Favorites - Pedro Luz Cunha

pplcunha

All Blacks invade the home of French rugby:
While the press release from ATR boasts of its first delivery of an ATR 72-600 to Air New Zealand, we're pretty sure the accompanying photograph shows the turboprop - complete with distinctive All Black livery - flying over ATR's home city of Toulouse. The delivery is the first from a 2011 order of seven 68-seaters, with a further five aircraft on option. Deliveries will be completed during 2016. The pictured aircraft will enter service in November, with ANZ subsidiary Mount Cook Airlines.

ATR

pplcunha

Crowning glory - A-10 Thunderbolt over Egypt:
The US Air Force titled this picture "A long way home" and for once, that's no exageration. The Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II - usually based in Arkansas - was on its way home from Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan, accompanied on this "coronet mission" by a Boeing KC-135 tanker from RAF Mildenhall in the UK.

US Air Force

pplcunha

Taylorcraft F-19 on skis:

Taylorcraft F-19 on skis

pplcunha

Pe-2 on skis:

Pe-2 on skis

pplcunha

A Waco 10W on skis:

A Waco 10W on skis

pplcunha

P-51A on skis:

P-51A on skis

pplcunha

Luscombe 8A on skis:

Luscombe 8A on skis

pplcunha

Seversky EP-1 (export version of the P-35) on skis:

Seversky EP-1 (export version of the P-35) on skis

pplcunha

remove-before-flight:

Polikarpov on skis:

remove-before-flight:

Polikarpov on skis

pplcunha

Monoplane Monday. Howard Wright E.N.V. monoplane:

Monoplane Monday. Howard Wright E.N.V. monoplane

pplcunha

Monoplane Monday. Blackburn Type I:

Monoplane Monday. Blackburn Type I

pplcunha

Monoplane Monday. “ONE OF THE RACING EPISODES DURING THE...:

Monoplane Monday. “ONE OF THE RACING EPISODES DURING THE RHEIMS AVIATION MEETING. - Farman, on his biplane, giving a good lead to Latham on his Antoinette monoplane.”

pplcunha

Monoplane Monday. “Postcard photo of the Salmet-Bleriot...:

Monoplane Monday. “Postcard photo of the Salmet-Bleriot monoplane landing near Herne Bay, Kent, England, 1912. The postcard is dated 20 August 1912. The pilot was Henri Salmet who toured with a Bleriot plane in England in 1911-1913. “

pplcunha

Monoplane Monday. Deperdussin TT :

Monoplane Monday. Deperdussin TT

pplcunha

Monoplane Monday. Grahame White’s Nieuport IV circa 1912:

Monoplane Monday. Grahame White’s Nieuport IV circa 1912

pplcunha

Monoplane Monday. “Bleriot monoplane on the ground and...:

Monoplane Monday. “Bleriot monoplane on the ground and being inspected by soldiers and civilians with Gustav Hamel sat in the cockpit early 1900’s”

pplcunha

Monoplane Monday. Plane identified as a Borel-Mathis Monoplane....:

Monoplane Monday. Plane identified as a Borel-Mathis Monoplane. “This photograph has a note on the back “American Monoplane, Chicago, Ill., 9-12-12”

pplcunha

Monoplane Monday. The Albessard tandem monoplane:

Monoplane Monday. The Albessard tandem monoplane

pplcunha

Curtiss P-40N Warhawks of the 80th Fighter Group’s...:

Curtiss P-40N Warhawks of the 80th Fighter Group’s squadron “The Burma Banshees” (via)

pplcunha

Formation flight Sunday. Hurricanes:

Formation flight Sunday. Hurricanes

pplcunha

Formation flight Sunday. Lightnings:

Formation flight Sunday. Lightnings

pplcunha

Formation flight Sunday.:

Formation flight Sunday.

pplcunha

Formation flight Sunday. Vampires:

Formation flight Sunday. Vampires

pplcunha

Formation flight Sunday. “This photo, called Colourful...:

Formation flight Sunday. “This photo, called Colourful Symmetry, by SAC Graham Taylor of RAF Coningsby, shows Typhoon aircraft practising for the Royal Jubilee celebrations by performing a diamond-nine formation over Lincolnshire the day before they were due to fly over Windsor Castle.”

pplcunha

Formation flight Sunday. Atlas trio:

Formation flight Sunday. Atlas trio

pplcunha

Formation flight Sunday. Bolos:

Formation flight Sunday. Bolos

pplcunha

Formation flight Sunday. Hunters:

