This new stand alone release based on the legendary War in the Pacific from 2 by 3 Games adds significant improvements and changes to enhance game play, improve realism, and increase historical accuracy. With dozens of new features, new art, and engine improvements, War in the Pacific: Admiral's Edition brings you the most realistic and immersive WWII Pacific Theater wargame ever!
I think any airplane older than the people flying it can be considered "vintage". [:D]
Bill
ORIGINAL: wegman58
That covers a LOT of the US inventory - I think some B-52s have had three generations of pilots and the plane is old enough we could get four generations if they are all bomber pilots. P-3 and C-130 date back to the 1960s. F-15, F-16, B-1 are all old. And the Tornado in Europe.
Yup. A lot of the US inventory is fairly elderly. I think the youngest B-52 might be older than most of the people serving in the Air Force. The only ones older might be a few flag rank.
We had a former EP-3A in one of my Reserve squadrons , and airplane with a lot of history. It was one of the 1st P-3A's in the Navy , a Cuban Missile crisis veteran ( whenever they show stock footage of a P-3 overflying a Russian freighter, and the P-3 is painted Black and white it's usually her). She was converted to a EP-3A "BatRack" and given to the CIA to overfly the PRC. When we got her , "Miss Piggy" had been stripped and was used as a "Hack" for training and "Bouncing". Whenever we used her for a logistics run , there was always some wet behind the ears ensign catching a ride aboard. I took a perverse pride in suggesting that they take a look at the acceptance plate. More than one blanched when her saw the date was early 1962. [:D]
When I was at field training at Vandenberg AFB, it seemed every day I saw P-3s coming and going. None of them had tail codes, which made me wonder if they were EP-3s.
I was walking into work one morning and heard a low drone. It got louder pretty quick. I looked up and a B-17(G I think) flew over the parking lot. Turns out an airshow was coming to town. Later that day I saw a couple of P-51's and a lone P-38 fly over. Before Peace AFB was converted to a comercial airport you could sit on the sit of Route 101, I think, in New Hampshire and watch the B-52's take off or land. Was very cool. That was the last thing I did with one of my uncle's before he died....GP
When I was at field training at Vandenberg AFB, it seemed every day I saw P-3s coming and going. None of them had tail codes, which made me wonder if they were EP-3s.
EP-3's Have a large chin "Pillow" , which contains the RADAR, extra pods faired into the fuselage ("Canoes") wing tip Pods and usually have the "MAD" boom truncated. It looks like the tail "stinger" has been loped off. It's not unusual for P-3's to be missing USAF style "tail codes", (in the USN the two letter codes denote squadron , not base like in the USAF , with a few exceptions). But even EP-3's have "buzz numbers" on the aft section. In the case of "Special projects" aircraft , these frequently change. You might have seen some of the NP-3's out of Pt. Mugu. These are range calibration aircraft , often with "Billboard" attachments to the vertical stabilizer . Not "spy" aircraft per say.
On December 7th, 1991 I was living in Denton, TX. I was working in my backyard and heard a loud aircraft engine buzzing. I looked up and flying at about 500' saw in the course of 15 minutes:
2 AT-6 Texans
1 P-40 in Flying Tiger motif
1 Corsair
1 P-47
2 P-51s
1 TBD Avenger (sorry couldn't make out the model)
1 B-25
and then to my wondrous eyes did appear - the Texas Raider - Queen of the skies...
50th Anniversary of Pearl Harbor air show out of DFW...Still get chills...
The Avenger was probably a TBM-3, though virtually nobody is going to be able to tell the model number from the ground. The plane didn't change externally much over it's production run. The -1 and -1C had differences in armament. The -1 was the only version with a gun in the cowling. The -3 changed the cowling ring and some models had a different shape to the lower rear gunner's position. A lot of TBM-3s were saved because they were used for fire bombers.
My gateway drug for wargaming was model building. Few things focuses you on the subtle differences between versions of a plane than building it in miniature.
Talking warbird stories, when I was at Boeing, the last building I worked in was across the street from Boeing Field and the window in our lab looked out at the main runway. The Flight Test Center was across the street, so we saw airliners in all the livery of all the airlines of the world. When they were having an airshow, the aircraft would come in the day before and I usually didn't get much work done. The Blue Angels always did Sea Fair and would practice for a week before hand. The building would shake every time they took off with those afterburners.
As a boy growing up in Oslo, Norway right after WW2 my father (he was an old sailor) often took me to the port on the back of his bicycle.
At one time it was announced in the papers that a banana freighter was incoming. Fruit was rationed (as was a lot of other stuff)
so this was a great occasion to gather up bananas spilled on the piers during the unloading - this was done with large nets.
They were all green and we later laid them out in our glass-enclosed (sun-hot) veranda to have them ripe.
Anyway, at this occasion there was a "civil defense" exercise in the port with "wounded" markers laid out all around the Place. Quite exciting
for a five year old. Even more exiting, however, were two Spitfires diving and climbing, again and again, "bombing" the port. These were Spitfires
that returned from England after the war where they had been flown by the two Norwegian Spitfire squadrons there. One of the Norwegian wing
commanders later became my boss (director of Operations) in a Norwegian airline I worked in.
Then, a year or two later, I was playing in the sand in the garden behind our house as a three-finger formation of De Havilland Vampires flew over,
probably at 3-4000 feet. That vision is still quite clear in my mind. I soon found out what sort of planes they were.....[:)]
