Did you know we have thousands upon thousands of aircraft photos? Yes, we have lots of Wright Flyer photos, as you know, but we also have photos of more recent aircraft.
We’d love to show you some, but it’s difficult to choose! Between the William F. Yeager Collection (MS-223) and the Walter Matthew Jefferies Aviation Collection (MS-344) alone we have over 40,000 aircraft photographs!
So, to help narrow things down a bit, we decided to poll our followers for ideas. We asked our Facebook and Twitter followers:
What are some of your favorite airplanes? Give us some aviation inspiration! We’ll try to find photos of the first 5-10 answers and share them in a blog post in a few days.
Here are the requests we received, along with the aircraft photos:
“B-1” (Matt)
I was pretty sure that “B-1” meant the Rockwell B-1 Lancer, a U.S. Air Force strategic bomber first introduced in the mid-1980s. However, when at first I had difficulty in locating a photograph of the B-1 bomber, I was prepared to offer Boeing B-1 Seaplane as a substitute (technically it is a “B-1” after all!):
Boeing B-1 Seaplane, undated ca. 1920 (MS-223, Box 44, File 230)
However, it turned out that our Dayton Daily News Archive had an abundance of photographs of the Rockwell B-1 bomber; here is just one of them:
Rockwell B-1B preparing for test at Edwards AFB. Photo by Tim Gaffney. Photo used March 24, 1991. (DDN Archive, JHAN 21p)
Incidentally, the B-1 bomber is also one of the planes included in our Model Airplanes exhibit, which you can see on the fourth floor of Dunbar Library.
“Fokker DVII” (Jared)
The Fokker D.VII was a German WWI fighter plane. Here is a photograph of one at McCook Field in Dayton in 1923:
Fokker D.VII, 1923, at McCook Field in Dayton (MS-223, Box 34, Folder 29, Item 1)
“DeHavilland Mosquito” (Christina and Kathryn)
This one was popular; we had two requests for it. The Mosquito, or “Mossie,” was a British WWII combat plane.
DeHavilland Mosquito, undated (MS-223, Box 57, File 83)
“Lockheed P-38 Lightning” (Dale and Aaron)
Another plane that received two requests (and our only Twitter-based request) was the Lockheed P-38 Lightning, an American WWII fighter plane:
Lockheed P-38 Lightning, undated (MS-344, Box 99, File 11, Identifier # 4848)
“P-51D Mustang” (Kathryn)
The North American P-51 Mustang was an American long-range fighter/bomber used primarily during WWII and the Korean War. We have many photographs of the various models, but here is a photo showing some of the P-51D planes:
North American P-51D airplanes, undated (MS-344, Box 124, File 2, Identifier # 4400)
“Hawker Typhoon” (Aaron)
At first I was worried that we wouldn’t have any photos of the Hawker Typhoon, a British fighter/bomber used in WWII. We have many photographs of the Hawker Hurricane (which the Typhoon replaced), but we have much fewer photos of the Typhoons. Here is one, showing Hawker Typhoons from the Royal Canadian Air Force:
Hawker Typhoons, undated (MS-223, Box 60, File 60)
“B-2” (Natalie)
The Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit, or Stealth Bomber, is an American bomber introduced in the mid-1990s. I found a handful of photographs and sketches of this airplane in the Dayton Daily News Archive, most of them from the Associated Press:
Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit bomber photos (Dayton Daily News Archive, JHAN 21p)
“Kettering Bug” (Collette)
The “Kettering Bug” was an unmanned aerial torpedo invented by Charles F. Kettering during World War I. We have a number of photos of it in the Dayton-Wright Airplane Company Collection (MS-152); you can view all Dayton-Wright Co. photos on CORE Scholar. (There did not seem to be any photos of the “Bug” in the Kettering Family Papers (MS-363), however.) Here is one of the Kettering Bug photos we found:
Employees of the Dayton-Wright Airplane Company working on the Kettering Bug, 1918 (ms152_156, more info on CORE Scholar)
“Paper airplanes” (Sabrina)
I did not expect to find any photos to satisfy this clever and amusing request, but the Dayton Daily News Archive strikes again!
Frank H. Scott with one of the designs he plans to enter in the paper airplane contest at the Convention Center. Photo by Roberts. Dec. 1975. (Dayton Daily News Archive, DDN B&W, Airplanes-paper-contests)
We hope you enjoyed this table-turning adventure in blog posting! And special thanks to all of our followers who participated in the activity! We will definitely try this again sometime! Follow us on Facebook and Twitter to find out when the next round will be!