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By: - 21st November 2013 at 16:20 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Combat gliders turned into chicken sheds, homes, caravans, trailers, etc.
By: - 21st November 2013 at 17:12 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Power&Passion
Are you a vicar ? My local vicar is so 'wooden' you can't tell the difference between him and a plank.
Great comment - by the way ! I do like a bit of religeous fire and brimstone with my supper.
By: - 21st November 2013 at 19:04 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
What are some of the wonderful things you have found warbirds turned into ?
Entertainment :)
By: - 21st November 2013 at 19:13 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Making young folk (and old) happy on a nice day out--as above by Moth Minor.
By: - 23rd November 2013 at 09:26 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
The Calling
Power&PassionAre you a vicar ? My local vicar is so 'wooden' you can't tell the difference between him and a plank.
Great comment - by the way ! I do like a bit of religous fire and brimstone with my supper.
I would be a vicar except I am too into sex, alcohol, lying ("just going to the auction to look") and youtube videos of rhubarbs to probably make it into a collar. All these vices do not, however, preclude me from politics, which is a different field of theology, or battle of ideas. Toronto mayor Rob Ford has established the high water mark for political behaviour, and I doubt that there is anything anyone can conjure to beat him, unless Boris Johnson decides to up the vaudeville. So there is a place where I can lay my talents.
In theology there is ample provision for war, blood and guts : just read the old Testament. I have to admit that part of the pleasure of warbirds is the fact that they expressly are tools of war. No thought of fuel economy and plenty of head scratching over how to fit a 57mm cannon into a Mosquito. That is, how to deliver a piece of metal as thick as your wrist at 500 metres per second into the hide of someone with different ideas.
(1 Corinthians 13:11) When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. So to me warbirds are about the battle of ideas. I look at a Messerschmit and I see bodies being turned to soap. I look at a Kawa saki Hien and I see folk chopped with swords for sport. I like a piece of metal that introduced some counter arguments into these paradigms.
I do worry about turning ploughshears to swords, but then the naivete post WW1 delivered the world into the abyss of WW2. "Why are you so into warbirds and war?" the missus says. I guess the answer is that so my kids don't have to be in one, if they actually know what a war is and what tools of war do. It does help that warbirds look good too, in a plug ugly A-10 Warthog way, or liquid cooled V 12 front end way. Then the sound of a prop tip breaking the sound barrier. What's not to like? Amen.
By: - 23rd November 2013 at 10:41 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Ploughshares..
By: - 23rd November 2013 at 11:05 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Nitpicker
By: - 23rd November 2013 at 11:37 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Making young folk (and old) happy on a nice day out--as above by Moth Minor.
Keeps people in employment ,ie fitters,pilots,insurance,fuel sellers,part suppliers,museum staff, tourism, thus keeps the baying hounds from the doors and starvation away.
Idle hands make work for the devil :)
By: - 11th October 2014 at 11:56 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Air compressor
What are some of the wonderful things you have found warbirds turned into ?
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Here is a Cheetah engine which was used as an air compressor. The exhaust valve gear has been removed and the exhaust manifold has been blocked at its usual exit and a pipe fitting welded in. I assume either an electric motor or other engine was coupled to the prop shaft to drive the system. I have seen this before in four cylinder car engines where two cylinders ran conventionally while two were adapted in the same way to pump air, being a self contained 'bush mechanics' air compressor. Given the volumetric capacity of a Cheetah engine this would have pumped a huge amount of air.
By: - 11th October 2014 at 16:28 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
I would be a vicar except I am too into sex, alcohol, lying
Sounds like you're over-qualified
By: - 11th October 2014 at 16:34 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
powerandpassion, if you are not familiar with it you may appreciate this poem known as The Ballad of Tubal Cain. I first discovered it years ago when it was reproduced in Model Engineer magazine and found it inspiring. Here is the link:
http://phoenixmasonry.org/tubal_cain_poem.htm
By: - 14th October 2014 at 03:56 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Powerful stuff and very well expressed, powerandpassion.
Unfortunately I find none of your explanations/excuses express the truth, at least for me.
How do I go from drawing disintegrating RAF .303 belt clips with a nice rack of rounds to recite Vespers?
Understanding the technology of the Lancaster is a very big thrill. But how do I divorce myself from the consequences? And then pray "Lord, show your love to all men".
