According to USWarplanes.net there were 3303 P-63s of all variants made. Over on his site, Nick Borer says that:

Of the nine new fighter designs tested by the United States Army Air Force (USAAF) in 1942-43, only one was produced in quantity – the Bell P-63. This aircraft was designed to address the shortcomings of the P-39 Airacobra. Although similar in appearance to the P-39, the P-63 was in fact a completely redesigned airplane and only a few parts are interchangeable between the two aircraft. The picture above is an early photo of the very P-63 the Dixie Wing is restoring shortly after its delivery to the USAAF in early 1944.

The P-63 was a fast airplane – its performance approaching that of the P-51 – but since the P-51 and P-47 were in full production, about 2,400 of the 3,303 P-63s produced were sent to the Soviet Union under the Lend-Lease act. France used some in Indo-China after the end of World War II. The U.S. used it as a test plane and, in a unique version, as live gunnery target training for bomber crews. These variants, called RP-63s or “Pinballs,” had much more armor to withstand the impact of the special frangible bullets used by the crews on these training missions.

When I first met this plane, it had just made its transition from Houston to San Marcos. The plane was in crates and boxes in a corner of the hangar. Actually, one of the wings was on top of some boxes resting on a mattress and other unboxed parts of the fuselage were spread out across the floor of the hangar.

At that point, I had no idea of the significance of the plane that I was looking at.

I made it a point to always try to find out at what stage the restoration of the this plane was at whenever I visited the hangar. I knew it was rare to find a P-63, but I had no idea how rare it was to find a P-63F.

After my last visit, when I was reviewing the pictures of the engine…

Allison Engine P-63F

I came across this one of the number plate:

P-63 Allison Engine Plate

That’s when I realized that this was one of 2 P-63F models ever built. Of course, all I really needed to do was look at the placard in front of the plane, but for whatever reason when I was standing in front of the placard I didn’t realize what I was looking at.

P-63F Placard

Here are some of the rest of my pictures of the plane from that day:

P-63F With Engine In Foreground

P-63F

P-63F Being Restored

In this picture you can see the Centex Wing’s B-25 Mitchell bomber in the background. Yes, I took pictures of that plane too. I’ll post those pictures later on.

P-63F Rear Quarter

Col. Stephen called this portion of the P-63 engine cowling “the turtle” though I never asked him why it was called that.

P-63F Turtle Sans Engine

The P-63F was built to test out this new tail. The program was cancelled due to the end of the war.

P-63F Tail

P-63F Fuel Bladder Goes Here

P-63 Propeller Hub

In the background, you can see one of the few remaining air worthy P-39s. I believe that there are only 3 P-39s that are airworthy and flying. This one, happens to share the same hangar as the P-63F.

P-63F Regulator Needs Oil

This plane was never outfitted with a cannon, so it has this permanent ballast weight to keep the plane’s center of gravity balanced. that big yellow tank holds oil for the propeller assembly or the crankshaft gear box.

P-63F Nose Ballast

Is that an air freshener, or something completely different?

P-63F Cockpit

Detailed view of the crankshaft from the engine making its way to the propeller.

P-63F Crankshaft

Here’s a view of the P-39. It’s getting the leading edge fixed due to a “runway overrun” accident.

P-39

Depending on where you read, the plane dropped 18,000 feet or it only dropped 200 feet. Also, the number of people injured varies between 20 and 23 of the passengers.

What all reports seem to agree on, is that flight EK530 was en route between Dubai and Kochi when it flew through a cumulonimbus cloud. While in the cloud, the plane flew through some turbulence that made the plane lose altitude quickly enough to injure some of the people onboard.

That’s about all that there is agreement on. How much the plane dropped is reportedly anywhere between 200 feet and 18,000 feet of altitude. Regardless of the actual amount, any turbulence or sudden descent that is fast enough to injure 20 people is pretty significant and I would say worthy of reporting to ATC.

According to a report in the India Times, the pilot of the Emirates plane did not think it worth reporting the incident until flight EK530 ”was to land.” I think we’ll need to wait until we look at the flight data, that is, if ATC somewhere in that neck of woods keeps track of that sort of thing.

(India Times)

Emirates 777

Photo Credit: Ingy The Wingy

“Holy cow, they still have airliner service in Somalia? They don’t even have a formal government over there!”

That’s pretty much what I thought too.

Apparently, at some point in November, a Somali man tried to board a Daalo Airlines plane that was flying from Mogasdishu to Dubai with a couple of stops along the way.

According to an Associated Press article published on Yahoo news, people in the know are saying that there are many similarities between the modus operandi of this Somali guy and that of the Nigerian guy that tried to blow up the Delta, I mean Northwest flight 253 on Christmas day.

The similarities are that both men had dry powder based explosives, syringes with liquids and wanted to blow up a plane.

It makes me think that this run in Somalia was a test for the eventual run in Detroit.

I wonder why the African Union military force stationed at the Mogadishu airport were able to get the guy before he boarded the plane while the Dutch and Nigerians couldn’t or wouldn’t.

Here’s the best, and most recent, picture I could find of the Mogadishu airport:

I wonder how the guys in Mogadishu figured out what was going on…

Photo credit:

The comments on the site, and on other sites, all seem to point that the student should not have been turned away because he could only afford to fly once per week. The people from the flight school say that it’s been their experience that people that only fly once per week take longer to complete their training, if they complete their training at all.

I’m not sure where I fall on this point.

When I learned to fly, I started off twice a week and then moved to once per week because of the cost. I can see the school’s point about having to review more material if you fly once per week, but I don’t see why that’s the school’s concern.

I feel they should’ve taken the kid up in the air and taught him to fly, as long as the student understood that they could possibly incur more tuition money because of having to review last week’s lesson before continuing with this week’s lesson.

Now, the student pilot will either not learn to fly at all, or take his money to a different flight school. What do you think about this situation?