F.A.Q Section - Ask your questions here :) Q: Do you take aircraft requests? A: I have a list of aircraft I plan to cover, but feel free to add to it with suggestions:) Q: How do you decide what aircraft gets covered next? A: Supporters over on Patreon now get to vote on upcoming topics such as overviews, special videos, and deep dives. Q: Why do you use imperial measurements for some videos, and metric for others? A: I do this based on country of manufacture. Imperial measurements for Britain and the U.S, metric for the rest of the world, but I include text in my videos that convert it for both.

@RemusKingOfRome

3 ай бұрын

If you want details on the Boulton Paul turret, this video is excellent - kzread.info/dash/bejne/aKuMqtCMlNjMZ8o.html

@pavellahoda4280

3 ай бұрын

Do you plan to cover similar airplanes from smaller nations, such as Czechoslovakia Aero A-24? Thanks

@aprendoespanol6833

3 ай бұрын

Zeppelin-Staaken R.VI please. And the gotha, off course. Basically, all the aircrafts used for strategic bombing in WW1. Very fascinating and relatively unknown history

@juggl3r311

3 ай бұрын

I love your videos, I really look forevard to the Miles experimental aircrafts video, and the french flying boats.

@jackcausey1449

3 ай бұрын

That or the Sikorsky Ilya muromets as that was the first heavy bomber Or the b36 the largest plane ever built

Martin, Douglas and Bell all there at the beginning? Yoiks!

@CAP198462

3 ай бұрын

I desperately want to make a dirty joke here, but I won’t.

@Farweasel

3 ай бұрын

*Boeing* WOULD have been ..... but *they couldn't find the door* ?

@CAP198462

3 ай бұрын

@@Farweaselbecause someone blew the bloody doors off.

@GOPGonzo

3 ай бұрын

@@Farweasel They were, but they were the Boeing Lumber Company at the time, and stuck to supplying the raw materials.

@douglasfur3808

3 ай бұрын

Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My!

"Boarding action". LOL!!! 😆

@TexJester-no8th

3 ай бұрын

*MB-1 chasing Fokker D.vii* *MB-1 firing 37mm cannon, with no hits* American pilot: *pulls M1911 and aims at German pilot* "Heave to and prepare to be boarded!!"

@jlvfr

3 ай бұрын

"Arrrrrr, flying matteys!"

@Skorpychan

3 ай бұрын

Not that bad an idea with an airship, tbh. Now I want to write something about an aircraft designed to land troops on top of an airship, so they can abseil down the envelope and take it over.

@jlvfr

3 ай бұрын

@@Skorpychan the game or movie writes itself...

@iatsd

3 ай бұрын

The British considered this for the German airship night attacks on the UK. The idea they focussed on was to fly above the airship and attack via the top mounted MG nests as access points. It took them a surprisingly long time to conclude that if you could get close enough to board then you might just as well shoot the thing down.

The Liberty aeroengine. It deserves its own video. Supposedly designed over a weekend in a Washington hotel room (you can believe as much of that as you want). The V-12 with a 45° bank seperation angle could also be produced in an inline 6 and V-8 versions. At 27 Liters or 1650 CID it has exactly the same displacement as the later Merlin. The Kirkman K-12 which would evolve into the later Curtiss D-12 was actually designed earlier and in the end was a far superior engine. Although the Liberty did power the first aircraft to cross the Atlantic. The Curtiss NC-4. Note said cross. Not cross non-stop. As to how far behind the US was in both military and civilian aviation in the 1910s a large measure of this can be placed on US isolationist policy (1) and conservative business practices. 1) With the massive blood letting on both the Western and Eastern fronts is it any wonder by and large the US, both politically and public opinion wise, had no wish to become involved.

"This is a story for another day..." A hint at the long-awaited collaboration with everyone's favourite naval historian?

@creativehorse7907

3 ай бұрын

He's actually already done one Collab with drach 👍

@aaronbasham6554

3 ай бұрын

​@@creativehorse7907 Doesn't mean a second long awaited collaboration with everyone's favorite naval historian wouldn't be appreciated

@OrangesAndCookies

3 ай бұрын

Drach mentioned he was working on another Rex collab during the latest Drydock. It'll be about British carrier aircraft development.

