A tragedy to be sure. Unfortunately those who know or care nothing about aviation history are already trying to stick their noses where they don't belong and are calling for more regulations.
Of course Erich, it’s the world we live in. Life’s risky, enjoy it while you have the gift and beware of the cradle to grave group that are here to “protect” us. That’s assuming they didn’t kill you before you got to the cradle stage.
Hope you and yours are doing well! "Boydo" and I had a great time together yesterday just catching up and documenting a "Fini Flight" for a 30 year fighter jock in his squadron. "Boydo" yet another good friend that I never would have met had it not been fo this wonderful thread. Little did I know what was ahead when I posted a couple of Mustang images all those years ago. To some this may be "the monster" thread, seems to me it's just a great place to meet up with old and new friends and where the "inner circle" is everybody, I am grateful for all of you.
Nice foggy inlet on the departure Viper I bought the viper for the DCS flightsim it fly's pretty slick still in it's early development stage but they getting there..
Also saw some clips from the new Microsoft flight sim and that also looks very very good..
But hey you all got the real stuff.
Yeah Boydo is a great guy very fortunate to have met him last year. Sorry Jim no overseas trips for this year...
Last month the B-17 "Ye Old Pub" made a stop in Knoxville.
I've learned that this B-17 used to be "Madras Maiden". In talking with the ground crew, this is a temporary situation and they did not know how long this aircraft would be known as Ye Old Pub.
Furthermore, they told me that the Madras Maiden was a B-17G and they converted Ye Old Pub to a B-17F. So, it lost the bottom gun turret on the nose amongst other things.
Seemed like a fairly major change to me, especially since it was temporary. Is this type of thing common? I've not been around the WWII bomber community very long.
Many WWII aircraft are modified to greater and lesser degrees, event to the degree that the model changes. There are many reasons that owners undertake modifications, availability of parts to maintain a model going forward, changing the aircraft to a rarer model, sometimes just the whim of the owner. Interesting though, had the decision been mine, I would've loved a B17 with the nose gunner ball turret, there's just no ryhme or reason to what folks with funny money do........
Hope you and yours are doing well! "Boydo" and I had a great time together yesterday just catching up and documenting a "Fini Flight" for a 30 year fighter jock in his squadron. "Boydo" yet another good friend that I never would have met had it not been fo this wonderful thread. Little did I know what was ahead when I posted a couple of Mustang images all those years ago. To some this may be "the monster" thread, seems to me it's just a great place to meet up with old and new friends and where the "inner circle" is everybody, I am grateful for all of you....Show more →
God knows how I am thankful that I did pass by this great forum, this thread specially, to get to know great and special brothers and sisters, although for quite a period I am just reading and not participating. @JamesG saw how happy I was (and still) when I met him "physically" at RIAT17.
You did this Jim, you are the one who gathered us all, if anyone from here has a great feelings about the other before meeting physically, the reason is you.
bkp944 wrote:
. . . .
I've learned that this B-17 used to be "Madras Maiden". . . .
Furthermore, they told me that the Madras Maiden was a B-17G and they converted Ye Old Pub to a B-17F. So, it lost the bottom gun turret on the nose amongst other things.
Brian
Before it became "Madras Maiden," this B17 was "Chuckie" and was at the Virginia Military Aviation Museum. During some tough economic times in 2013, the museum's owner, Jerry Yagen, sold several aircraft, including "Chuckie." The B17 went to The Tillamook Air Museum, in Oregon and was renamed "Madras Maiden."
God knows how I am thankful that I did pass by this great forum, this thread specially, to get to know great and special brothers and sisters, although for quite a period I am just reading and not participating. @JamesG@ saw how happy I was (and still) when I met him "physically" at RIAT17.
You did this Jim, you are the one who gathered us all, if anyone from here has a great feelings about the other before meeting physically, the reason is you.
Hi Anwar,
You are very kind (but we have come to know that), I started this thread, but each and every person in our group adds a facet that makes it what it is. Photography is just the conveyance that brought us together, but I dare say if we never captured another image, we would be drawn back here because of the bonds that have been established. MA2A and how we treat each other was an exceptional anomaly way back when the world wasn't nearly as polarized as it is today, which makes it even more remarkable now. We've lost a few folks and I'm guessing that some of that was caused by the fact that the founder is a pretty conservative guy and even though we don't really spend much time in that area, that knowledge was just untenable for a few of our friends. We don't all agree on things spiritual, political, just like we don't all shoot the same gear, but think most of us would go to the mat for one another and that's what counts when you boil it all down.
In the end, I'm humbled and touched to be a small part of this wonderful spot and to have you all as friends, 7 million + views kind of indicates that there are a lot of people who feel the same way.
Prior to Yagen acquiring it a couple in Fort Worth owned "Chuckie" and worked for years meticulously restoring the B17. The husband passed away and I think they were very thin on assets due to the cost of their restoration efforts so his wife reluctantly sole the aircraft to Yagen's museum. Rumor has it that the B17 brought around a million dollars at that point.
I used to see it in the hangar when I used The Pacific Prowler for a photo platform...............
I'm so paranoid about back ups but I think the concern is merited. Been getting a Softraid warning that one of my drives is 60 times more likely to fail in the next six months when compared to a healthy drive. I began troubleshooting the array that the alert was coming from and narrowed it down to one of two 8TB drives. The array is configured as a RAID 5 so theoretically one should be able to slap a new 8TB drive in and let the array fix itself....theoretically. So, I do that, but in a few minutes the alert pops up again. I'm thinking it is a drive bay failure on one of my OWC Thunderbay units, which has never happened before. Now I'm testing each of the drives individually in a drive cradle to determine if that's the problem.
Back to my paranoia, so obviously, whatever at fault here, this 32TB of client files is toast. Fortunately I have four other back ups of that data spinning in to locations, as well as all but my most recent assignments on hard drives in padded envelopes at a third location. Still, it just isn't a good feeling. I ordered a Thunderbay 8 Raid unit a little while ago and am going to fill it with Enterprise level 16TB Helium Drives from Seagate. You think that you have enough back ups in place to feel comfortable, but then a failure like this comes out of the blue and you realize, much as you don't really want to spend the money, this is your life's work you're talking about. The process of continually upgrading to newer enclosure technology filled with newer and more reliable drives is just a fact of life, obviously, as I rocket toward 2 Petabytes of storage. Still way less expensive than any cloud storage plan I've looked into, the cheapest being $7,000 a year.
