The Flying Heritage Collection

If you are tired of airplanes in general, go no further. I have this Paul Allen Flying Heritage Collection to blog along with two Boeing Tours (that's right, two of them) and there is a third museum I am looking at for next week.

Donna was under doctor's orders to stay in bed so off I go. Hey, I wasn't under any medical instructions and I did make sure she was comfortable before I left...☺

It would take too much of my time detailing Paul Allen's ventures in space, music, sports, artificial intelligence or philanthropy so you can just go here to find out more about his life. He does seem to have an interest in military history so the Flying Heritage Collection was my tour of the day. At the fare of $12 to get in here at Paine Field, I still thought it was a bargain all the same.

This Hawker Hurricane MK XIIA, with a V-12 Packard/Merlin engine, was born in 1942 and sent to the Royal Canadian Air Force but never saw duty. It crashed landed in the 1950's and was recovered years later to be restored. There's always been competition between the Spitfire and the Hurricane about which was Great Britains most ferocious fighter. While the Spitfire was more famous, the Hurricane downed more German aircraft. It along with all the planes in the collection are in flying condition and do go out once in a while...but some are a "one of a kind" or "last one" and will never be flown again.

Ok... Most aviation enthusiasts have vivid memories of the Supermarine Spitfire MK VC  from all the WWII war movies that always seem to show the Spitfires in couragous dogfights over the London skies. This plane had an awesome wide arrange of deadly armaments. 

Not exactly a "flying machine", this German Kattenkrofrad was still an interesting design, 1/2 motorcycle/1/2 tank and it would be an awesome sight at next Sturgis Rally in 2015. Of all the war movies I've watched in the 1950's, I never remember seeing the Kattenkrofrad.

This only counts as "flying" because of the round it fires up into the air. Another first for me is this close up of a German Flak 37 Anti-aircraft gun. The word flak comes from the German word..."flugabwenhrkanone", whew, now I see why they shortened it to FLAK. This beast could shoot 15 rounds per minute of 20 pound shells to over 30,000 feet in altitude. It was designed in the early thirties in Sweden to avoid treaty restrictions. 

The Grumman F6F-5 Hellcat downed more than 5000 Japanese aircraft during the war. Wide short wings that could be folded after landing on aircraft carriers, it was a formidable fighter plane. The Hellcat was known to be able to take severe punishment, and still fly home.

This is the only surviving Focke-Wulf  Fw 190 D-13 Long Nose and although fully restored, it will never be flown again. This plane had the nickname of "Butcher Bird"...not a plane I'd want to tangle with.

This is one truly bad motherhumper of a flying machine. The V-2 rocket was an indiscriminate killer because of such a poor guidance system was sort of like "lighting a fuse and hoping for the best". Nearly 3000 were fired from Germany into England and Netherlands. This one was uncovered in the 1990's (imagine, still there in the 90's) at an underground location in Nordhausen, Germany.

We tend to think that our generation has changed technology to its extreme in the 1990's and 2000's but if you consider the aircraft and engine technology accomplishments between 1939 and 1945 it is like night and day. One example is the Pratt & Whitney R-2800-79 called the "double wasp", it was a powerful radial 18 cylinder engine producing between 2,100 or 2,800 horsepower and used on long range bombers and fighter planes. Over 125,000 engines were built during the war...ONE HUNDERED TWENTY FIVE THOUSAND...most were built by Ford.

After the war this Mitsubishi Zero was found in a Georgia junk yard and is still in its unrestored condition.

The collection volunteer who I was talking to suspected that after the war, the plane in a junk yard, was attacked by southern patriots wielding axes.

One of my favorite planes is still the Lockheed P-38 Lightning just because of its twin engine and twin boom...it just looks bad!

I asked the volunteer why Paul Allen doesn't have a P-38 in his collection and all the poor guy could do was to bob his head up and down while repeating, "we can only comment on planes we have here on the property". Ok, ok I get the hint... Paul has one, but just not prepared to display it yet...cool.

The Republic P24D Thunderbolt was one of the heaviest, single engine fighters made.

Who hasn't seen or loved the North American P51's flying over 400 mph at the air races at Reno? I've always thought of the P51 as an "all American" plane, but it was actually the British, who in 1940, asked the North American Aviation Company to develop and then build the Mustangs to their specifications. The Mustang was a fast fighter and also a long range bomber.

The Fieseler FI 103 and 103R were a destructive invention from a desperate country. The 103 was officially named as a V-1 rocket, but the more familiar name in for it in England was...the buzz bomb.

The 103R (guess R was for the rider :-o) was a pilot manned 

V-1 that would improve on its accuracy most likely at the expense of the pilot. 

Again, these two rockets (and more) were found in the 1990's near Nordhaisen, Germany. The Soviet Army discovered the underground missile factory after the war and destroyed the entrances only to be re-discovered nearly a half century later... it makes me wonder what the hell else is still hiding in Europe these days?

This pterodactyl looking thing hanging from the ceiling is a 318 White Knight carrier aircraft that took the SpaceShipOne to an altitude of nearly 9 miles before launching. This White Knight is the actual plane that was used.

This is an exact replica of the original SpaceShipOne that is hanging in Washington DC at the Smithsonian. 

This short clip was from the Collections parking lot. I had noticed what looked like a new shiny Southwest plane. I had asked the same volunteer while talking about the P38 if the Southwest plane was new. No, that building is where they do a thorough maintenance or repair that the normal airline company is unable to do or has the technology to perform.

That's all for this week... or a couple days anyhow.