@marckyle5895

3 ай бұрын

@@creativehorse7907 I like Drach and the Ocean Liners guy Mike Brady

@boredatwork7031

3 ай бұрын

The only navel historian I trust is TEX of the black pants legion.... Okay I jest but he is fun to listen to and more knowledgeable than a lamen... Like myself.

So given the outro, I'll presume that you're going to be covering the Keystone Aircraft B-3/4/5/6 series of bombers eventually. Still, regardless of that, it's nice to see someone covering the more obscure interwar bombers and oddities!

I remember right after landing from the aircraft's maiden flight in Dayton Ohio, Glenn Martin and his pilot were immediately arrested by the Army, and it took several phone calls and interviews to convince the authorities that this was not in fact a German bomber that had supposedly managed a transatlantic flight all-the-way to Ohio.

My great uncle flew as an observer with a Canadian unit of the RFC, despite coming from the UK. In 1919 he was flying Curtis JN4s from an airfield near fort worth, Texas. I imagine the offer of clear skies for training was beneficial for the commonwealth, while being beneficial for the USA in the observation of experienced air training units. That said, the use of american aircraft by commonwealth units in the US and Canada shows that the US industry was coming into its own.

Air to air boarding action, sounds like something that would happen in Crimson Skies

It is definitely the American vimy. I like interwar stuff and here would be my suggestions: Handley page hinadi/hydrabad, Vickers Virginia/victoria/valentia

Excellent

I suspect that 37mm weapon is a McLean Gun, a weapon much-loved by the Russians and known there as the "Maklen Gun"

@gyrene_asea4133

3 ай бұрын

I really liked the air-to-air deflection sight on the gun. Look up Ian's Forgotten Weapons on that sight and how it worked. You see the same mechanism on the Lewis Gun in "The Mummy" 1998.

Got up getting ready for college and enjoying some Rex, this is nice

Great video, Rex...👍

great work!

You just keep improving and improving with every video. Keep it up mate! I'm loving these!

Another smacking good video!

These videos on obscure nearly f orgotten interwar planes are very interesting. Thanks

Great video Cheers

Awesome aircraft,this is the plane that is depicted in the Martin Scorsese movie 'The Aviator' in around 2005 isn't it?,during filming of Howard Hughes epic movie of the later 1920's 'Hells angels' one of these were used for a camera plane with Hughes himself in the front pulpit cockpit using a hand held camera after one of the dog fighting fighters undercarriage strikes & destroys a camera mouted on the top wing during filming?,watched this awesome movie again only last weekend in fact,have also watched Hells angels too on YT.love the how story how Hughes went back refilmed the entire movie again with sound after Al Jolson's movie 'The Jazz Singer' came out as the first 'Talkie' making Silent movies well & trully a thing of the past?,fascinating story,cheers '

@malcolmbolton1473

3 ай бұрын

In fact,that would make a very interesting video Rex,on Howard Hughes & the whole making of the'Hells Angels' movie in fact,the Aircraft Hughes acquired for the mobie,the stunt pilots,special effects,etc.,or am I moaking far too much work for you?,be a great story though just the same,cheers

Thanks Rex

I found the first photo of a large number of biplanes interesting. There are a number of planes lined up, and there a number of mules also in the photo. It just shows how new the air plane was. The deaths of the war was not so much because the generals were uncaring, but because they didn't know how to fight this kind of war.

Morning Rex.

l really like the photos you always show in your excellent video......Thanks my friend..... Shoe🇺🇸

"Boarding acation" , LMFAO!

Plot twist: The B stood for Baseball.

@poowg2657

3 ай бұрын

Or "boarding action ".

I don't know why but for some reason I misread the title as having something to do with the Martin Baker MB-1, and I spent the first few minutes thinking "Oh hey, I didn't know they started out in America, I must have been mistaken" before you introduced Glenn Martin et al.

It looks very cool.

7:10 Rex, you are severely underselling how crazy bonkers awesome boarding an airship in flight would be.

Another one of the few famous people that I wish I had met was Billy Mitchell. I wonder how things would have turned out had the powers that be listened to him?

