View allAll Photos Tagged InterConnect
East Midlands Railway liveried 158773 passes by Stagecoach InterConnect liveried 10896 at Sincil Bank Level Crossing in Lincoln on 27.2.21
Eh... I... aw... I should have taken bustimes with a grain of salt this morning. If you see an InterConnect E400 on the 14 today, unless you're looking for this, do not bother with it. I learned that the hard way this morning by getting an MANviro 300 with the wrong destination on it. God damn it, I was looking forward to it, too. Ah well, at least it makes for a worthy retake of a bus I've not caught since last August. And given the recent fleet movements and contract changes in favour of Stagecoach that have begun today, this is probably not going to be the last time I'm heading up Morrisons way.
Being tracked as something it is not today, Stagecoach in Hull's 24203, a 2010 MAN ADL Enviro 300, is seen here being mistakenly tracked as an InterConnect E400 on a 14 to Falkland Road, it's incorrect destination not exactly helping the peculiarity this morning.
As one of the showpiece main rooms of Billilla mansion when male guests came to call, the billiard room is one of the grandest rooms in the house. With an interconnecting door between it and the adjoining dining room, whilst the women retired to the feminine surrounds of the drawing room, the men could retreat to this strictly male preserve with their brandy and cigars and discuss business over a game or two of billiards.
Although part of the original 1878 house and featuring some High Victorian detailing, the billiard room did not escape the 1907 redecoration, and as a result it also features some very fine Art Nouveau detailing.
The Billilla billiards room is also one of the most intact rooms in the whole house, as it still features its original and ornate Victorian carpet and the original walnut Alcock and Company billiard table and scoreboard.
A very masculine oriented room, the walls feature Victorian era dark wood dado panelling about a third of the way up the walls. Above that the walls are simply painted, and even to this day they still feature marks where chalked cues once rested. Original ornate Victorian gasoliers that could be swiveled into position still jut from the walls above the dado panelling. With their original fluted glass shades remaining in place, the gasoliers still have functioning taps to increase or decrease the gas supply.
The room is heated by a large fireplace featuring an insert of beautiful tube lined Art Nouveau peacock feathers, once again quietly underlining the fact that this is a man's room.
The Victorian era carpet of the billiard room is still bright and in remarkably good condition for its age. It is thick and dyed in bright colours in a pattern designed to imitate ornate floor tiles.
The ceiling of the billiard room is decorated with ornate stylised foliate Art Nouveau patterns and mouldings of leaves. Whilst Art Nouveau is often referred to as a feminine style, the ceiling of the billiard room shows how when applied in a particular way it could also be very strong and masculine.
Suspended over the walnut Alcock and Company billiard table the gleaming polished brass foliate style gasolier has subsequently been electrified and features five of its six green glass shades.
One of the few more feminine touches to what is otherwise a very masculine room are the stained glass lunettes over the billiard room's three windows. In keeping with other original windows of the house, they feature a single flower, in this case a red tulip.
Alcock and Company Manufacturers was established in 1853 when Melbourne was still a very new city of less than twenty years old. they still manufacture billiard tables from their Malvern establishment today.
Built in High Victorian style in 1878 for successful gold miner Robert Wright, Billilla mansion was originally a thirteen room mansion erected on seven and a half acres of land.
When economic boom turned to bust in the 1880s, the property was purchased in 1888 by wealthy New South Wales pastoralist William Weatherly who named it Billilla after his land holdings and established a home there for his wife Jeannie and their children Violet, Gladys and Lionel.
The house was substantially altered by architect Walter Richmond Butler in 1907, extending the house beyond its original thirteen rooms and adding the Art Nouveau façade seen today.
After William Weatherly's death in 1914, his wife, who was much younger, remained living there until her own death in 1933. She bequeathed the property to her daughter, Violet, who maintained the home with reduced staff until her own death in 1972.
The property was purchased in 1973 by the Bayside Council who subsequently used Billilla as a historical house with guided tours, a wedding and events venue, a school and finally in 2009 as an artist's precinct in the property's outbuildings. Billilla is a beautiful heritage property retaining many of its original features thanks to its long private ownership still incorporating a stately formal garden and the magnificent historic house.
Billilla, at 26 Halifax Street, Brighton, is one of Melbourne’s few remaining significant homesteads, built on land which had originally been owned by Nicholas Were. The house has a mixture of architectural styles, featuring a Victorian design with Art Nouveau features and has exquisite formal gardens, which retain much of their original Nineteenth Century layout.
Billilla retains many original Victorian elements and a number of outbuildings still stand to the rear of the property including the butler’s quarters, dairy, meat house, stable garden store and coach house.
Billilla was opened to the general public as part of the Melbourne Open House weekend 2022.
Billilla was used as a backdrop in the 1980 Australian Channel 10 miniseries adaptation of Sumner Locke Elliott's "Water Under the Bridge". It was used at the Sydney harbourside home of Luigi, Honor and Carrie Mazzini.
Modular origami models made up from interconnecting the same folded unit: a sonobe cube (6 units) and octagon (12 units)
Ile de Ré, bridge, the longest in France
Bridge La Rochelle/Ré island
pont de l'île de Ré, le plus long de France
It sat so long inside the bus station I thought it would never come, but here is the photo I waited an extra fifteen minutes in the cold and dark for, and I'm absolutely glad I did.
Every previous time that Gainsborough have placed one of their InterConnect E400 MMCs on their Sherwood Arrow board, I've been unable to see it, but on the evening of 12.2.22 one was so close that I thought that even though it was dark, it would be worth sticking around in town in order to spot an allocation I've been wanting to see for so long. After getting an okay-ish photo if it on the way in, I figured my best bet for a better photo was to get it stopped at the lights on the way out. Turned out I had to wait about fifteen minutes outside a city centre pub on a Saturday night... which isn't one of the best places to stand around, it turns out.
Unfortunately, when it did come, it stopped right behind a Pronto blocking the shot, meaning I had to try and get a non-blurred photo at the moment the lights turned green and the Pronto set off, but before the SA got moving. Somehow, I managed it, and here you can see 10897 on Union Road, about to get underway with a Sherwood Arrow to New Ollerton and Retford. Finally I have one of these pillars of my Lincoln spotting, pictured in Nottingham.
