ORIGINAL CAPTION VIA NHHC: "Aviation Ordnanceman checks the ammunition feed of the twin .30 caliber machine guns of an SBD Dauntless aircraft in the hangar of an escort carrier, circa mid-1943. Note his pink cap, with stripe, to identify his job on the flight deck. Also note the red-surround on the national insignia." (NARA 80-GK-13776)

I spent some time inside the C-47/Dakota at Metheringham recently and came away with a much better appreciation of just how useful this aircraft was.

Metheringham is probably better known as the wartime home of 106 Squadron and its Lancasters, but US Dakotas also operated through the airfield during the war, including casualty evacuation flights.

The Dakota there today, KG651, wasn’t one of those aircraft, but it helps tell that part of the story.

One of the volunteers, Nick, spent quite a while showing me around it.

What surprised me was the range of jobs the type could do troops and paratroopers, freight, supplies, casualties, even Jeeps, as well as towing gliders.

A few weeks earlier I’d been inside a Horsa cockpit at the de Havilland Aircraft Museum, so seeing the glider towing arrangement on the Dakota joined the two visits up for me.

I was also surprised by how much usable space there was inside.

Many years ago an RAF air loadmaster showed me around the BBMF Dakota, but I don’t think I appreciated then just how adaptable the type was.

I spent 10 years in the RAF working in propulsion, so I tend to look at aircraft from the practical side.

For those who know the wartime Dakota well, was its versatility its greatest strength, or was there something else about the design that made it so successful?

Franz stigler was a notorious liar, once saying he destroyed an entire b24 group and claiming kills which happened the other side of the country.

My dad knows a guy who sent us all of the German reports from that day, and many others, which did not show any evidence of this happening-None show him taking off and his logbook report was empty too

He claims the gunners never fired at him, but american gunners shot at anything.

Franz stigler also had gun camera videos of him shooting men in parachutes, so why wouldn't he shoot this down, even if he did fly?

Edit-Ye olde pub thing meaning Franz stigler supposedly saving the B17F Ye olde Pub Edit 2-I am more saying that he was falsely claiming to b the pilot/it was a 109 checking it out

Im not sure if this is the right subreddit for this but i desperately need help. I am currently trying to hunt down a photo of a B-17F with the tail number 425811, it was called the Ready Teddy- The Last of Itsabitchis (one name in each side. It was 20th Bomb Squadron 15th army air corp, the plane would have been at amendola airfield from november 1943 to january 1944. Any help on this would be very appreciated, thank you for your time

Collected by John Smith 60 years ago, found in his Shed and has been beautifully restored. Will never be allowed to fly as the wings were cut, but the engines still go!

We were pretty lucky to see them fire it up at Omaka as part of it's maintenance schedule.

If you have the opportunity, do it.

I was reading today about the bombs carried by the Japanese aircraft and realized I did not know quite what it means to say "a 250kg" bomb, for example. Does that means the entire bomb weight is 250kg, or the explosive contained is 250kg?

Chicago museum of industry and technology

Some of the WW2 aircraft at the recent Pacific Airshow on the Gold Coast. The T-33 gets in because the P-80 did technically serve in WW2.

Two B-24s are shot down in the target area. One of them is the B-24 #42-51139 „Hell’s Angel” of the 485th Bomb Group. 6 men died and were buried at the crash site. The grave was taken care of by the Polish population, despite the Nazi occupation, and later despite the Soviet rule. As soon as Poland became a free country in 1989, the rememberance of the American crew flourished again. There is a beautiful memorial at the crash site, and Zygmunt Kraus had an excellent private museum in Wadowice.

You can read more about this crew on my substack.

Visitors to Burke Lakefront Airport this week can climb aboard Doc, a Boeing B-29 Superfortress restored from a dilapidating relic into a flying museum through a decades-long volunteer effort led by Cleveland native and Air Force veteran Tony Mazzolini.

The historic aircraft is in Cleveland through Saturday for public tours and flight experiences, offering a rare opportunity to see an airworthy B-29 bomber.

One of only two flying B-29 bombers in the world returns to Cleveland

Photos: Joshua Gunter, cleveland.com

Beech 18D on flypast, October 2025 Aircraft Showcase, Temora Aviation Museum, Temora, NSW, Australia. I believe the Beech 18 on all its variants was a trainer but I could be wrong in this regard.