I find the disparity in numbers of aircraft unsurprising. Given the short range of aircraft at the time, the relative peacefulness of our neighbors, and the overwhelming isolationism (let the Europeans fight amongst themselves), it's not surprising that there was so little military demand for aircraft. And given the then fragility of aircraft, there was little to no civilian market, so few manufacturers. Europeans, in contrast, were forced to keep up with their neighbors in development and numbers. When the USA finally joined the war, the only suitable aircraft available in the world were being made by our Allies. Since then, things seem to have turned around.

The Liberty engine made sense in certain cases, here for example. Later it became something of a pain in the butt. Way too many were built way too long.

Hell yeah, let's get Rexed at. Martin MuricaBomber-1!

@marckyle5895

3 ай бұрын

And our very first bommuh had sufficient daka-daka on it in the form of 37mm cannon OR 5 MGs! Like that was almost the proto-YB-40. The entire "escort bomber" concept with all the usual suspects such as the YB-40 and the XB-41 would make for a great video, Rex.

Are you planning on following up with the Keystone bombers that presumably replaced the Martin types in service??

What are the best ww1 and ww2 airplane books, I’m really interested in learning more.

That transport version with the glazed limousine cabin looks great. Time to retrieve one of Glencoe's MB-2s from the dungeon and sharpen the axe... Maybe. Great video as usual, Rex. Cheers.

Very interesting vid abt. early US bomber development.

I've never understood the animosity the USAAF had for Martin towards the end of their relationship. It seems to me that Martin made cutting edge bombers from the very start.

@WAL_DC-6B

2 ай бұрын

The Glenn L. Martin company indeed built many "cutting edge bombers" especially their last production bomber they built for the USAAF, the B-26 Marauder. But it was this very aircraft in its early stages that created problems for the famous aircraft manufacturer and probably explains that "animosity." The B-26 at first had a high accident rate generally due to its fast-landing speed, around 150 mph, which many Army pilots failed to observe and consequently stall out and crash (flying on one engine was a problem too). During WWII there was a Senate Committee that looked into problems with the B-26 (as well as other military contractors), and it was headed by then Senator Harry S Truman who would later become Vice President of the U.S. and then President after the death of President Franklin Roosevelt in April 1945. Truman questioned Glenn L. Martin himself at a committee meeting In Washington D.C. asking why his planes (B-26s) were crashing so often. Martin responded saying that the wings were too short. In which case Truman asked what he was going to do about this. Martin said that the aircraft were pretty much already completed. Truman then said that the order for the Marauders would then be cancelled. Martin responded by lengthening the main wings by six feet on each side and increasing the height of the tail. The Martin B-26 would then go on to having the lowest loss rate for an American bomber during WWII. Martin later would do well with the USAF producing the licensed built, B-57 Canberra bomber, the Matador and Mace cruise missiles and Titan booster rockets at well. The company today is known as Lockheed-Martin and continues business with the U.S. Air Force to this day.

For the 1930s you can have a go at the Argentine designs from Fabrica Militar de Aviones. I couldn't find too much info about those...

Sometimes I wonder what would happen if you were to build one of these first generation aircraft to be visually identical but out of wholly modern materials how much extra power for weight could you get could you increase performance or would the antiquated design hold it back

@boobah5643

3 ай бұрын

Err... yes, and yes. The problem is that modern materials are going to want a different aircraft; you don't build planes the same shape when you're building a wooden frame covered with fabric than when you've got a tube of steel or composites. That doesn't even get into the improvements in engine technology; 800 hp on 54 liters of engine is absurdly low powered.

any plans to release videos?

Do aircraft getting close enough together to initiate a boarding action. Lol They could even wear pirate outfits! 😅

At 6:00 minutes in the picture reminded me of a model i thought had bent misshapened sloppy vertical interplane struts . Oops

Great history and I love those pics, thanks! @6:21 it looks like Felix The Cat with an American roundel in its mouth?

Pentagon mentality in that era: “Our forces are minuscule but look at all the money we’re saving!”.

Very interesting! A 'boarding action would be better' got me laughing... It seems the Army Airforce had no direction at that time, but the Navy certainly did. Now I need to discover how the Glen Martin company became Lockheed-Martin. Thank you.