While the Sherwood Arrow isn't an InterConnect route, it is set up in stages to make use of the 50km loophole, much like the IC 100 between Scunthorpe, Gainsborough and Lincoln that these MMCs are typically used on. They usually have "connecting for [ultimate destination]" written under the larger, intermediate destination, so it's interesting that this particular vehicle has the Sherwood Arrow blind set up in the same format as a true InterConnect one... only missing the word 'for' on the bottom line.
threads
of delicate merino wool and silk wrapped steel in vintage silver
threads
entwined to form patterns of texture, light and transparency
threads
interconnecting as unstructured stitches come together to create a soft metallic wrap
threads
pulled through loops in a hazy, simplistic ritual that has soothed and calmed the mind, body and soul
threads
of luminous magic
Threads of Habu – a design by Setsuko Torii
Stagecoach Lincolnshire 15652, a 2010 Scania N230UD ADL Enviro 400, was seen in Chapel St Leonards on a service 59 to Mablethorpe. New to Stagecoach Lincolnshire Lincoln depot for the 3, between Grimsby and Lincoln. This was then re-allocated to Skegness, where it spent its time on InterConnect routes. it was then repainted into Stagecoach Swoops, and it was re-allocated to Worksop. It eventually rejoined the fleet in Skegness, where it spent most its time in Long Sutton. It was recently put back into the InterConnect livery, and has new Stagecoach logos on. Looks quite smart this! It wasn't a bad ride as well.
In pretty much the same place I saw it before, here is 17719 on its way out of Lincoln with a 100 to Gainsborough and then Scunthorpe on 24.6.20
Both Brylaine and Stagecoach run the InterConnect 7 between Skegness and Boston, using route numbers B7 (Brylaine) and 57 (Stagecoach), with Stagecoach continuing the route through to Spalding. I thought it was a decker route for both operators, but while I did see a couple it was more single decks.
Enviro 300 27195 is distinctively one of Lincoln depot's repaints into Local livery, with a complete lack of black relief on the light clusters or window surrounds. This bus was previously a semi-regular sighting for me on 103s from Scunthorpe into Lincoln, so either a transfer or loan has seen it come to Skegness. It is seen here exiting the bus station with a 57 on 31.8.22
Stagecoach Lincolnshire 19200, a 2007 ADL Enviro 400, was seen in Skegness Bus Station, whilst out of service. New to Stagecoach North East.
Not long after the InterConnect 100 entered the bus station, the not-very-InterConnect 107 departed and duly provided me with one of Gainsborough's transferred ALX400s; 18338 in particular. As far as I can tell, this one might be a particularly 'thrashy' Trident because merely accelerating away from the junction and easing off along this stretch towards the station it sounded good, so the whole run to Gainsborough must've been pretty lively if it sounded like that all the way.
17.10.20
In November 2013, Stagecoach East Midlands 15510 pulls out of Gainsborough Bus Station on service 100 to Lincoln. It is a Scania N230UD with Alexander Dennis Enviro400 bodywork, new in 2009 and painted in a special version of Stagecoach livery for Lincolnshire InterConnect services.
InterConnect 10897 crosses Pelham Bridge as it makes its way from Lincoln bus station to the depot at Great Northern Terrace (despite being a Gainsborough vehicle, not a Lincoln one) on 4.2.23, tailed by Stagecoach van ND71 MXS.
In a similar manner to when a couple of Humber Fast Cats appeared in Lincoln on the 103, here is the Grimsby equivalent with a "TwoFifty" branded MMC off-route and working a 53A into the city. Here it's shown descending Broadgate as it approaches its ultimate destination of the bus station.
TwoFifty is the new brand for what was the Humber Flyer 250, which isn't a route I'm really familiar with but from what I can gather it's been renamed as it no longer serves Humberside Airport. Unlike Stagecoach's vision from 2020, this route has its own specific livery; though is is pretty much a blue version of the "Distance" one. It's not very inspiring, but compared to the blandness of Local it looks decent.
Of course, as well as the 250 there's the Fast Cat, aka the 350, so will that follow suit and become the ThreeFifty? Given it's run jointly with East Yorkshire, I'd imagine there would have to be some liaising before a change like that took place. Or equally Stagecoach could just change its own branding without consulting EY at all... you really never know.
15.6.23
Although my first sighting with the new Stagecoach logo, this isn't in the new livery sadly, as this was one of the last buses to be repainted in the old style InterConnect livery. From seeing the Magic Bus pics, I wonder if it's will be the same for the new Interconnect, who knows what will happen in the near future. ex Newcastle based and I don't think there's many photos of it about yet in this livery.
no. NK57 BVZ
Stagecoach Lincolnshire 19209, a 2007 ADL Enviro 400, was seen on a service 57 to Spalding, in Boston. New to Stagecoach North East.
It only took two failed attempts, but eventually I managed to phot Hull's MAN Enviro 300 24164, on loan to Skegness and operating the InterConnect 56 to Lincoln. Here it is at the bottom of Pelham Street on 25.3.23
Now all I have to do is wait for the 10 plate one they also have on loan to show up, but sadly they've not been allocating it to the 56.
Stagecoach Lincolnshire 19073, a 2006 ADL Enviro 400, was seen at Grimsby Bus Station on a service 51 to Louth. New to Stagecoach Manchester. Formally an InterConnect vehicle for the service 3 (now 53).
Take two of 10899 on Newland, in exactly the same place just few days later than the last one, on the same afternoon working to Scotter. The road camber issue is minimal closer to the bend so getting bus shots is better at this end, but as ever it's the traffic that really dictates what I ultimately get.
25.5.21
From the other morning up on the downs trying to catch some mist, which was way to thick and didnt seem to burn up when the sun arrived, I had a little walk around and came across this view which I have seen alot online, but never realised it was here which was a great bonus to the morning.
I went for a slightly wider approach than the normal as this is actually a still from a Timelapse. (although I screwed up by having auto focus on still which caused problems in the final clip) real shame because it looked great with the changing shadows, but I will return for another go.
Feel free to follow me on -
Prints Avaliable at Sussex Scenes
Stagecoach East Midlands 10900 is approaching Retford Bus Station before departing on service 99 to Doncaster. It is an Alexander Dennis Enviro400 MMC which was new in 2017, painted in InterConnect livery for use on Service 100 between Lincoln and Scunthorpe.
Optare Tempo YJ57 EGY departing Lincoln for Boston on an InterConnect 5, seen here on Pelham Street on 12.3.21
See more photos of this, and the Wikipedia article.
