THE FRIDAY FOTO (October 27, 2023)

A FIGHTER THAT NEVER FOUGHT.

(4GWAR photo by John M. Doyle, copyright Sonoma Road Strategies, LLC) Click on the photo to enlarge the image.

AMSTERDAM, the Netherlands — Your 4GWAR editor never expected to see an aircraft at one of Europe’s most prestigious art museums, but here it is the on the top floor of Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum.

The Rijksmuseum is the national museum of the Netherlands dedicated to Dutch arts and history. Its world-famous collection contains masterworks from the Dutch Golden Age including the Milkmaid by Vermeer and Rembrandt’s The Night Watch, which is so big, it is displayed in its own gallery.

There are numerous other masterpieces by Rubens, van Gogh, and non-Dutch artists like Goya, Manet, Pissaro and Kanagawa.

However, on the huge museum’s third floor sits the FK 23 Bantam.

In  1917, the Dutch aircraft designer Frits Koolhoven designed this small biplane for Britain’s Royal Flying Corps, the predecessor of the RAF. According to the museum display, the British hoped to defeat the Germans with this feather-light fighter biplane. The new, super fast engine, however, was not fully worked out. The testing period took too long and the Bantam never saw action on the Western Front.

Here is another view on this remarkable aircraft.

(4GWAR photo by John M. Doyle, copyright Sonoma Road Strategies, LLC) Click on the photo to enlarge the image.

And here is a Rijksmusuem diagram of the Bantam’s strengths and weaknesses.

(4GWAR photo by John M. Doyle, copyright Sonoma Road Strategies, LLC) Click on the photo to enlarge the image.

Vintage aircraft fans may remember that another Dutch aviation pioneer, Anthony Fokker, designed the Fokker Dr.I, the German triplane made famous by World War I aces such as Manfred von Richthofen, the Red Baron.

THE FRIDAY FOTO (July 14, 2023)

NIGHT DELIVERY.

(U.S. Air Force photo by Master Sergeant Corban Lundborg) Click on photo to enlarge image.

A U.S. Air Force C-17 Globemaster III cargo transport plane from Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, New Jersey, offloads a  MH-60 Blackhawk at Las Palmas Air Base in Lima, Peru on July 5, 2023 for exercise Resolute Sentinel 23.

Led by the 12th Air Force, a component of U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM), Resolute Sentinel seeks to improve readiness through joint training of U.S. and partner nation forces’ civil engineers, medical professionals and support personnel in a series of humanitarian assistance activities. This year Resolute Sentinel is being held in Peru and will integrate combat interoperability and disaster response training to the medical aid and construction projects.

First held in 2021, Resolute Sentinel evolved out of two annual joint humanitarian assistance exercises in Latin America and the Caribbean. Participating nations this year include Panama, Colombia, Ecuador, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay and the United Kingdom, according to Diálogo Américas.

The C-17 Globemaster serves as the Air Force’s primary strategic lift aircraft for global transport of troops and equipment. According to Military.com it can carry 102 paratroopers, 36 litter cases and 54 ambulatory patients and attendants or 170,900 pounds (77,519 kilograms) of cargo. The MH-60 Blackhawk helicopter weighs 2,511 pounds (5,675 kilograms) empty and has a 50-foot-long fuselage, so you know the C-17 can handle big loads. This Blackhawk is part of the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (SOAR), also known as the Night Stalkers.

If you are curious or confused about the long name McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, or whether it’s an Army, Navy or Air Force base, the answer is all three. McGuire Air Force Base, the Army’s Fort Dix and Naval Air Engineering Station Air Station Lakehurst — all in New Jersey — were combined into one joint operation in 2009 by the congressionally-mandated Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) process.