@boobah5643

3 ай бұрын

Point: The Army Air Force wouldn't exist for decades. Makes it hard to have direction. Heck, it wasn't even the Army Air Corps yet. The Army Air Service was almost three months old when the plane first flew.

it's crazy how when you adjust for inflation, that plane costs roughly 2,100,000 dollars. That's relatively cheap by modern standards :)

A 37mm cannon on a WW1 biplane... Is anyone else getting mental images of Yak-9Ts with their wings almost torn off by recoil? Sure, the 9T had a much more powerful gun, but it also had a lot more structural integrity (again, compared to a first war bi-prop). Not saying it's a complete apples-to-apples comparison, with everything matching up, but it feels... uncomfortably close.

If only they knew what it would turn into!

30 May 24

3:00 boggling that this photo was taken closer to when the Brits had burned down the White House than it is to today. Maybe not - I am still cranking my head at maps of Washington DC to see what they knocked down to build parks and such. (The city under the bomber is Washington - or have I been day drinking again?)

12 May 24

Wonderful sharp delivery as always, glad domesticity has not blunted your tongue.

I like the thinking of designing various models. Furthermore it goes to show that the writing was well and truly on the wall for the Central Powers, almost regardless of the outcome of Germanys last offensive for it appears that the US was determined to bring it's full weight to bear against them, much as they did in WW2.

Last!

❤

It's incredible that in 34 years we went from this plane to the b52. 72 years later, we are still in the b52

@zacklewis342

Ай бұрын

No, we're at the B-21. We still use the BUFF like an old pickup truck because it runs and it's paid for.

The first powered airplane was flown in the US in 1903. However, there was a great deal more to the reason why the US Air Service had fallen so far behind those of the Europeans than simply because of World War I. It actually had a great deal more to do with mismanagement on the part of the Army. First of all, the US Army made the Air Service a subsidiary of the Signal Corps. The leaders of the Signal Corps knew absolutely nothing whatsoever about aviation, so they turned over the responsible for the qualification of the pilots to a private flying club. Furthermore, not knowing anything about flying, the Signal Corps sent prospective Army pilots to the Wright or Curtiss aircraft manufacturers for flight training and, since Curtiss and Wright aircraft had completely different control systems, the resulting Air Service pilots were qualified only to fly one or the other, but NOT both. Third, it was Army policy that officers be attached to the Air Service only on a temporary basis from their original branch of the Army so that, by the time that many pilots had completed flight training, they were already due to be transferred back to the units from which they had originally come. The result of all of that mismanagement was that, by 1914, the US Army Air Service was a complete mess. When one reads up on what actually went on with the US Army Air Service prior to the US entry into WW-I in 1917 it absolutely boggles the mind that anyone could have been that stupid, and yet it was all true.

@WALTERBROADDUS

3 ай бұрын

"Mismanagement," is a bit harsh. You are talking about experimental technology. And experimental tactics.

Would this be the type of aircraft used to bomb striking coal miners at the battle of Blair Mountain, West Virginia (1921)?

I love how the Americans built a bomber in America when the war is taking place in a totally different area of the world and no way of getting that kite to the war in any way or form. So typical American.

0:20 ‘Fist few months’? Weren’t the Americans only involved for a few months? Like 19 months 😮🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧

@Intrusive_Thought176

3 ай бұрын

Yes, and?

@owenshebbeare2999

3 ай бұрын

Well, better late than never?

@chickenfishhybrid44

Ай бұрын

19 months is "a few" to you?

All of you guys...If I want to convert metric, I can do it on my phone! Lighten up with the nerd stuff please.

@owenshebbeare2999

3 ай бұрын

"Nerd stuff"? It's the Yanks who are the outliers when it comes to not using Metrics, at least by your common population.

@chickenfishhybrid44

Ай бұрын

​@@owenshebbeare2999and? Deal with it

I always find it amusing that America invented the airplane and then kinda went, well that was neat wasn't it, and proceeded to let the rest of the world absolutely eclipse them until they were forced to realise what happened upon entering the end of the first world war

@chickenfishhybrid44

Ай бұрын

Little need was seen for remaining on the cutting edge i suspect. There wasn't interest in becoming entangled in European wars. A lot of people forget, even Americans, that the US long has a tradition of wanting to stay out of European issues largely. Many people seem to assume that US post WW2 "world policing" has always been the way of the US.