Friday, October 02, 2020

this is terrific, the world record flugtug distance (have I lost you already?) was set by Miss Mitchell II! (In the nearby Hangar #3 at Fleming Field in South St. Paul is the actual B 25 Miss Mitchell)






Rachel Norman's team "Major Trouble and the Dirty Dixies,"  set a new record with the "Miss Mitchell II," a man-made and woman-piloted flying machine broke the year 2000 previous world record of 195 feet.

 "Major Trouble and the Dirty Dixies," of Inver Grove Heights, came up with the idea to model their flying craft after Miss Mitchell. They came up with a very good representation of Miss Mitchell.

The B-25J "Miss Mitchell" served in the 310th Bomb Group, 57th Bomb Wing of the 12th Air Force in North Africa and Italy completing over 130 missions.  https://commemorativeairforce.org/aircraft/7

 A lot of engineering, time and testing were put into the craft, and it was worth it! The aircraft was pushed from the 30 ft high platform, released from its base and cleared the world record, flying 207 ft


skip the first 38 seconds on this next one, blogger won't allow me aymore to change the code to get videos to start on queue

now I have a new glider ambition, should I win the lotto. I have for the past 20 years wanted a Platz Glider, now I want a glider that looks like a WW2 bomber. 

Is this not the coolest looking glider you've ever seen? 

https://www.rivertowns.net/news/942111-woodbury-womans-world-record-flight-flugtag

https://www.mprnews.org/story/2019/03/19/flugtag-returns-to-st-paul

http://minnesotawingblog.blogspot.com/2010/07/flugtag.html

3 comments:

  1. Well done, considering that the original B-25 reportedly was difficult to land on water.

    (Sign of the times that I wondered if this was a 2020 event (it was 2010) and nobody wore face masks....)

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  2. Kim, lol, you're killing me... the original B 25 was difficult to land on water huh? You mean, as opposed to the other bombers that crashed on water exactly as career ending? Lol... yeah, well, I can't get over the sentence "reportedly was difficult to land on water" which seems to apply to ALL airplanes NOT DESIGNED to make water landings... you know, any not equippped with floats, skis, amphib boat shell bottom... etc
    Anyway, are you a glider fan like me? Are you familiar with the PLatz?
    If you were to choose a glider from a line up of all available from history and present, like, if you won the lotto, what 2 would you choose to fly?
    I'd go for the Platz, and this B 25

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  3. Love gliders, and especially aerobatics in a glider. As for water landings in WW2 bomber, for obvious reasons I never tried one myself, but rely on what I've read about the subject. Some planes were easier to ditch than others, and apparently the B-25 was in the difficult end of that scale - to the point where pilots had discussed if it was possible to make a survivable water landing in one at all (though clearly it was, witness tales from those who succeeded).
    The article below suggests that there were differences between planes being ditched: "The B-24 bomber, in particular, had exhibited appalling ditching behavior in operational service".
    Some research went into the subject, and they even sacrificed a B-24 trying to learn about it:

    https://vimeo.com/371163321 (actual ditching is at 2:00)


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