Why is it weapons that provide the thrill of understanding, the lust to understand and possess the understanding? Ploughshares are boring. Yes, a DH Comet 4 is beautiful, but I'd go for a Lanc, Halifax or Stirling any time. Not so much a Wellington, funnily enough.
Or is it simply that I was born in the middle of WWII, surrounded by uniforms, big powerful military machinery and people living at a different level of intensity?
Mike
By: - 14th October 2014 at 04:29 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
A man without his sword is just a man
A horse with out his armor and knight is just a horse.
A chariot carrying hay instead of bow man is just a chariot.
A "war"bird without weapons is just an airplane.
By: - 14th October 2014 at 17:06 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
What are some of the wonderful things you have found warbirds turned into ?
I think firebombers are the best examples of warbirds doing more humane work in second careers. With the B-17 arguably being the biggest change (from bombing Dresden and the like to dropping water/borate on fires). Since retired as a fire bomber.
Hueys (and others) as civilian medevac choppers.
Air racers.
Fighter canopies serving as mini greenhouses.
Titan missiles launching peacefull satellites.
etc.
By: - 17th October 2014 at 18:58 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Not going to join in the theological debate (Despite being a clergyman's son - or possibly due to that fact!) but as a collector of WW1 Trench Art I have always found things fashioned from military equipment and munitions fascinating. Around the area I live there are still the odd farm trailers with wartime surplus aircraft wheels, though tyres are becoming a problem I believe. Also I have heard several local versions of stories of tail wheels from crash sites being used for wheelbarrows, but have yet to actually see one! Other tales involve aircraft panelling being used to repair several chicken sheds and pigsties locally, but they are always long gone when I try to track them down! I was once involved in the recovery of a Hadrian frame that had served as a chicken shed - Now at YAM after I donated it to them.
Abroad my fascination with French junk shops has uncovered a couple of portable compressor units featuring B17 oxygen bottles, but the wife put her foot down at the time when I suggested bringing them back in our already overcrowded VW camper (Kids and their toys taking up most of the room).
More recently I spotted the following items on display at the excellent Szolnok Repülőmúzeum in Hungary - a stove made from a B17 wheel and some rather fetching privy doors panelled in aircraft skinning complete with the aircraft's national insignia still showing - not sure whether retaining this had been a deliberate feature or not but the display was balanced with one being American and one German. Finally a Fiat G12 Fuselage section - the sole surviving representative of its type I believe, that had served as a woodshed on a farm in Hungary for many years, after it was destroyed on an airfield by strafing P-51s near the end of the war.
By: - 18th October 2014 at 06:33 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
powerandpassion, if you are not familiar with it you may appreciate this poem known as The Ballad of Tubal Cain. I first discovered it years ago when it was reproduced in Model Engineer magazine and found it inspiring. Here is the link:
http://phoenixmasonry.org/tubal_cain_poem.htm
That was a blast from the past. I've not come across that since I left scholle ???? years ago.
By: - 18th October 2014 at 07:49 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
I recall many years ago, back in my native Canada, walking past a place and my eye being caught by flower pots on one property that very clearly were engine cylinders.
I caught the attention of the property owner and we chatted a bit about it. it turns out that he was an aviation fanatic and his wife was an avid gardener.
Long story short, they merged their passions and she used his engine cylinders (which came from a variety of WWII radial engines) to hold her flower pots.
At least two of the cylinders came from Bristol Hercules engines, but I don't recall the sources of the rest. There were eight or ten in all.
By: - 18th October 2014 at 08:23 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Great poem
powerandpassion, if you are not familiar with it you may appreciate this poem known as The Ballad of Tubal Cain. I first discovered it years ago when it was reproduced in Model Engineer magazine and found it inspiring. Here is the link:
http://phoenixmasonry.org/tubal_cain_poem.htm
A great poem that sums it all up pretty well !
By: - 18th October 2014 at 08:27 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
I think firebombers are the best examples of warbirds doing more humane work in second careers.
Firebombers are probably the most spectacular role reversal for heavy bombers there could be. A great example. It would pay in the modern airshow, once there has been a simulated napalm dropping low pass, to send in a firebomber with dyed up retardant to put the flames out...