Details, quoting from Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum | Lockheed P-38J-10-LO Lightning
In the P-38 Lockheed engineer Clarence "Kelly" Johnson and his team of designers created one of the most successful twin-engine fighters ever flown by any nation. From 1942 to 1945, U. S. Army Air Forces pilots flew P-38s over Europe, the Mediterranean, and the Pacific, and from the frozen Aleutian Islands to the sun-baked deserts of North Africa. Lightning pilots in the Pacific theater downed more Japanese aircraft than pilots flying any other Allied warplane.
Maj. Richard I. Bong, America's leading fighter ace, flew this P-38J-10-LO on April 16, 1945, at Wright Field, Ohio, to evaluate an experimental method of interconnecting the movement of the throttle and propeller control levers. However, his right engine exploded in flight before he could conduct the experiment.
Transferred from the United States Air Force.
Manufacturer:
Date:
1943
Country of Origin:
United States of America
Dimensions:
Overall: 390 x 1170cm, 6345kg, 1580cm (12ft 9 9/16in. x 38ft 4 5/8in., 13988.2lb., 51ft 10 1/16in.)
Materials:
All-metal
Physical Description:
Twin-tail boom and twin-engine fighter; tricycle landing gear.
Long Description:
From 1942 to 1945, the thunder of P-38 Lightnings was heard around the world. U. S. Army pilots flew the P-38 over Europe, the Mediterranean, and the Pacific; from the frozen Aleutian Islands to the sun-baked deserts of North Africa. Measured by success in combat, Lockheed engineer Clarence "Kelly" Johnson and a team of designers created the most successful twin-engine fighter ever flown by any nation. In the Pacific Theater, Lightning pilots downed more Japanese aircraft than pilots flying any other Army Air Forces warplane.
Johnson and his team conceived this twin-engine, single-pilot fighter airplane in 1936 and the Army Air Corps authorized the firm to build it in June 1937. Lockheed finished constructing the prototype XP-38 and delivered it to the Air Corps on New Year's Day, 1939. Air Corps test pilot and P-38 project officer, Lt. Benjamin S. Kelsey, first flew the aircraft on January 27. Losing this prototype in a crash at Mitchel Field, New York, with Kelsey at the controls, did not deter the Air Corps from ordering 13 YP-38s for service testing on April 27. Kelsey survived the crash and remained an important part of the Lightning program. Before the airplane could be declared ready for combat, Lockheed had to block the effects of high-speed aerodynamic compressibility and tail buffeting, and solve other problems discovered during the service tests.
The most vexing difficulty was the loss of control in a dive caused by aerodynamic compressibility. During late spring 1941, Air Corps Major Signa A. Gilke encountered serious trouble while diving his Lightning at high-speed from an altitude of 9,120 m (30,000 ft). When he reached an indicated airspeed of about 515 kph (320 mph), the airplane's tail began to shake violently and the nose dropped until the dive was almost vertical. Signa recovered and landed safely and the tail buffet problem was soon resolved after Lockheed installed new fillets to improve airflow where the cockpit gondola joined the wing center section. Seventeen months passed before engineers began to determine what caused the Lightning's nose to drop. They tested a scale model P-38 in the Ames Laboratory wind tunnel operated by the NACA (National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics) and found that shock waves formed when airflow over the wing leading edges reached transonic speeds. The nose drop and loss of control was never fully remedied but Lockheed installed dive recovery flaps under each wing in 1944. These devices slowed the P-38 enough to allow the pilot to maintain control when diving at high-speed.
Just as the development of the North American P-51 Mustang, Republic P-47 Thunderbolt, and the Vought F4U Corsair (see NASM collection for these aircraft) pushed the limits of aircraft performance into unexplored territory, so too did P-38 development. The type of aircraft envisioned by the Lockheed design team and Air Corps strategists in 1937 did not appear until June 1944. This protracted shakedown period mirrors the tribulations suffered by Vought in sorting out the many technical problems that kept F4U Corsairs off U. S. Navy carrier decks until the end of 1944.
Lockheed's efforts to trouble-shoot various problems with the design also delayed high-rate, mass production. When Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, the company had delivered only 69 Lightnings to the Army. Production steadily increased and at its peak in 1944, 22 sub-contractors built various Lightning components and shipped them to Burbank, California, for final assembly. Consolidated-Vultee (Convair) subcontracted to build the wing center section and the firm later became prime manufacturer for 2,000 P-38Ls but that company's Nashville plant completed only 113 examples of this Lightning model before war's end. Lockheed and Convair finished 10,038 P-38 aircraft including 500 photo-reconnaissance models. They built more L models, 3,923, than any other version.
To ease control and improve stability, particularly at low speeds, Lockheed equipped all Lightnings, except a batch ordered by Britain, with propellers that counter-rotated. The propeller to the pilot's left turned counter-clockwise and the propeller to his right turned clockwise, so that one propeller countered the torque and airflow effects generated by the other. The airplane also performed well at high speeds and the definitive P-38L model could make better than 676 kph (420 mph) between 7,600 and 9,120 m (25,000 and 30,000 ft). The design was versatile enough to carry various combinations of bombs, air-to-ground rockets, and external fuel tanks. The multi-engine configuration reduced the Lightning loss-rate to anti-aircraft gunfire during ground attack missions. Single-engine airplanes equipped with power plants cooled by pressurized liquid, such as the North American P-51 Mustang (see NASM collection), were particularly vulnerable. Even a small nick in one coolant line could cause the engine to seize in a matter of minutes.
The first P-38s to reach the Pacific combat theater arrived on April 4, 1942, when a version of the Lightning that carried reconnaissance cameras (designated the F-4), joined the 8th Photographic Squadron based in Australia. This unit launched the first P-38 combat missions over New Guinea and New Britain during April. By May 29, the first 25 P-38s had arrived in Anchorage, Alaska. On August 9, pilots of the 343rd Fighter Group, Eleventh Air Force, flying the P-38E, shot down a pair of Japanese flying boats.
