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Tom Cleaver
930 articles

Airplane porn!

September 20, 2015 · in Aviation · 6 · 2.1K

Some shots taken in 1997-98 with the Collings Foundation's B-24, back when she was painted as "All American"

Reader reactions:
3  Awesome

5 additional images. Click to enlarge.


6 responses

  1. Whenever I see a photo of a Liberator taken from above like this, I always think of that famous image of one with most of its wing missing, hit by flak while on a mission over the Rumanian oil fields, and photographed by crew in a plane flying higher in the same formation.

  2. Tom, that's the best title for a model article I've ever seen! It gets ones attention! Were you in sales, perchance?

    Might make a T-shirt that would stop folks in their tracks. A nice tasteful fire engine red, with white lettering. Like the "WTF" one I saw in a catalogue.

    Anyhow, great photos, good to see one flying, after all this time.

    I saw the Commemorative AFs LB-30 here a couple of months back. Got to see it land and take off. When it taxied, you could really hear the brakes. Yeah! Also got to talk to an older gentlemen who was a Corporal/ nose gunner on Js out of Foggia. Got shot down going to Austria one day, spent several months as a guest of the Reich. I hope I'm as sharp as he was, when/if I'm his age. Our folks drove him over to the Lib, and gave him a tour. Just a great day, all around.

    The other high point, the left inner sprung an oil leak, so the crew had to pull the cowling panels, while on a maint platform and ladders, and oil dripped all over them and the tarmac, just like the old days! Labor intensive!

  3. Back in the day ...one had to set up the F stops and the shutter speed take a few light meters readings, do some bracketing and hope for the best. Now days a computer chip dumb downs the art of photography to where you can point and shoot and take all the credit.Also, these photos had to be taken from another a/c ...the kind that bumps around with the up drafts and down drafts and maybe the prop wash of another airplane. Combine that with the needs of the camera and you have to be a pro to shoot the "All American".

    Two thumbs up on this one TC.

    • Actually, this was done with an auto camera (it was on film) using shutter-priority. Personally, as someone who recalls all that bracketing up and down, which usually resulted in using three rolls of 35-shot film to get 5 photos, if you didn't miss the shot altogether going through all that, I am all in favor of the new cameras. The point of a camera is to get the damn picture. The auto--cameras (I had a Canon XD-11) started to allow you to pay attention to composition in the camera, getting the shot. The new ones do that completely. Hooray! Particularly if you engage in "action" photography, as I mostly do.

  4. Nice looking photos of a real B-24 and if anyone has built a model like I did, wow! there has to be lots of weight in the nose to hold its' front gear on the table...

  5. Nice looking photos of a real B-24 and if anyone has built a model like I did, wow! there has to be lots of weight in the nose to hold its' front gear on the table... RJW.

    1 attached image. Click to enlarge.

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