FD Aircraft 20

[pMASTER]

Amazing work, @darthpanda!

[The_Sprinklez]

USA, F-16 Fighting Falcons of the Air Force Test Center (Edwards AFB, California)

[Hood]

Excellent work from everyone.

[darthpanda]

Great Britain - Westland Wessex variants

[st_lawrence]

As expected, those Lightnings are magnificent! Great job @darthpanda

[reytuerto]

Good morning guys!
Some vintage aircraft, biplanes and monoplanes:

WACO Ten (O Series) was the commercially the most succesful model of the company, with almost 1800 aircraft sold from 1927 to 1933. In Brazil, Waco 10 was active with the government side during the 1932 Civil War.


The biplanes of WACO F series were training aircraft with several improvements to be used as light warplanes, even as fighters with the forward cockpid seald with canvas; several were bought mainly by Latinamerican air forces during the 1930s, Brazil alone with 64 airplanes. Despite being reejected by the USAAC in the militray primary trainer program (won by the well known Stearman biplane), WACO F`s main customer was the US Civilian Pilot Training Program, with more than 600 aircraft during WWII.


The most powerful military WACO aircraft was the D series, built specifically for the foreign market. It was a versatile aircraft used as a scout in observation and recce missions, but also as light bomber and trainer. 6 were bought by Uruguay, 4 by Nicaragua and 2 by Cuba.


Northorp Alpha was an all metal, single engine, low wing monoplane for a pilot in an open cockpit and a cabin for 7 passengers or the equivalent weight in mail, designed by Jack Northrop, a talented engineer. The main customer was TWA which used this model from 1931 to 1935 in their transcontinental routes.


Northrop Delta was also an all metal, single engine, low wing monoplane, but with an enclosed cockpit for the pilot (in the first models, only one pilot, from model 1D, two pilots side by side) and a roomy cabin for up to 8 passengers. One aircraft was bought by the US Coast Guard and named RT-1 (aka Golden Goose) and used as personal transport for the Secretary of the Treasury Mr. H. Morgenthau Jr in the late 1930s. Northrop Delta was built (20 aircraft until 1940) under license by Canadian Vickers and used by RCAF as survey aircraft. From Mk. III, Deltas had a modified empenage.


Cheers.

[darthpanda]

Westland Wessex - Operators (Australia, Brunei, Ghana, Iraq, Oman, UK, Uraguay)

[Sheepster]

Vickers Wellesley

With the abandoning of the British airship programme in 1930, Barnes Wallis took his experience designing the R.100 and applied this to lightweight stressed structure for aircraft.



In 1931 a tender was placed for a geneal purpose bombing and torpedo aircraft, and Vickers presented designs for both biplane and monoplane aircraft, both with Wallis' new geodetic internal structure. The Air Ministry selected the more "traditional" biplane for construction of a prototype, but Wallis was sure of the superiority of the monoplane design that Vickers built the monoplane themselves as a private venture. The biplane's performance was good, and 150 were ordered, but when the PV monoplane was flown 10 months after the biplane prototype the enormous improvement in capabilities of the monoplane led to the biplane order being cancelled and instead in September 1935 an order was placed for 96 of the new Wellesley monoplanes, now reclassed as a medium bomber. The RAF was leaping forward with technology and modernising. In early 1937 the first Wellesleys entered service, both in home squadrons based in the UK, and the Middle East, where they started to replace the now outdated biplanes.
In this early iteration of geodetic construction the fuselage stucture was continuous, with no ability to have an internal bombbay, instead bomb panniers were designed for under each wing. The later Wellington would have the internal bombbay design solved. With the Wellesley's potential for long-range flight a position for a third crewman was introduced with extended cockpit glazing on some aircraft. This seems to not even have warranted a changed model number from Vickers for these aircraft, but they are sometimes incorrectly labelled as "Mk.II" - a term never used by either the RAF or Vickers.
As the start of a new breed of RAF aircraft, the Wellesley's found themselves involved in several design reseach projects. An early production aircraft was fitted with the first Bristol Hercules engine, and became the testbed for that engine's development - although no production aircraft were ever fitted with Hercules's. Due to their prodigious fuel capacity Wellesley's were used for the design of a fuel dumping system to allow weight reduction for emergency landings. And most significantly the potential of the Wellesley for long-range flight was realised, and several aircraft were de-militarised and optimised for a record-breaking non-stop flight.
By 1939 the Wellesleys were becoming outdated themselves, being replaced by HP Hampdens and Vickers' own Wellingtons, but many were still in service in remote East Africa when Italy declared war and performed stirling service there.

[Hood]

Excellent additions!

[General_Dave_1]

Burkina Faso, the three Embraer A-29B Super Tucano's of the Burkina Faso Air Force. (Force Aérienne du Burkina Faso)