Back in the United States, Army Air Forces leaders tried to control a rumor that Lightnings killed their own pilots. On August 10, 1942, Col. Arthur I. Ennis, Chief of U. S. Army Air Forces Public Relations in Washington, told a fellow officer "… Here's what the 4th Fighter [training] Command is up against… common rumor out there that the whole West Coast was filled with headless bodies of men who jumped out of P-38s and had their heads cut off by the propellers." Novice Lightning pilots unfamiliar with the correct bailout procedures actually had more to fear from the twin-boom tail, if an emergency dictated taking to the parachute but properly executed, Lightning bailouts were as safe as parachuting from any other high-performance fighter of the day. Misinformation and wild speculation about many new aircraft was rampant during the early War period.
Along with U. S. Navy Grumman F4F Wildcats (see NASM collection) and Curtiss P-40 Warhawks (see NASM collection), Lightnings were the first American fighter airplanes capable of consistently defeating Japanese fighter aircraft. On November 18, men of the 339th Fighter Squadron became the first Lightning pilots to attack Japanese fighters. Flying from Henderson Field on Guadalcanal, they claimed three during a mission to escort Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress bombers (see NASM collection).
On April 18, 1943, fourteen P-38 pilots from the 70th and the 339th Fighter Squadrons, 347th Fighter Group, accomplished one of the most important Lightning missions of the war. American ULTRA cryptanalysts had decoded Japanese messages that revealed the timetable for a visit to the front by the commander of the Imperial Japanese Navy, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto. This charismatic leader had crafted the plan to attack Pearl Harbor and Allied strategists believed his loss would severely cripple Japanese morale. The P-38 pilots flew 700 km (435 miles) at heights from 3-15 m (10-50 feet) above the ocean to avoid detection. Over the coast of Bougainville, they intercepted a formation of two Mitsubishi G4M BETTY bombers (see NASM collection) carrying the Admiral and his staff, and six Mitsubishi A6M Zero fighters (see NASM collection) providing escort. The Lightning pilots downed both bombers but lost Lt. Ray Hine to a Zero.
In Europe, the first Americans to down a Luftwaffe aircraft were Lt. Elza E. Shahan flying a 27th Fighter Squadron P-38E, and Lt. J. K. Shaffer flying a Curtiss P-40 (see NASM collection) in the 33rd Fighter Squadron. The two flyers shared the destruction of a Focke-Wulf Fw 200C-3 Condor maritime strike aircraft over Iceland on August 14, 1942. Later that month, the 1st fighter group accepted Lightnings and began combat operations from bases in England but this unit soon moved to fight in North Africa. More than a year passed before the P-38 reappeared over Western Europe. While the Lightning was absent, U. S. Army Air Forces strategists had relearned a painful lesson: unescorted bombers cannot operate successfully in the face of determined opposition from enemy fighters. When P-38s returned to England, the primary mission had become long-range bomber escort at ranges of about 805 kms (500 miles) and at altitudes above 6,080 m (20,000 ft).
On October 15, 1943, P-38H pilots in the 55th Fighter Group flew their first combat mission over Europe at a time when the need for long-range escorts was acute. Just the day before, German fighter pilots had destroyed 60 of 291 Eighth Air Force B-17 Flying Fortresses (see NASM collection) during a mission to bomb five ball-bearing plants at Schweinfurt, Germany. No air force could sustain a loss-rate of nearly 20 percent for more than a few missions but these targets lay well beyond the range of available escort fighters (Republic P-47 Thunderbolt, see NASM collection). American war planners hoped the long-range capabilities of the P-38 Lightning could halt this deadly trend, but the very high and very cold environment peculiar to the European air war caused severe power plant and cockpit heating difficulties for the Lightning pilots. The long-range escort problem was not completely solved until the North American P-51 Mustang (see NASM collection) began to arrive in large numbers early in 1944.
Poor cockpit heating in the H and J model Lightnings made flying and fighting at altitudes that frequently approached 12,320 m (40,000 ft) nearly impossible. This was a fundamental design flaw that Kelly Johnson and his team never anticipated when they designed the airplane six years earlier. In his seminal work on the Allison V-1710 engine, Daniel Whitney analyzed in detail other factors that made the P-38 a disappointing airplane in combat over Western Europe.
• Many new and inexperienced pilots arrived in England during December 1943, along with the new J model P-38 Lightning.
• J model rated at 1,600 horsepower vs. 1,425 for earlier H model Lightnings. This power setting required better maintenance between flights. It appears this work was not done in many cases.
• During stateside training, Lightning pilots were taught to fly at high rpm settings and low engine manifold pressure during cruise flight. This was very hard on the engines, and not in keeping with technical directives issued by Allison and Lockheed.
• The quality of fuel in England may have been poor, TEL (tetraethyl lead) fuel additive appeared to condense inside engine induction manifolds, causing detonation (destructive explosion of fuel mixture rather than controlled burning).
• Improved turbo supercharger intercoolers appeared on the J model P-38. These devices greatly reduced manifold temperatures but this encouraged TEL condensation in manifolds during cruise flight and increased spark plug fouling.
Using water injection to minimize detonation might have reduced these engine problems. Both the Republic P-47 Thunderbolt and the North American P-51 Mustang (see NASM collection) were fitted with water injection systems but not the P-38. Lightning pilots continued to fly, despite these handicaps.
During November 1942, two all-Lightning fighter groups, the 1st and the 14th, began operating in North Africa. In the Mediterranean Theater, P-38 pilots flew more sorties than Allied pilots flying any other type of fighter. They claimed 608 enemy a/c destroyed in the air, 123 probably destroyed and 343 damaged, against the loss of 131 Lightnings.
In the war against Japan, the P-38 truly excelled. Combat rarely occurred above 6,080 m (20,000 ft) and the engine and cockpit comfort problems common in Europe never plagued pilots in the Pacific Theater. The Lightning's excellent range was used to full advantage above the vast expanses of water. In early 1945, Lightning pilots of the 12th Fighter Squadron, 18th Fighter Group, flew a mission that lasted 10 ½ hours and covered more than 3,220 km (2,000 miles). In August, P-38 pilots established the world's long-distance record for a World War II combat fighter when they flew from the Philippines to the Netherlands East Indies, a distance of 3,703 km (2,300 miles). During early 1944, Lightning pilots in the 475th Fighter Group began the 'race of aces.' By March, Lieutenant Colonel Thomas J. Lynch had scored 21 victories before he fell to antiaircraft gunfire while strafing enemy ships. Major Thomas B. McGuire downed 38 Japanese aircraft before he was killed when his P-38 crashed at low altitude in early January 1945. Major Richard I. Bong became America's highest scoring fighter ace (40 victories) but died in the crash of a Lockheed P-80 (see NASM collection) on August 6, 1945.
