The Damcasters - The Aviation History Podcast

12/01/2025

The part needed to repair the damaged CL-415 aircraft assisting in the firefighting efforts in Los Angeles is on its way. De Havilland Canada remains on standby 24/7 to support crews and keep the fleet flying.

12/01/2025

I do love it when your YouTube subs are of the same mind as you. "That XB-70 Valkryie looked like a Klingon Battle Cruiser!"

Yessir/madam, it does, even down to the dihedral of the wingtips. Watch the B-1A walkaround episode filmed at the Wings Over the Rockies Air & Space Museum here: youtu.be/Q8SI8z84Uu0

National Museum of the U.S. Air Force

09/01/2025

Be sure to follow the Hawker Typhoon JP843 - Typhoon Legacy Co. Ltd. project! Our best chance to see a Typhoon brought back to life.

Hi All, In December I had a very productive last minute trip to Holland to inspect and sort the recovered wreckage from Hawker Typhoon MN954. This is the aircraft that I watched the recovery of back in the spring of 2024. More to come on this. I've been working away on the forward mono section

09/01/2025

The B-1B Lancer has been in service for nearly 40 years. Its current role differs from the one envisioned for it and is subtly different from the Mach 2 B-1A.

Join us as we look at the aerodynamics of B-1A 74-0160 on display at the Wings Over the Rockies Air & Space Museum. Brought to you in association with the Pima Air and Space Museum.

📺: https://youtu.be/Q8SI8z84Uu0
🎧: https://www.thedamcasterspod.com/podcast/the-mach-2-secrets-of-the-b-1a-lancer/

08/01/2025

We'll have a new episode tomorrow. In it, we'll examine the aerodynamics of the B-1A at the Wings Over the Rockies Air & Space Museum to see how North American created its Mach 2 strategic bomber.

Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss out! https://www.youtube.com/?sub_confirmation=1



Image: The first prototype Rockwell B-1A Lancer, 74-0158, takes off at Air Force Plant 42, Palmdale, California, 23 December 1974. (U.S. Air Force)

08/01/2025

TAH50 has arrived from the printers!

Our 50th quarterly issue of The Aviation Historian was delivered from the printers yesterday, and we have been busily packaging copies ready to send out to readers in the UK and worldwide in advance of official publication on Wednesday, January 15.

Our cover subject is a Lockheed NF-104A Starfighter climbing almost vertically under jet and rocket power; it heralds an article by Tony Buttler FRAeS on American jet fighters repurposed as advanced powerplant testbeds.

Watch out for further details on this page and on our website tomorrow, January 8, when the new issue will be available to order.

07/01/2025

This is your semi-regular reminder that in November 1943, the RAF invited John Steinbeck, who was writing for the New York Herald Tribune, to inspect its crack Hawker Typhoon unit, 609 Squadron, at RAF Manston...
..He ended up writing about their goat.



Image description: The then-Group Captain William de Goat is likely begging a cigarette from a 609 Squadron Typhoon pilot at RAF Thorney Island in spring 1944, with rocket-firing Hawker Typhoons in the background.

Image: IWM (CH 13341) - Original wartime caption: Among the many great successes of the new British rocket-firing planes, was the destruction of enemy radiolocation installations just before the airborne landings on France on 6th June 1944. "Group Captain" William B. Goat, mascot of a front line rocket Typhoon Squadron. He likes ci******es and is seen begging for one.

06/01/2025

I just posted an announcement about the project I have been working on for several months. It will be filmed for the channel this spring. I'm super excited to share it with the fab Damcasteers on our Patreon, who will get more info as we get into this.

Get more from The Damcasters on Patreon

06/01/2025

"For me this is a day of triumph. For the first time in two months I have been able to feed myself with my own hands. The wads of cotton-wool and bandages are off at last."

As openings to memoirs go, Barry Sutton's is hard to beat. Sutton flew with 56 Squadron and was shot down in both the Battles of France and Britain, like shot down in a friendly fire incident and badly burnt during the latter. During his year-long convalescence at the RAF Hospital at Halton, he wrote The Way of a Pilot, a short but fascinating look at 56 Squadron at the start of the Second World War. Sutton would return to the RAF, being posted to Burma and the Far East Command for the rest of the war. He passed away in 1988.

