Word: 39s
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...items in Syd Beck's military and aviation collection, his favorite is a P-39 Airacobra. Back in April 1942, Beck says, it landed in New Guinea with four other brand-new P-39s, all emblazoned with the U.S. Army Air Force insignia, a blue circle containing a white star with a red dot at the center. The Australians on the ground were aghast: Japanese aircraft were marked with a red dot. An Australian officer immediately ordered all of the dots painted over. (Soon after, the red dot was removed from standard U.S. markings...
...both bigger and faster than Russia's AN-22, until now the largest aircraft in operation. With a maximum payload of 265,000 Ibs. and a range, when fully loaded, of 2,875 miles, the Lockheed plane is powered by four General Electric fanjet TF-39s, the world's most powerful aircraft engines...
While John flew P-39s in the Mediterranean and P-40s in South China, the Marines sent Clint Jr. through Duke University, where he graduated top man in his engineering class. The war over, John went back to Yale for some serious studying, then headed out to Santa Fe where Clint Sr. had lined him up a $175-3-month job in a bank. Meanwhile Clint Jr. was getting a master's in math at M.I.T. In 1950 they joined forces in Dallas...
...Casablanca, several P-39s arrived with a vital fitting broken. Spare fittings, of the same material, were not to be trusted in combat. An A.S.C. officer scrounged some asbestos from the French for a crucible, made an oven from adobe brick, heated it with acetylene torches. With aluminum from salvaged German propellers and a little copper he made new hinges, put the planes into combat in three days. When fabric parts needed repairs, the same officer borrowed the only available sewing machine in town from a French dressmaker. It had no needles. He made some out of bicycle spokes...
...dogfight the Japs. You cannot do it with the planes you've got," said Buzz Wagner. But one day in May, when Wagner himself went along to initiate one of his green squadrons, some stragglers tried to dogfight Zeros with P-39s. Four of them were shot down. Four Japs were also shot down, three of them by Buzz Wagner, who knew better than to dogfight except when he had to. Buzz was bucking orders that day-a Jap bullet had splintered windshield glass into his left eye in the Philippines-but the chance to kill more Japs...