As long as we’re talking about Lawrence’s review of General Idi Amin Dada, I have a question that’s bugging me, and I know I have some aviation buffs in my audience.
What are these planes? I apologize for the pictures: they are actually screen snapshots from the DVD, and I tried to get ones that showed the best possible angles. Click to embiggen.
Lawrence suggested they might be MiGs, and I know the Ugandan Air Force had MiG-15s and MiG-17s. But both the 15 and 17 have a really blunt open nose, while these planes have a more rounded one. I don’t think these are Fouga Magisters either, because they lack the V-tail. I believe these are some sort of two seat jet trainer, and they may be French. But I can’t tell, and it really bugs me that I can’t figure it out. Maybe if I’m lucky Tam will see this. For some reason, I’ve also got in my head that the good and great Brian Dunbar knows his planes. And, of course, there’s RoadRich…
Okay. I lied. One more “one more thing”, just because this amuses me, and I’m pretty sure it amused Lawrence as well.
(Okay, one last thing. It irritates the fire out of me that Apple disabled screen captures from DVD Player in the Grab utility. And they don’t just throw up a “You can’t do this” popup: Grab lets you do the capture, but the resulting file is just a checkerboard grey and white pattern. Fortunately, VLC will a) playback DVDs, and b) even has a built-in “Snapshot” menu option. Hurray open source.)
> What are these planes?
Aero L-29 Delfín. Czech designed, first flight 1959.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aero_L-29_Delfin
I don’t really know planes, although I like any fast, noisy, expensive, machine as much as the next kid.
No. I clicked your link for the ‘Magister” thought yeah, that’s close except for the tail, the wingtip tanks, the intakes are a little off and maybe the nose gear isn’t right.
But hell, maybe the French had a mod 2 with a T-tail or something. Then I thought ‘hey wiki airplane nuts usually include a ‘Aircraft of comparable role, configuration and era’ section and sure enough, there she was.
Award yourself bonus points. Masister came first, and I’ll bet you a buck the dirty commie Czechs ‘borrowed’ from that design for the Delfin.
Thanks, Brian. You nailed it. I owe you a couple of drinks when we’re in the same location at the same time.
I totally missed the “comparable role, configuration, and era” section at the bottom of the Magister entry.
I think what may have been irritating me, now that I know those are L-29s, is that I swear I’ve run across the L-29 before. It may have been in a discussion with one of my friends, or there may have been an Air and Space article about the L-29, or both, or neither…
(Trade-A-Plane has one listed for sale for a mere $45,000. That’s not too bad…)
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