02/01/2025

And we're back! January sees our mini-series of episodes filmed at the fab Wings Over the Rockies Air & Space Museum in Denver. Curator Stewart Bailey joins us to discuss some of the collection's gems and find out what brought him to the role.

📺 https://youtu.be/wnp6WyzwuH8
🎧 https://www.thedamcasterspod.com/podcast/curating-wings-over-the-rockies/

Brought to you in association with the Pima Air and Space Museum.

29/12/2024

A shout-out to Dick Audet, a fellow Alberta boy who in 1944, while flying with 411 Sqn RCAF, shot down FIVE Luftwaffe aircraft within 10 minutes. Dick, in Spitfire LFIX RR201 DB-G, found himself in a mix with Me109s and Fw190s near Rheine. He claimed 3 190s and 2 109s.



Image: Richard "Dick" Audet, 411 Sqn, RCAF, became an ace on December 29, 1944, when he shot down five enemy fighters in one day. He was flying his friend Jack Boyle's aircraft, DB-G (RR 201), according to the logbook. In this photograph, Audet is with his own aircraft, a Spitfire IX, DB-A (MK 950, coded R for a time), in which he was killed while strafing locomotives on March 3, 1945. DND Photo PL 41719, Steve Sauve. Veterans.ca

28/12/2024

Our fab Damcasteers over on Patreon now have access to the first four episodes of our Wings Over the Rockies Air & Space Museum special mini-series!

We chat with curator Stewart Bailey, poke around the B-1A and discuss the merits of the F-101 and the epic F-110A Spectre.

Join today! https://www.patreon.com/thedamcasters

27/12/2024

The Tucson Military Vehicle Museum is looking for Public Program Volunteers! Apply here: www.volgistics.com/appform/1381959426

If you love meeting new people and sharing your knowledge and love of military vehicles and history, this is for you. The museum’s Public Program Volunteers engage with visitors and share information on the collection in short 15-minute talks throughout the day. They also help to inspire young visitors and students with fun hands-on activities.

Volunteers must be willing to work with the general public providing excellent customer service to guest of all ages, genders, ethnicities, and backgrounds. This position is available Sunday-Saturday from 9am-5pm.

26/12/2024

Editing a look at the F-4 as part of our upcoming series of episodes we filmed at the Wings Over the Rockies Air & Space Museum in November. It's been great looking at what is effectively Phantom-porn for the last little while for the b-roll and images. In this episode, I also make a bold F-4 statement. (Patreons get the episode today!)



Image: An F-4 Phantom II aircraft comes in for a landing aboard the aircraft carrier USS INDEPENDENCE (CV 62) during flight operations off the Virginia Capes, May 11, 1989. Image DOD DN-SC-89-06024

23/12/2024

One of my highlights of 2024 while making The Damcasters was seeing Douglas A-20 Havoc pilot Bob Rierson climb back into the cockpit of the Pima Air and Space Museum's A-20, 79 years after he last stepped out of a Havoc cockpit.

In February 2024, at the in Tucson, Arizona, Bob Rierson returned to the cockpit of a Douglas A-20 Havoc for the first time since coming ...

21/12/2024

December 1963: After six years of work, the X-20 Dyna-Soar program was cancelled. The revolutionary manned space plane design, being built by Boeing, would have been launched into orbit via a traditional space launch booster but would then glide aerodynamically and land on an airfield. Although cancelled, the X-20 design directly influenced the Space Shuttle and X-37 programs.

More info: https://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/Visit/Museum-Exhibits/Fact-Sheets/Display/Article/198111/dyna-soar-x-20a/

21/12/2024

21/12/2024

Given the commitment to this display with restoration efforts and the commissioning of an X-15 replica, it's only fitting we commemorate the end of the X-15 Hypersonic Research Program. It was officially cancelled on this day, December 20th, in 1968. NB-52A "The High and Mighty One" was retired less than a year later.

Photo by Boneyard Safari