Seen at Sondrestrom Air Base, Greenland, T-33 Shooting Stars/T-Birds await the next leg of their ferry flight to Europe. (Yes, with enough gas, the T-Bird could cross the “Pond”.) These planes are earmarked for USAF units, but most will end up in the air forces of fellow NATO countries such as the Netherlands and France. 

 

The plane is an F-100C, serial no. 54-1985, of the 355th Fighter Day Squadron, Myrtle Beach AFB, SC.

The plane’s namesake is none other than Jayne Mansfield, platinum-blonde extraordinare; a fact that I really shouldn’t have to point out to anyone.

 

Lockheed F-94C Starfire (50-957) cruises down the California coast in the early 1950s. Signed by legendary Lockheed test pilot Bob Matye (pronounced “matey”), a man who flew everything Lockheed could cook up during the post-war years, including, of course, the Starfire. However, as the photo suggests, his favorite Lockheed product was not the F-94, but rather the P-80. In fact, he liked the plane so much that his car sported personalized license plates emblazoned with the name “P80.”

(And he really did enjoy being called “P-80 Matye”.)

…four C-124s in a tight (but Shaky) formation roaring low over the desert. The year: 1956. The location: Palmdale Airport, Calif. The reason: A movie was being filmed.

A movie not about the C-124 Globemaster, but about Charles Lindbergh. 

No doubt there is a connection there.

The film was Spirit of St. Louis, the Charles Lindbergh bio starring Jimmy Stewart. Great flick, even though it was hoped that the audience would fail to notice that Stewart, nearing 50 years of age, was playing a 25-year-old Lindbergh (his age when he made his historic 1927 flight).

No such character error was made with the Ol’ Shaky formation flight – the C-124 flypast was left out of the movie.

Lockheed test pilots and engineers – standing before one of their employer’s latest products, the F-104 Starfighter – pose alongside their West German counterparts from the newly reformed Luftwaffe. Most notable in this group is World War II German ace Walter Krupinski (197 victories). He flew the F-104, declared it fantastic, and thus began a decades-long relationship with the Luftwaffe and the Starfighter.

The photo is signed by legendary Lockheed test pilot Bob Matye, a man who flew just about anything Lockheed came up with.

The Starfighter in the background is actually a YF-104 early bird 55-2964. It crashed on 2 November, 1959.

Note: Several names are misspelled on the back of the photo, including Krupinkski’s. Also, the name of test pilot James “Jake” Holliman (killed piloting an F-104 in June 1958).

The flightline of Chicago’s busy O’Hare International hasn’t always been clogged with airliners; there was a time the base was home to interceptor squadrons of the USAF. This photo shows the Air Force side of the field in transition: the 42nd Fighter Interceptor Squadron (FIS) and the 63rd FIS are trading places, but not planes. The 63rd has just arrived, and the 42nd is on its way to Pittsburgh Airport. The planes bear the markings of the 63rd, but they are pretty much all former 42nd birds. The Air Force does things like that. 

Bonus jets include F-89s and a very brand new F-102.

C-124s and EB-57s attract the eyes of young Utah kiddies.

SA-16s and SB-29s of Elmendorf AFB’s 10th Air Rescue Group enjoy a summer’s day in the early 1950s. Given the environment in which these aircraft operated, it is safe to say they stayed quite busy.

“William Tell”, the US Air Force’s great air-to-air competition, has been held since the 1950s at sunny Tyndall AFB, Florida. Our F-86 pilots depicted above have traveled to said base for the 1958 meet and are obviously looking forward to the various aerial events which will unfold in the coming days. Their home base is Ramstein, Germany; they are members of the 526th Fighter Interceptor Squadron and represent the United States Air Forces in Europe. Note the custom ballcaps and snazzy flight suits made for the competition.

A-1 Skyraiders of the 1st Air Commando Squadron. 

43-48414, a C-47B that looks like any other post-war Goony Bird going about its duties in the US Air Force, is actually a plane with a past. A combat veteran, this C-47 flew multiple missions with the 316th Troop Carrier Group during World War II, most notably in the skies over the Netherlands, dropping paratroopers and towing gliders during Operation Market Garden in September 1944. 

The Dutch & Americans have an informal meeting as an F-84F Thunderstreak of the Royal Netherlands Air Force joins up with a USAF T-33 somewhere over Europe in the mid-1960s. The F-84, coded “PP-24” started out with the US serial number 53-6920 before being sold to the Dutch. Note the soot around his gun muzzles.

 Bombed up and loaded with 20mm ammo, an early A-37 awaits its next mission.

Size does not always matter. Take, for instance, the Cessna T-37 “Tweet”. Standing only waist-high and with an empty weight akin to that of a large SUV of today, it was nonetheless transformed into a highly lethal warplane, as seen here. The likely location of this photo is Nha Trang Air Base, South Vietnam. This bird began life as a regular Cessna T-37B (56-3465), but after a major overhaul, it emerged as 67-14519, an A-37A Dragonfly. 

Designed to be hauled through the skies while clinging to a bomber, the McDonnell XF-85 didn’t work too well in that role, but it could claim honors in the category of Most Unusual-Looking Aircraft. McDonnell built only two XF-85 Goblins, both of which are seen here, and both of which can be seen today in museums. 

WB-50s and one WB-47B, all of the 55th Weather Reconnaissance Squadron, McClellan AFB. 

Two often overlooked models of the Stratofortress, the “E” and “F”.