Defense or Offense!

When thinking of aircraft manufacturers, many folks who are interested in the aviation history of Buffalo, New York generally think of Bell or Curtiss-Wright. Relatively few will think of the Consolidated Aircraft Corporation which operated out of Buffalo for eleven years, from September of 1924 to September of 1935.

Today we present an old print ad for Consolidated from the June 1935 ish of Aero Digest, featuring the A-11 / P-30 / PB-2 family of attack and pursuit planes. The basic design was somewhat successful, and Consolidated received production contracts from the US Army totaling 54 aircraft; four P-30/PB-2s and fifty P-30A/PB-2As. But the type was already obsolete by the time it entered service and further development was not pursued.

Just a few months after this ad ran, Consolidated would close up shop in Buffalo and relocate to San Diego, California where they would begin work on numerous designs, including two of the most well-known and successful aircraft of the Second World War: the PBY Catalina and B-24 Liberator.

 

Project 914 Archives

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Sentry Over the Falls

A bit of 'airplanes over the Falls' randomosity today...

A NATO E-3 Sentry soars over WNY's most well-known water feature.

For those of our readership of right around zero to three who are unfamiliar with the type, here's the scoop: The E-3 Sentry is an AWACS bird developed from the Boeing 707 airliner. Now, I know what you're gonna ask: 'What's this AWACS business?' Well, lemme tell ya.

AWACS = Airborne Warning and Control System. Basically, these jets are equipped with BIG radars and other sensors, fly around in circles, often in areas of conflict, and keep an eye on... everything. Whether it's in the air or under the air, they see it. They are the prime command and control asset either on or above most any battlefield (oh, sorry, the current terminology is 'battlespace'). If they're tasked with protecting a given area and unknown aircraft approach, the folks sittin' inside these flying radar stations are gonna notice, and they're gonna tell their friends, and their friends are gonna go take a looksee and say, "Heeeyyyy... whutcha dooooin?" And then, well, the story can splinter into any number of random scenarios from there.

The TLDR is this: The E-3 can do everything from simple surveillance, to coordinating a multi-layer defense of the battlefie... errr... battlespace, to helping you find your car keys. Well, they probably wouldn't be tasked with the latter mission, but they're undoubtedly capable.

Anyhoo, as to the photo; we have no further info. We dunno who took the photo, why they took it, or when. However, the internet tells us that the pic may have come from the NATO archives. And of course, you can always believe everything you see, hear, and read on the internet, right? Well, that's probably a reasonable claim, and may very well be true. But until we discover more concrete info concerning this photo, we'll just leave it at that.

Photo source/credit unknown

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