Museum records show that Lockheed assigned the construction number 422-2273 to the National Air and Space Museum's P-38. The Army Air Forces accepted this Lightning as a P-38J-l0-LO on November 6, 1943, and the service identified the airplane with the serial number 42-67762. Recent investigations conducted by a team of specialists at the Paul E. Garber Facility, and Herb Brownstein, a volunteer in the Aeronautics Division at the National Air and Space Museum, have revealed many hitherto unknown aspects to the history of this aircraft.
Brownstein examined NASM files and documents at the National Archives. He discovered that a few days after the Army Air Forces (AAF) accepted this airplane, the Engineering Division at Wright Field in Dayton, Ohio, granted Lockheed permission to convert this P-38 into a two-seat trainer. The firm added a seat behind the pilot to accommodate an instructor who would train civilian pilots in instrument flying techniques. Once trained, these test pilots evaluated new Lightnings fresh off the assembly line.
In a teletype sent by the Engineering Division on March 2, 1944, Brownstein also discovered that this P-38 was released to Colonel Benjamin S. Kelsey from March 3 to April 10, 1944, to conduct special tests. This action was confirmed the following day in a cable from the War Department. This same pilot, then a Lieutenant, flew the XP-38 across the United States in 1939 and survived the crash that destroyed this Lightning at Mitchel Field, New York. In early 1944, Kelsey was assigned to the Eighth Air Force in England and he apparently traveled to the Lockheed factory at Burbank to pick up the P-38. Further information about these tests and Kelsey's involvement remain an intriguing question.
One of Brownstein's most important discoveries was a small file rich with information about the NASM Lightning. This file contained a cryptic reference to a "Major Bong" who flew the NASM P-38 on April 16, 1945, at Wright Field. Bong had planned to fly for an hour to evaluate an experimental method of interconnecting the movement of the throttle and propeller control levers. His flight ended after twenty-minutes when "the right engine blew up before I had a chance [to conduct the test]." The curator at the Richard I. Bong Heritage Center confirmed that America's highest scoring ace made this flight in the NASM P-38 Lightning.
Working in Building 10 at the Paul E. Garber Facility, Rob Mawhinney, Dave Wilson, Wil Lee, Bob Weihrauch, Jim Purton, and Heather Hutton spent several months during the spring and summer of 2001 carefully disassembling, inspecting, and cleaning the NASM Lightning. They found every hardware modification consistent with a model J-25 airplane, not the model J-10 painted in the data block beneath the artifact's left nose. This fact dovetails perfectly with knowledge uncovered by Brownstein. On April 10, the Engineering Division again cabled Lockheed asking the company to prepare 42-67762 for transfer to Wright Field "in standard configuration." The standard P-38 configuration at that time was the P-38J-25. The work took several weeks and the fighter does not appear on Wright Field records until May 15, 1944. On June 9, the Flight Test Section at Wright Field released the fighter for flight trials aimed at collecting pilot comments on how the airplane handled.
Wright Field's Aeromedical Laboratory was the next organization involved with this P-38. That unit installed a kit on July 26 that probably measured the force required to move the control wheel left and right to actuate the power-boosted ailerons installed in all Lightnings beginning with version J-25. From August 12-16, the Power Plant Laboratory carried out tests to measure the hydraulic pump temperatures on this Lightning. Then beginning September 16 and lasting about ten days, the Bombing Branch, Armament Laboratory, tested type R-3 fragmentation bomb racks. The work appears to have ended early in December. On June 20, 1945, the AAF Aircraft Distribution Office asked that the Air Technical Service Command transfer the Lightning from Wright Field to Altus Air Force Base, Oklahoma, a temporary holding area for Air Force museum aircraft. The P-38 arrived at the Oklahoma City Air Depot on June 27, 1945, and mechanics prepared the fighter for flyable storage.
Airplane Flight Reports for this Lightning also describe the following activities and movements:
6-21-45 Wright Field, Ohio, 5.15 hours of flying.
6-22-45Wright Field, Ohio, .35 minutes of flying by Lt. Col. Wendel [?] J. Kelley and P. Shannon.
6-25-45Altus, Oklahoma, .55 hours flown, pilot P. Shannon.
6-27-45Altus, Oklahoma, #2 engine changed, 1.05 hours flown by Air Corps F/O Ralph F. Coady.
10-5-45 OCATSC-GCAAF (Garden City Army Air Field, Garden City, Kansas), guns removed and ballast added.
10-8-45Adams Field, Little Rock, Arkansas.
10-9-45Nashville, Tennessee,
5-28-46Freeman Field, Indiana, maintenance check by Air Corps Capt. H. M. Chadhowere [sp]?
7-24-46Freeman Field, Indiana, 1 hour local flight by 1st Lt. Charles C. Heckel.
7-31-46 Freeman Field, Indiana, 4120th AAF Base Unit, ferry flight to Orchard Place [Illinois] by 1st Lt. Charles C. Heckel.
On August 5, 1946, the AAF moved the aircraft to another storage site at the former Consolidated B-24 bomber assembly plant at Park Ridge, Illinois. A short time later, the AAF transferred custody of the Lightning and more than sixty other World War II-era airplanes to the Smithsonian National Air Museum. During the early 1950s, the Air Force moved these airplanes from Park Ridge to the Smithsonian storage site at Suitland, Maryland.
• • •
Quoting from Wikipedia | Lockheed P-38 Lightning:
The Lockheed P-38 Lightning was a World War II American fighter aircraft built by Lockheed. Developed to a United States Army Air Corps requirement, the P-38 had distinctive twin booms and a single, central nacelle containing the cockpit and armament. Named "fork-tailed devil" by the Luftwaffe and "two planes, one pilot" by the Japanese, the P-38 was used in a number of roles, including dive bombing, level bombing, ground-attack, photo reconnaissance missions, and extensively as a long-range escort fighter when equipped with drop tanks under its wings.
