now but still a very special place. I spent 30+ years working there and miss that place. Thanks for all you and your team do. Great w a y to start a week.

Great video Mike and a hearty welcome Melissa! 👋🏼 That Douglas DC-4E is a beauty! 😍🥰😎 I've never been much of an airliner fan myself, but....when it comes to the DC-3 and her later sisters, the Constellation, the Stratocruiser and the likes, I'm right in there! I imagine it's because they're prop aircraft, jets may be all good and fast, but you can't just beat the sound of a radial or inline engine!

I started my USAF career turning wrenches on the B-52H and then went to the (then new) B-2A. Hard for me to believe that the B-2 is being retired and the B-52 keeps on going! Not hard to see the lineage of many of these aircraft. Great episode.

OK. I have to mention the elephant in the room: Why is the canopy of the F11F Tiger opened in mid-flight? That was common with slow prop planes.

Great Episode. A couple weeks ago think I saw that DC-8 flying over the Port of LA. It looked like it took off from Long Beach. It headed north.

It's amazing how much the technology of the times has shaped the development of aircraft technology. The engineers seemed to get the edge on airframe development while power plant and aircraft control seems to have lagged behind sometimes seriously so. I was surprised about the problems with the gruman swing wing prototypes power plant. The F-111 and early F-14 suffered similar issues with the TF-30 almost 15 years later. Great video. Thanks for sharing.

Really fine video. It's always eye opening to see features on current cutting edge aircraft that date back many decades. Great photographs and great art. Thanks. I did sign up for the new channel feature.

Thanks!

Wow your team has grown, a great addition. Another great video Great work.

Regarding the Jaguar. I can highly recommend Corky Meyer‘s test pilot autobiography which has a hilarious and hair-raising chapter about this plane. Here is a part of it, text recognition not perfect on glossy paper: next thing I remember was that the buffeting had greatly eased and I was down to 200 mph. I gingerly advanced the power to land at Edwards as soon as possible. The chase pilot, my old friend Captain Zeke Hopkins, thought that I was a dead duck since he could see me rolling around in the cockpit for about 20 seconds while he was trying to rouse me on the radio. I let him know all was well after the buffeting eased up. I knew from my previous lift-off experience that the horizontal tail went wild from the disturbed canopy-open airflow when approaching below 160-mph takeoff and landing speeds. Consequently I knew that I had to put the aircraft on the lakebed very fast, flying at least 200 mph. Just before landing, Zeke called me to say that the ejection seat face curtain was fully extended and flapping on the back of the fiberglass section of the canopy frame, a fact I confirmed by a glance in my rear-view mirror. I reached back, grabbed the rubber handle on the curtain, and put it between my teeth, thinking to myself, what a B movie this has become! As the face curtain was fully extended, I suspected the seat was "hot" (ready for ejection) but I also thought that there might be a check device on the canopy that should prevent ejection until the canopy frame itself had been jettisoned. I was not all that sure, however, that it would be effective with the canopy glass gone. After touching down and slowing to 100 mph, I hurriedly unbuckled, scrambled out of the cockpit, and straddled the front fuselage, hanging on to the windshield, facing aft. I had managed to get back on the ground, and I had no taste for ejecting with a seat, which needed 5,000 feet altitude for a safe ejection. Several miles later the XF10F-1 Jaguar came to a standstill on the dry lakebed after completing a wide circle.

A wonderful window on aviation development. Thanks, Mike@

Another outstanding presentation, Mike!

As always,I enjoyed this one. I would like to know more about the XF 91’ engineering features. I will check the catalogue to see if you did one before I became a subscriber. Thanks again.

Hello Melissa! Looking forward to more fun and plane facts. Mike..you forgot one of the Grumman Cats in this review. The " Tiger Cat". We'll let you slide on this one 😂 Great channel!

McDonnell Stiletto & The F-104. I've always found it a bit strange that Kelly Johnson, was inspired by that.

Wasn't there a Tigercat after the Bearcat? The F7F?

I just love your channel. Never heard of the DC4E...she's pretty...that pic over Santa Monica was stellar

It's ironic that I took my first plane flight a year before you did, but mine was on an Eastern DC-8. I never did fly on a piston-powered airliner. (My only piston-powered flights were in a Piper Cherokee Six and a Bell 47 helicopter!)

Mais um excelente vídeo, obrigado por compartilhar

Interesting to note the DC4Es square windows. I have to wonder whether this with a pressurised cabin would have saved the Comet a decade later.

Spectacular, Mike. I thoroughly enjoyed all the content of this well presented video. And yes, I am a lifelong Sky King fan.

Hi Melissa and Mike, great video but I think you missed an important connection. You have a section of the video where you begin with the Grumman Wildcat, but failed to mention the last of the Navy's biplane fighters like the F3F, F2F that morphed into the Wildcat. The Wildcat at first still had the pilot operated landing gear, before hydraulics.

Excellent video as usual, and I am glad to know Melissa is onboard. I have two daughters, but none of them are interested in aviation, unfortunately. One is a psychologist and the other ine is in college studying to be a journalist. Anyway, I have chosen my favourite topic already. By any chance, will you be around Wichita, KS next week? I will be in training at Flightsafety there. If you do, the beer is on me! 🍻

Hi Mr M! Thank you :) (I was expecting to see L10-11 and MD-11 on this list 😉)

Cool!

Atlantis has repopped the old Revell Grumman F11F-1 Tiger kit. Unfortunately it's the earlier short-nose variant, and is an odd scale. Of course Lindberg's ancient 1/48 kit is still available too. Both come with Blue Angels decals, though Lindberg does have an issue with operational Gray/White scheme and Navy decals.

Excellent.

The Grumman XF10F was a bold step, and certainly a good research aircraft. The very unusual horizontal stabilizer was discussed in one of Hank Caruso's drawings. Apparently the small airfoil at the front of the hor. stab. acted as a canard to control the pitch of the hor stab. Or maybe it could be considered a very large trim tab? IIRC, the end result was that it was not as responsive as directly controlling the hor stab position, as you mentioned, causing pilot induced oscillations. I guess you never know for sure until you try!

I've heard that the B-21 is significantly smaller, than the B-2. A future topic ?

Another good example would be the P-47. Its' predecessors were at best only semi successful. But look what they led to..

So who came up with the Triple Tail first? Douglas designers or Kelly Johnson with the Constellation?

start youtube membership program

Is it accurate to say the C 47 'changed the world?' Convair built more 240s than Doug made C 47.

Good luck with the paywall, sure hope it doesn't impact your free programs.

Melissa is a lot cuter than you, Mike.😂😂 Let her speak sometimes.