America's First Jet

<> The P-59

This is the picture of the America's first Jet airplane. It was first flown in Oct. 1942.
: A crew has spent the last 10 years restoring this plane, and they got the wings on just in time for an air show, but it still was not able to fly.last weekend.; Here is the funny story about the P-59 (and explains the funny hats the guys are wearing). In 1942, this was a Top Secret airplane. It was at Edwards AFB, and when they had to transport it, (when the dry lake got flooded) they disguised it with a phony wood propeller on the front -and covered it in a shroud.
: One time, on a test flight out of Edwards, it was spotted by pilot's getting checked out in P-38s out of Van Nuys Airport. When they reported seeing an airplane with no propeller, no one would believe it. The story kept circulating, so the test pilot of the P-59 decided on a great plan. He dressed up in a gorilla mask, put on a derby hat and a cigar. Then he made a point to fly next to the P-38 pilots and waved at them. When they got back to the base, they told everyone they had seen a plane with no propeller, flown by a gorilla, wearing a derby and smoking a cigar. Naturally, NO ONE woul d believe that one, so it stayed a secret until after the war.
: The Crew below has special shirts and derby hats and a fancy baseball cap designed by one of the guys. They might have the gorilla mask by this weekend!

P-59 Spotted

"During the test program, a formation of P-38 Lighting, on a training mission over the Mojave Desert was overtaken by an Airacomet. The P-38 pilots were puzzled when they saw the plane with no propeller. Stranger still, the Airacomet pilot was wearing a derby hat and had a cigar in his mouth. After a few seconds, the jet pilot tipped his hat politely and pulled away from the formation. This was the first time that Air Force personnel, except for a select few at the test base, had ever seen a jet propelled airplane. " (source:http://www.aviation-history.com/bell/xp59.html)

Reference picture: http://img65.imageshack.us/img65/893...rmation3ky.jpg

Images are from Blender Artist Forums
Other Links: Wikipedia or USAF Museum Archives or Unknown

A model of the P59

Slepnyner (from Belgium) modeled the plane using references from The-Blueprints.com and from available pictures on the net. The bump map and color map were made using a combination of inkscape and gimpshop. The final renders were made in Yafray and took about an hour each. Slepnyner is planning future renders and a few scenes (and maybe an animation) which will be posted in this thread when they are complete.

You can follow the progress of the creation of this model in the Focused Critique Thread: http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=67974

Thanks for taking a look and feel free to post your opinions
Slep

Check out Slepnyner website at http://slepnyrl-studios.atspace.com/
Slepnyner would love to know your opinion on the latest work: http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=67810