The P-38 was used most successfully in the Pacific Theater of Operations and the China-Burma-India Theater of Operations as the mount of America's top aces, Richard Bong (40 victories) and Thomas McGuire (38 victories). In the South West Pacific theater, the P-38 was the primary long-range fighter of United States Army Air Forces until the appearance of large numbers of P-51D Mustangs toward the end of the war. The P-38 was unusually quiet for a fighter, the exhaust muffled by the turbo-superchargers. It was extremely forgiving, and could be mishandled in many ways, but the rate of roll was too slow for it to excel as a dogfighter. The P-38 was the only American fighter aircraft in production throughout American involvement in the war, from Pearl Harbor to Victory over Japan Day.
Variants: Lightning in maturity: P-38J
The P-38J was introduced in August 1943. The turbo-supercharger intercooler system on previous variants had been housed in the leading edges of the wings and had proven vulnerable to combat damage and could burst if the wrong series of controls were mistakenly activated. In the P-38J model, the streamlined engine nacelles of previous Lightnings were changed to fit the intercooler radiator between the oil coolers, forming a "chin" that visually distinguished the J model from its predecessors. While the P-38J used the same V-1710-89/91 engines as the H model, the new core-type intercooler more efficiently lowered intake manifold temperatures and permitted a substantial increase in rated power. The leading edge of the outer wing was fitted with 55 gal (208 l) fuel tanks, filling the space formerly occupied by intercooler tunnels, but these were omitted on early P-38J blocks due to limited availability.
The final 210 J models, designated P-38J-25-LO, alleviated the compressibility problem through the addition of a set of electrically-actuated dive recovery flaps just outboard of the engines on the bottom centerline of the wings. With these improvements, a USAAF pilot reported a dive speed of almost 600 mph (970 km/h), although the indicated air speed was later corrected for compressibility error, and the actual dive speed was lower. Lockheed manufactured over 200 retrofit modification kits to be installed on P-38J-10-LO and J-20-LO already in Europe, but the USAAF C-54 carrying them was shot down by an RAF pilot who mistook the Douglas transport for a German Focke-Wulf Condor. Unfortunately the loss of the kits came during Lockheed test pilot Tony LeVier's four-month morale-boosting tour of P-38 bases. Flying a new Lightning named "Snafuperman" modified to full P-38J-25-LO specs at Lockheed's modification center near Belfast, LeVier captured the pilots' full attention by routinely performing maneuvers during March 1944 that common Eighth Air Force wisdom held to be suicidal. It proved too little too late because the decision had already been made to re-equip with Mustangs.
The P-38J-25-LO production block also introduced hydraulically-boosted ailerons, one of the first times such a system was fitted to a fighter. This significantly improved the Lightning's rate of roll and reduced control forces for the pilot. This production block and the following P-38L model are considered the definitive Lightnings, and Lockheed ramped up production, working with subcontractors across the country to produce hundreds of Lightnings each month.
Noted P-38 pilots
Richard Bong and Thomas McGuire
The American ace of aces and his closest competitor both flew Lightnings as they tallied 40 and 38 victories respectively. Majors Richard I. "Dick" Bong and Thomas J. "Tommy" McGuire of the USAAF competed for the top position. Both men were awarded the Medal of Honor.
McGuire was killed in air combat in January 1945 over the Philippines, after racking up 38 confirmed kills, making him the second-ranking American ace. Bong was rotated back to the United States as America's ace of aces, after making 40 kills, becoming a test pilot. He was killed on 6 August 1945, the day the atomic bomb was dropped on Japan, when his P-80 Shooting Star jet fighter flamed out on takeoff.
Charles Lindbergh
The famed aviator Charles Lindbergh toured the South Pacific as a civilian contractor for United Aircraft Corporation, comparing and evaluating performance of single- and twin-engined fighters for Vought. He worked to improve range and load limits of the F4U Corsair, flying both routine and combat strafing missions in Corsairs alongside Marine pilots. In Hollandia, he attached himself to the 475th FG flying P-38s so that he could investigate the twin-engine fighter. Though new to the machine, he was instrumental in extending the range of the P-38 through improved throttle settings, or engine-leaning techniques, notably by reducing engine speed to 1,600 rpm, setting the carburetors for auto-lean and flying at 185 mph (298 km/h) indicated airspeed which reduced fuel consumption to 70 gal/h, about 2.6 mpg. This combination of settings had been considered dangerous; it was thought it would upset the fuel mixture and cause an explosion. Everywhere Lindbergh went in the South Pacific, he was accorded the normal preferential treatment of a visiting colonel, though he had resigned his Air Corps Reserve colonel's commission three years before. While with the 475th, he held training classes and took part in a number of Army Air Corps combat missions. On 28 July 1944, Lindbergh shot down a Mitsubishi Ki-51 "Sonia" flown expertly by the veteran commander of 73rd Independent Flying Chutai, Imperial Japanese Army Captain Saburo Shimada. In an extended, twisting dogfight in which many of the participants ran out of ammunition, Shimada turned his aircraft directly toward Lindbergh who was just approaching the combat area. Lindbergh fired in a defensive reaction brought on by Shimada's apparent head-on ramming attack. Hit by cannon and machine gun fire, the "Sonia's" propeller visibly slowed, but Shimada held his course. Lindbergh pulled up at the last moment to avoid collision as the damaged "Sonia" went into a steep dive, hit the ocean and sank. Lindbergh's wingman, ace Joseph E. "Fishkiller" Miller, Jr., had also scored hits on the "Sonia" after it had begun its fatal dive, but Miller was certain the kill credit was Lindbergh's. The unofficial kill was not entered in the 475th's war record. On 12 August 1944 Lindbergh left Hollandia to return to the United States.
Charles MacDonald
The seventh-ranking American ace, Charles H. MacDonald, flew a Lightning against the Japanese, scoring 27 kills in his famous aircraft, the Putt Putt Maru.
Robin Olds
Main article: Robin Olds
Robin Olds was the last P-38 ace in the Eighth Air Force and the last in the ETO. Flying a P-38J, he downed five German fighters on two separate missions over France and Germany. He subsequently transitioned to P-51s to make seven more kills. After World War II, he flew F-4 Phantom IIs in Vietnam, ending his career as brigadier general with 16 kills.
Clay Tice
A P-38 piloted by Clay Tice was the first American aircraft to land in Japan after VJ-Day, when he and his wingman set down on Nitagahara because his wingman was low on fuel.
