Thankfully for all concerned, it righted itself and flew cheekily on up the valley until it was out of my sight wiggling its wings all the way.
I am aware that I’d make a pretty useless eyewitness to anything, as I am not visually oriented, and tend not to take in details, but I know this was not a type of plane I’d ever seen before. I maintain it had three propellers mounted at the front of each wing. I am clear on that point because I was much put out by the black smoky reek coming out of each propeller engine.
I phoned Sig Other to ask for help in searching online to find out what the plane was. The conversation went along the lines of:
Me “A huge, but not that big plane was flying alongside the motorway nearly level with the carriageway. It was over the steep sides of the hills, so was not in danger of hitting anything. It had 6 propellers.”
SO “No idea what has six engines. I’ll ask Wiki Q’s, but what size was it?”
Me “It was larger than a spitfire but smaller than Concord. It was completely different to a jet. It looked quite old.” (A reasonable response in my opinion).
Some time later …
SO “Could it have been a Messerschmitt Me 323?”
http://www.warbirdsresourcegroup.org/LRG/me323.html
Me “Nice plane but too old, and much more frightening than the one I saw.”
SO “What about a B-36?”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convair_B-36
Me “ Nothing like it!”
I paused to snort disdainfully when it dawned on me why a search for B 36 produced lingerie sites.
SO “It must have been a Hercules!”
http://www.airplanemodelworks.com/c130-super-hercules-model-plane-p-259.html
Me “Absolutely not. It had 6 propellers. It had no markings on it.”
SO “There is no plane of that description still flying. Other people googling this have been told that. How big was it?”
Me “I don’t know. I am now convinced it was a mirage or a UFO. Will I call NATO and ask if one of their aircraft is missing?”
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0035153/
SO “You’ll recall Father Ted with a small cow in one hand explaining size and distance vis a vis the cows in the field to Father Dougal …”
Me “Grrrrrr”
SO “This is the only pic online and it doesn’t look like a real plane.”
http://i87.photobucket.com/albums/k144/h3mpy/herc.jpg
Me “Yes!! That looks more like it!”
The end result of an hour's phonecall and joint search-engining is that we don't know what I saw, but I now know more about the Luftwaffe than I needed to.
2 comments:
Well, I didn’t know you had such an interest in strategic bombers. Do you remember that woman (played by Nancy Allen) in Spielberg’s 1941 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078723/ who could only reach the peak of … but this is a family blog.
When I was a kid I lived near RAF Waddington, a Vulcan bomber base, and I spent one summer holidays watching the planes take off and land through my new binoculars; with my Observer’s Book of Aircraft and another called Warplanes of the World by my side I could soon name them all.
But those days are long over, and the planes I remember are all retired (except the Hercules, spookily), so I can’t help you, except to say that the Russians have all kinds of exotic cargo planes, though why one would bother flying to Abington I don’t know.
I had a great time at tea break checking the links; never heard of the ME323 so learnt something new. What a strange beast! Partly the funny undercarriage and nose – and I didn’t know there were any 6 engined aircraft in WWII.
One of my very private guilty pleasures is the James Stewart film “Strategic Air Command” http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0048667/ – always mesmerised by the B36 (though it does, once you get down to it, look like a long tin can). Odd that it was called the Peacemaker, what with General Curtis LeMay always after nuking the Russkies – though in fact the B36 never dropped a bomb in anger (it dropped a couple by accident!) nor killed anyone, so perhaps it‘s right. And in the film, the B36 crashes in the Arctic, and that’s the story, so not a war story (you’ll see IMBD calls it ‘dull’ – just what I like), and even the cold war propaganda about SAC making the world safe for Americans isn’t that overdone – it’s comforting in a nostalgic kind of way.
I went on to check the Northrop YB-35 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_YB-35, the first of the ‘flying wing’ bombers, and a failure; way ahead of what the technology of the time could cope with. Flying wings are inherently unstable and a computer is really needed – the modern B2 stealth bomber http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B-2_Spirit works fine. The YB-35 was developed into the YB-49 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_YB-49 by changing to jet engines. This was the ‘Flying Wing’ that dropped the A-Bomb on the Martians in the 1953 film War of the Worlds, to no avail. It’s appearance always sent a shiver up my spine – it was wonderful glimpse of the future (though in fact a failure from the past – the first bit of retro in my life).
Whoops! I see it’s me that’s got the interest in strategic bombers (or should I say ‘still has’). My second childhood (‘boyhood’) no doubt. Hope you ‘label’ the article and I look forward to more blogging from you about them – what about something on the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XB-70_Valkyrie?
PS the antidote to the above madness is Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove http://soundamerica.com/soundamerica/sounds/play.cfm?tpath=/sounds/movies/D-i/Dr_Strangelove/chickens.wav&tname=chickens.wav
Dr Strangelove as an antidote to anything is a bit hard to accept, but I agree on the perenial dullness of James Stewart.
I had further musings about the ME323 looking as if it should have a main character role in a Terry Pratchett book. Something about the multiple little wheels prompted that thought.
I'm not sure I want to be responsible for more boyish airplane lust, but the Tupolev models are worth a look. My fav is the Tupolev ANT-20 Maxim Gorki. This of course fits with the six engine theme, but I can guarantee my sighting was not the ANT-20.
http://www.aviastar.org/air/russia/ant-20.php
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