By: - 18th October 2014 at 08:31 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Not going to join in the theological debate (Despite being a clergyman's son - or possibly due to that fact!) but as a collector of WW1 Trench Art I have always found things fashioned from military equipment and munitions fascinating. Around the area I live there are still the odd farm trailers with wartime surplus aircraft wheels, though tyres are becoming a problem I believe. Also I have heard several local versions of stories of tail wheels from crash sites being used for wheelbarrows, but have yet to actually see one! Other tales involve aircraft panelling being used to repair several chicken sheds and pigsties locally, but they are always long gone when I try to track them down! I was once involved in the recovery of a Hadrian frame that had served as a chicken shed - Now at YAM after I donated it to them.Abroad my fascination with French junk shops has uncovered a couple of portable compressor units featuring B17 oxygen bottles, but the wife put her foot down at the time when I suggested bringing them back in our already overcrowded VW camper (Kids and their toys taking up most of the room).
More recently I spotted the following items on display at the excellent Szolnok Repülőmúzeum in Hungary - a stove made from a B17 wheel and some rather fetching privy doors panelled in aircraft skinning complete with the aircraft's national insignia still showing - not sure whether retaining this had been a deliberate feature or not but the display was balanced with one being American and one German. Finally a Fiat G12 Fuselage section - the sole surviving representative of its type I believe, that had served as a woodshed on a farm in Hungary for many years, after it was destroyed on an airfield by strafing P-51s near the end of the war.
Fantastic S>P ! I wonder how close the magnesium wheel stove might have got to rapid carbonising of the sausages !
Posts: 1,354
By: powerandpassion - 21st November 2013 at 14:08
Without doubt, the historical aviation movement is doing God's work. To take a flat sheet of metal and turn it into compound curves is a minor miracle. No doubt the trumpets that crumbled the walls of Jericho (Joshua 6:1-27) sounded like Merlins. But then Isiah reckons that Spitfires should be made into frying pans, and to their credit the scrap metal dealers have been doing righteous work : (Isiah 2:4) "And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; and He will teach us of His ways, and we will walk in His paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. And He shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into ploughshears, and their spears into pruning hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more."
So in fact are we doing wrong resurrecting warbirds? If I met Isiah in a bar, however, I would have to challenge him on this. It seems that we keep on having wars, and pretending that the human condition has escaped this misfortune can be counter productive. It was the Isolationism of the United States and the Appeasement of Great Britain that enabled Hitler. In fact warbirds are a touchstone for the gimlet eyed youth of today to ask "what was this thing WW2?" as they increasingly do. There has to be a reason for pushing aluminium through the sky with a 1,000 horsepower engine, machine guns and 20mm cannon. It was called Mein Kampf and it didn't have a good ending for you, son. So I say putting a warbird in the sky is doing God's work, and keep on.
I may be wrong. It may pay to put a lightning rod on your hangar. I am ventilating this because I keep thinking of Isiah when I find wartime aeroplane relics turned (and by virtue of this preserved) into useful and ingenious civilian applications. I think that a drop tank turned into a child's playmobile would have warmed the heart of the original designer more than extension of bomber cover that spurred it originally into being. How many drop tanks on wheels have I seen with a cutout to fit a five year old, war materiel turned into a thing of simple joy, while my calculating eyes are trying to fit its geometry to images of Mustangs and Vampires. And then there I am walking through a Vietnamese village, not seeing a chicken coop, but a piece of Bell UH-1 Iroquois with chickens in it.
Most of the stuff is preserved by farmers. KX generators from Merlins used to make home made DC welders. A workshop bench that was an upside down Merlin engine cradle. 16 inch wheels from Mosquitos that were the perfect diameter for the scarifiers preparing wheatfields, as close to Isiah as you could get. No doubt about it, when I have found a plough shear in the hands of sweet innocents, I have wrested it from them, eyes aglow, and turned it back into a sword.
In time, there will be no plough shears left. The generation that dealt with postwar rationing, that bought an airframe at an auction just for its bolts, are going and gone. In a way, the ingenuity of what they did with surplus war material is a story in itself that is worth documenting. I try and photograph the thing in its found context before it is returned to its lethal place. I have an instinct that the human story in the found context will hook into future generations more readily than just the single dimension of wartime use. Two pictures : a sweet little, old lady next to her potted flowers, then the gleaming weapon, an aircraft resurrected from tubular members recovered from her potted flower stands.
What are some of the wonderful things you have found warbirds turned into ?