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Noted aviation pioneer and writer Antoine de Saint-Exupéry vanished in a F-5B-1-LO, 42-68223, c/n 2734, of Groupe de Chasse II/33, out of Borgo-Porreta, Bastia, Corsica, a reconnaissance variant of the P-38, while on a flight over the Mediterranean, from Corsica to mainland France, on 31 July 1944. His health, both physical and mental (he was said to be intermittently subject to depression), had been deteriorating and there had been talk of taking him off flight status. There have been suggestions (although no proof to date) that this was a suicide rather than an aircraft failure or combat loss. In 2000, a French scuba diver found the wreckage of a Lightning in the Mediterranean off the coast of Marseille, and it was confirmed in April 2004 as Saint-Exupéry's F-5B. No evidence of air combat was found. In March 2008, a former Luftwaffe pilot, Horst Rippert from Jagdgruppe 200, claimed to have shot down Saint-Exupéry.
Adrian Warburton
The RAF's legendary photo-recon "ace", Wing Commander Adrian Warburton DSO DFC, was the pilot of a Lockheed P-38 borrowed from the USAAF that took off on 12 April 1944 to photograph targets in Germany. W/C Warburton failed to arrive at the rendezvous point and was never seen again. In 2003, his remains were recovered in Germany from his wrecked USAAF P-38 Lightning.
• • • • •
Quoting Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum | Boeing B-29 Superfortress "Enola Gay":
Boeing's B-29 Superfortress was the most sophisticated propeller-driven bomber of World War II and the first bomber to house its crew in pressurized compartments. Although designed to fight in the European theater, the B-29 found its niche on the other side of the globe. In the Pacific, B-29s delivered a variety of aerial weapons: conventional bombs, incendiary bombs, mines, and two nuclear weapons.
On August 6, 1945, this Martin-built B-29-45-MO dropped the first atomic weapon used in combat on Hiroshima, Japan. Three days later, Bockscar (on display at the U.S. Air Force Museum near Dayton, Ohio) dropped a second atomic bomb on Nagasaki, Japan. Enola Gay flew as the advance weather reconnaissance aircraft that day. A third B-29, The Great Artiste, flew as an observation aircraft on both missions.
Transferred from the United States Air Force.
Manufacturer:
Date:
1945
Country of Origin:
United States of America
Dimensions:
Overall: 900 x 3020cm, 32580kg, 4300cm (29ft 6 5/16in. x 99ft 1in., 71825.9lb., 141ft 15/16in.)
Materials:
Polished overall aluminum finish
Physical Description:
Four-engine heavy bomber with semi-monoqoque fuselage and high-aspect ratio wings. Polished aluminum finish overall, standard late-World War II Army Air Forces insignia on wings and aft fuselage and serial number on vertical fin; 509th Composite Group markings painted in black; "Enola Gay" in black, block letters on lower left nose.
This upload begins with something which has become awfully common of late; Gainsborough's InterConnect branded E400 MMCs on the 107. Last year, for a time, it was very common to have a mix of InterConnect MMCs and random Gainsborough deckers on the 100 and 107. After one of the Lockdowns (can't remember which... something like the 24th one) allocations then stuck to MMCs on the 100 and anything else on the 107 (and 106) as standard, and remained like that until a few weeks ago.
Since then, however, the variety of Tridents on the 107 has become severely diluted by allocations of an MMC on most days. Sometimes it will last on it all day, or sometimes a President or ALX will appear for some of the afternoon runs (then usually does the 2nd evening run at 5:40 away from Lincoln). Here on 13.7.21 we got an MMC on the 106! Unfortunately it was a bit early so by the time I found out about it on Bustimes, I could only make it out to see it on the 107 back to Gainsborough. Here is 10897 on the return leg of its slightly less-than-usual outing to Lincoln, seen on St Mary's Street with the bus station as the backdrop.
Given how common MMCs on the 107 have become (again), I have surprisingly few photos of them on it, so this is a bonus even if I was deprived a good Trident. I'm not going to try and spot all the 67 plates on the 107, but if I see another one I'll gladly take it. As for one on the 106, if it happens again I'll probably make an effort to see it, and hopefully not miss it like I did here! (And if I do get another on the 106 I will, of course, see it on the 107 a few mins later.)
There are six E400 MMCs in InterConnect livery for the 100, but that seems like way too many branded vehicles for what the 100 actually needs, so they often turn up on other routes (as Bustimes.org will tell you). This is fair enough, but the incessant allocation to the 107 can't surely be an accident. At least one ALX400 has been loaned to Hull, but I wouldn't be surprised if the MMCs are covering for several Tridents that are on loan elsewhere, in for repaint or simply out of traffic for whatever reason. Not sure, but from looking at Bustimes 18024 may have expired in Lincoln on the 106 today (15.7.21) since it just, well, stopped.
Not all the InterConnect 5s run to Boston, as demonstrated by YD63 UZW here with an IC5 for Coningsby, on its way out of Lincoln over Pelham Bridge on 6.11.20
Stagecoach Lincolnshire 15614, a 2010 Scania N230UD ADL Enviro 400, was seen near Burgh Le Marsh operating a service 56 to Skegness. New to Stagecoach Oxford.
One of the 05 plate Solos from the JX# batch, crossing Pelham Bridge on its way out of Lincoln with a students only short IC5 to Coningsby.
12.3.21
The InterConnect 7, or B7 as it's now known, unfortunately provided me with no more deckers for the rest of the day. However, this Tempo that showed up was one that I was still after, having somehow never spotted it on the IC5 before. Brylaine don't use fleet numbers, not on the vehicles themselves at least, although like many operators there are hypothetical numbers that can be seen on Bustimes. This is supposedly 181, but with a reg like that it'll instead be known to me as Megahertz.
Richmond Drive, Skegness, 31.8.22
Here's something a bit unusual; a (usually) Skegness based Gemini in InterConnect purple working a Lincoln depot 16 to North Hykeham. Now - as ever - I'm only guessing, but this did appear to be in the works at Lincoln for a while, but in the meantime a couple of Lincoln E400s either got loaned to Skegness or Lincoln ran a few turns of the 56 with them (given it was the same E400s, I'd say a loan). With no need for 16939 to go straight back to its home depot once the work was over, it entered service at Lincoln!! Perhaps it was only a test to see how it performed following the work done, but whatever the case it's a Gemini working a Lincoln route that normally you'd never see.
16939 pulls away from the stands at Lincoln bus station with a 16 to North Hykeham, here on the sunny evening of 19.4.21 - I purposefully took this while the bus was in the shade as I really, really wanted the blind to come out well on the photo... and it has!
