I believe this is an A-26.

The Military version of the C337.

[img]http://www.avidyne.com/images/C337_004_6.jpg[/img]

my dad was stationed on the missle silos in south dakota.  after 4 yrs of that he moved back to a state which doesnt need snow plows

The "military version of a DC-4" is a C-54.  It, along with the C-47, was the backbone of the Berlin airlift.  The "not a F-86" is a Republic F-84 Thunderstreak, our first significant swept-wing fighter. They were pushing mach with that one, but didn't quite make it.  The ANG was flying a few as late as 1970.  There's an P-80 or F-80 in the background in grey paint.  Those two were our main jet fighters in the Korean war until the F-86 came out and dominated the skies.  The training version of the F-80, a T-33 or "T-bird" was the first airplane I ever got off the ground in.

The Cessna C337 is more properly called an O-2.  Heavily armed with a few WP rockets, it was used as a forward air controller or FAC in VietNam.  A version with huge speakers was used for propaganda.  It was called a "bullsh1t bomber".  I saw one take off playing a recording of an F-4 Phantom, complete with afterburners.  Great fun.

The "Convair transport" is a T-29 navigator trainer.  It had a number of ports in the top to stick sextants out of for celestial nav and more ports in the bottom for optical driftmeters to determine the wind.  Now, it's all inertial or a GPS variant.

Those were all active aircraft when I was in the AF, even the A-26 was used in VietNam a bit.

I would have said that was a T-33 trainer in the background.  Looks like a two seater.  Granted, I’ve never flown in one - some guys have all the fun!!  

dragonuv - thanks for taking the time to post these photos.

Dragunov-

Thanks for posting these photo series.

Dad flew Tbirds in training.

He was also a FAC in Viet Nam, he flew that stupid Oscar Deuce.

Two engines, but it wouldn't fly if the front engine quit.

He used to write locations, available air assets, fuel for those assets, their payloads, all kind of crap like that onthe window with a grease pencil.

"Hit my smoke, napes and slicks."

Don’t know about O-2’s, but with O-1’s the FAC’s would draw a gunsight on the inside of the windscreen with a grease pencil to use when aiming the smoke rockets.

It always seemed to me that visibility out the right side of an O-2 would be pretty bad for the pilot.  Granted, I think there was a small window near the bottom of the right door.

My Dad flew DC-4's for several years for the forest service in several states. Mostly California. His last year in the 4 was in 1999. That was for a federal contract. He now fly’s a Grumman S-2. For CDF (California Department of Forestry) on a state contract. The DC-4 is a great airplane. The on he flew last used to be Admiral Nimitz old personal airline. He really misses flying it but he likes the state contract better since him and my mom live in CA during fire season and he doesn’t have to worry about being shipped outa state while my mom waits for his return like he would on a federal contract. The picture blow is of him on final approach in to Reno Stead airport in Reno, NV. I took this picture and man does it shake your body when he comes over with those 4 engines purrrrin away!!! What are the chances of all 4 props being as closely lined up as they are....

Diesel

[img]http://www.geocities.com/dustinmundell/tanker65intostead.jpg[/img]

That's funny. My old man was a Minuteman mechanic stationed in Minot, ND and like your father he returned to a much warmer climate.

He has stories about snow being almost as tall as some of the hangers on the outside perimeters of the base because it would blow and drift that high.

My mother was born and raised in Minot...poor soul...

The "A-20/A-26" is actually an On Mark B-26K, a conversion of the Douglas A-26/B-26.

The "Not an F-86" is a Republic F-84F Thunderstreak.

The Convair transport appears to be a C-131 "SAMARITAN," basically the same bird as the T-29

The "Navy guys" bird is a LTV A-7D Corsair II

Lotboy was right on the civil designation.  Its a Cessna O-2A

The "UH-1B" is actually a UH-1F or UH-1P, more likely a "P"

The A-20 is built by Douglas

The A-26 is also built by Douglas

The B-26 is built by Martin

These three are all different airplanes!

They were all  Manufactured during WWII.

Some Douglas A-26 were remanufactured and used during Vietnam.

IIRC it's an OV-1. They had lots of them at Patrick AFB south of Coco Beach Fla. in 86.

[img]http://www.armscenter.com/whatever/a20.gif[/img]

Douglas A-26

[img]http://www.wpafb.af.mil/museum/modern_flight/a20g.jpg[/img]

Douglas A-20 "Havoc"

When was your dad a missileer?
[b] Originally posted by: HMC
Your dad (like I do now) worked in a LCC- not the silos which are typically 3 miles away from the LCC.

UNLESS he worked under Titan, which WERE right next to the missile. But still not in a silo.

Sorry, that I had to be technical- it's just my job we are talking about here. I don't like it when people say "in the silo" because in that case- I would be straddling the missile.[/b]


HMC: Are you stationed at Malmstrom AFB? I was stationed at Malmstrom AFB. I left in 1992?

Are you a Missle Jockey for minuteman 2 or minuteman 3? Heck is the minuteman 2 silos still around? Or I suppose the question might be are you are missle jockey for Apha-Oscor, or Papa-Tango?

I used to be on Papa 101, the PMT team for the Minuteman 3 silos and LCF's. I drove the maintaince teams semi-truck all over that state, and I worked mostly on the Support building side of the house, did some Launch Facility stuff to but very litte.  Hey maybe I used to talk to you when authenticateing from an LF?  Hey maybe that is the reason why we got jacked up once for miss-authentication!! Boy was that an experierience I will not ever forget. I should have made sure to be out of our semi-truck when ART showed up? Well those pesky ART guys love there job just a little to much! Actully it was the shops fault for not filling out our paper work properly. We had two sites to hit that day, we had one year inspections to do, we hit the first site no problem, authtenticated and everything. Packed up mid day, headed to our second site, went to authenticate and was instructed to back off site and remain there for ART to show up. Then we found out that are paper work filed from our shop was wrong and we had already been let onto one site, when actually we were not suppose to be let on the first one in the first place, I often wonder how many heads roled that day and how far up the chain of command that little fieasco traveled.

All funin aside it sure is nice to see fellow missle people on a board like this. Even if you are a capsule monkey! We used to love tearing up all the floor plates in the capsules know there was a chore in a half. [:)]

[img]http://www.b26.com/img/plane/profile/1.jpg[/img]

Martin B-26

Don’t think so.  

Below is an OV-1, which was a US Army observation and surveillance aircraft.  For a while in Vietnam, they were armed and used as ground attack (until the Air Force found out about them!).

[image]www.ar15.com/members/albums/199%2Ftemp051502%2Ejpg[/image]

Original B-1 bases:
Dyess AFB, TX
Ellworth AFB, SD
Grand Forks AFB, ND
McConnell AFB, KS

In 1993-94, many planes were shifted.  The McConnell unit became ANG, the GF jets moved to Ellsworth(but were attached to Mountain Home AFB, ID) and Robins AFB, GA got aircraft for the ANG.

In 1996, the attached B-1s at Ellsworth moved to Mountain Home.

In a few months, McConnell and Robins will lose their B-1's, gaining a tanker unit and Joint STARS, resepectivly and MH will lose theirs as well.  The AF will retire about 35 and Ellsworth and Dyess will be the only B-1 bases.  However, there have always been a few at Edwards where the testing took/takes place.  Dyess was merely the FIRST Active base.

The Mountain Home unit was the core deployed unit for Enduring Freedom last winter.  These planes dropped over 90% of all munitions.

I don't know if you noticed the McD's outside the gate at the end of the runway, but they had a jet crash on landing there.  The McD sign was hit as the jet went down.