Formation flight Sunday. Hunters

pplcunha

Formation flight Sunday. Boston IIIs:

Formation flight Sunday. Boston IIIs

pplcunha

Nakajima Ki-43 "Hayabusa" (Oscar) / Akeno Army Aviation School - 一式戦闘機「隼」 / 明野陸軍飛行学校: A line up of Akeno "Hayabusa" warming up their engines just before take-off. They are all Model 2Koh early. The serial number of the falcon in the foreground is partially visible; "38" something. The one in the background has the Akeno school tail marking and the number "48" right above it. The wheel wells look unpainted.
Note their different camouflage patterns directly over the NMF surfaces. The falcon in the background has one overall top color while the one in the foreground has a "madara" (mottle) pattern. A rather young and touchy modeler (insisting on calling the plane "Busa"; similar to talking about "Lcons") recently asked about the best way to recreate this mottle effect on his 1/48 model. I would really like to hear your ideas and suggestions. Airbrush or brush? Free-hand or something else?
Feel free to comment.

pplcunha

A Look Inside Orbital’s Stargazer Launch Aircraft:

Orbital Sciences Corporation opened up its Stargazer launch aircraft for public tours last week during Plane Crazy Saturday at the Mojave Air and Space Port. It offered a rare opportunity to see inside the airplane.

The 1974 L-1011 TriStar was in service for Air Canada. Orbital Sciences found it in a boneyard in Arizona and modified it for the air-launched Pegasus booster. It is the last operational L-1011 in the United States.
Company officials named it Stargazer after the Constellation-class star cruiser commanded by Jean-Luc Picard prior to taking over the U.S.S. Enterprise in “Star Trek: The Next Generation.”

The cockpit has four seats. Behind the cockpit in the first class section are two consoles with three chairs where engineers sit during Pegasus launches. There are also a dozen conventional airline seats located in this section for passengers as well as luggage bins.

The remainder of the aircraft, which once carried as many as 385 passengers, has been stripped of seats, luggage bins and bathrooms.

There is a ladder leading down to the cargo bay. The white insulation along the bulkheads is stained brown from cigarette smoke — a reminder of a time when smoking was allowed on commercial airliners.

pplcunha

SIGUIENDO CON EL TEMA Y EL ADMIRAL KUTNEZSOV:

Interesante imagen de buena calidad del Ka-31 "569" indio, con su antena de radar plegada bajo el tren de aterrizaje. Supongo que su destino final será el "Vikramaditya" cuando se entregue.

Rara imagen de un Su-33 armado a bordo del Admiral Kutnezsov. Hay un detalle que ciertamente no habia visto nunca y no me había fijado hasta ahora.

Ese detalle lo he visto en esta misma imagen, que fue lo que me indicó que tanta casualidad no podía ser real. El tubo pitot del morro... ¿está roto o es plegable?. Que esté roto en dos aviones es demasiada casualidad, asi que me inclino a pensar que es plegable. Es la primera vez que lo veo, por cierto. ¿Alguien lo puede confirmar?

Otra foto del enigmático "77". En un foro naval lo denominan Ka-27PB, aunque yo no sé si esta denominación es correcta.

Y para finalizar otra espectacular imagen del Admiral Kutnezsov en navegación, con el que, creo, es su último esquema de pintura conocido, ún gris más oscuro, aquí bastante desgastado por la actuación de los elementos, hace algún tiempo. Preciosa foto.

pplcunha

Happy 50th Birthday - thanks for not delivering nuclear armageddon:
Boeing is saying a big happy birthday to the youngest member of the US Air Force's B-52 Stratofortress fleet which was delivered from its Wichita facilty a half-century ago. The H-model bomber - 61-040 - was assigned to Minot AFB, North Dakota, and remains in active service. Here it is earlier in its life:

Boeing

pplcunha

A long way home:

An A-10 Thunderbolt II flies off the wing of a KC-135 Stratotanker during a coronet mission over Egypt, Oct. 12, 2012. The A-10 is from the Arkansas Air National Guard’s 188th Fighter Wing and the KC-135 is from 100th Air Refueling Wing at Royal Air Force Mildenhall, England. A coronet is when an aerial refueling tanker escorts fighters over long distances, regularly topping off their fuel tanks along the way. The 188th FW aircrew was returning home from a deployment to Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. (U.S. Air Force photo/Staff Sgt. Austin M. May)
Download Full Image

</div