Its allocation to Lincoln only lasted a couple of days, which is a little annoying as I'd have liked to have seen more of it. I did see it on Bustimes working a 19 the following day and tried to get it on Tentercroft Street (for a not-in-the-bus-stn shot) but I have a friend who doesn't understand the meaning of setting off at an agreed time so we missed it.
A couple of days after this all happened, what should appear inside the Lincoln depot building but 16944 with its engine door open, and as far as I know it's still in there... though having said that I did see a purple Gemini just yesterday (13th May) which looked like it had fresh paint and the new style of Stagecoach logo, but I can't be sure.
It's also taken me this long to realise there are only two purple liveried Geminis in use, because 16941 is in Beachball (and looks REALLY tatty might I add), 16943 is the open top Tour Lincoln bus which Skeg have pilfered for Seasider work and no others are on the fleet list.
Anyway, stop reading all this text and look at the bus... it's a rare thing!
Unlike the Stagecoach buses, Brylaine are taking a different diversion to avoid the closure of Pelham Bridge, as both the IC5 and 30 use Canwick Road so the 'city' diversion would take them a little out of their way, not to mention the delays that would be incurred. Instead, buses are using the Eastern Bypass to skirt around the closure (pretty much the only ones that are) and entering/exiting the city on the northeast side. Here on its way towards the bus station is YJ06 YSP, descending Broadgate with an InterConnect 5.
Although Optare Tempos are common on the IC5, this one is far from a regular performer on the route so I was quite pleased when an 06 plate turned up for my shots of the Brylaine diversion! It's even what you might term a mk1 Tempo, with an offside-mounted radiator grille similar to its predecessor. In the past, this particular bus was with Marshalls of Sutton-on-Trent for a while as their OP72, but has since been with Norfolk Green an Stagecoach.
With the historic buildings of the Lincoln Constitutional Club and the cathedral in the background, YJ06 YSP reaches the end of its journey to Lincoln on 14.6.21
Here from Grimsby and parked up at the back of the bus station on 19.11.20 is Wright Eclipse 21265, having come to Lincoln on an InterConnect 103.
Stagecoach East Midlands ADL Enviro 300 FX61HGL (27764) seen as it crosses the Lincoln to Barnetby line at Holton le Moor whilst operating the 10:40 Grimsby-Lincoln 53.
The allocation on Grimsby's 51 and 53 'InterConnect' services theoretically changed from Scania E400s to B7RLE Eclipses in August last year after the five of the former type allocated to the depot were moved to Worksop. I say theoretically as, as mentioned in the caption for my photograph of 19074 in October, the Eclipses do not seem to have taken well to this longer distance work for some reason. This was the fourth occasion I have attempted to photograph one, and the fourth occasion when a different vehicle type appeared. 27764 was one of five integral E300s to move from Mansfield to Grimsby in August as fleet strength replacements for the departed Scania E400s, and these seem to be particularly common on the 53.
Grimsby's input on the 53 consists of an all-day duty on the full route, plus two peak extra duties. The other two buses on the route are operated from Lincoln and comprise the other full route duty plus the vehicle for the short journeys between Lincoln and Market Rasen. This is a route which has been consistently scaled back over the past decade or so. A would-be flagship service was introduced in 2010 with new Scania E400s operating hourly between Newark, Lincoln, and Grimsby under the auspicious of the 3/X3. The section south of Lincoln was soon discontinued, whilst in 2012 the service was reduced to two-hourly between Lincoln and Grimsby, with short workings operating between Lincoln and Market Rasen to maintain an hourly frequency on that leg. It has become commonplace to see single deckers on the route in recent years, a trend which the replacement of the Scanias with the B7RLEs will only increase.
This cable laying barge, surrounded by support ships, is laying an electric power cable as part of the cross channel electricity interconnect.
"
The “NP 289”, built in 2012, is a high standard uniquely versatile multi-purpose accommodation pontoon, of 80,00 x 24,00 x 5,00 meter. It is a heavy constructed barge, non-propelled with lots of facilitates, an excellent stability data and the highest QHSE standards.
The “NP 289” offers SPS-classed, air-conditioned accommodation for up to 60 people , plus four offices, mess room, recreation room, coffee corner and more.
The “NP 289’s” 60 tons CT 6-point mooring system (of which the aft winches are all located under deck) in combination with its spacious and strong – 15 tons per m² – working deck and spud arrangements makes it a versatile and predictable platform with outstanding position keeping capabilities.
Other features include the ability to mobilize the pontoon with project-specific equipment such as fixed and crawler cranes, carousels, boat landings and many other associated and maritime related equipment, to make the pontoon suitable for a wide range of operations such as offshore construction, salvage, renewables support, cable lay/repair and general transport. Its size and specification make it ideal for a wide range of offshore as well as coastal projects.
Passing through the small village of Partney, 3 miles north of Spilsby, is former Lincolnshire RoadCar Volvo B7TL number 16911 in the Stagecoach fleet. Autumn 2019 has seen an increase in use of the East Lancs bodied Vykings on the 56 route following operations at the Long Sutton depot now being part of the East Midlands allocation.
This has resulted in the transfer of the regular Scania Enviro 400s (15808/9/10 & 11) to primarily work the 505 King's Lynn-Spalding route, along with cascaded ones from Oxfordshire. The service is now marketed as part of the Lincolnshire Interconnect network.
This photo dates back to July, and it's October now! This is the alternate, 'blind visible' view that relates to a photo I've previously uploaded, showing Stagecoach Gainsborough depot's Plaxton President 18038 on the (normally E400 MMC worked) InterConnect 100 from Lincoln to Scunthorpe.
MX53 FMA 18038 departs Lincoln bus station, onto Norman Street, on 27.7.23
Recently repainted from 'InterConnect' livery into standard Stagecoach colours, 16908 approaches Lincoln City Bus Station. It is a Volvo B7TL with East Lancs Vyking bodywork, new in 2004 as Road Car 908.
Painted in 'InterConnect' livery, Stagecoach East Midlands 21274 is waiting to depart from Louth Bus Station. It is a Volvo B7RLE with Wright Eclipse bodywork. New in 2009 as First Potteries 69498, it passed to Stagecoach Merseyside & South Lancashire (no. 21274) in 2012 along with First's Wirral operations. It was transferred to Stagecoach East Midlands in 2016.