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A blast from the past - Little Johnny Jet [1]
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Date: 2023-01-28
A B-29, one of two still flying. I've actually climbed through her, the last time she visited the big airport near me. It's hard to believe people actually took something like that to war when you see what it's like inside. One of the other people there that day was a veteran who flew them - he got taken to the head of the line and given special attention - deservedly.
What’s an out of work, decorated war veteran to do, when nobody wants him any more, but he’s got a family to support?
In 1953 Tex Avery came up with a cartoon that touches on how military aviation was transformed by the development of jet aircraft. It may seem difficult to credit now, but back in the 50’s and 60’s there was a plethora of companies building aircraft who’d emerged from World War II looking to come up with the planes that would keep them in business, while seeking to figure out how best to use jet engines. Most of them either went bankrupt, went into other businesses, or disappeared into mergers.
Where it now takes a decade or more to field a single new fighter, tanker, bomber, what have you there used to be what seemed to be dozens of competing designs once upon a time.
Little Johnny Jet is a humorous look back at that era, complete with old stereotypes, historic references, and predictable gags — but it’s still amusing if you can deal with anthropomorphic airplanes and a B-29 who looks more like a B-17, but no matter. Military procurement has never been simpler, either.
(Try not to think too hard about how a Boeing B-29 and a Douglas DC-3 end up having a little baby jet.)
As an additional exercise, compare and contrast with the 1946 movie “The Best Years of Our Lives” in which three World War II veterans struggle to return to civilian life. One of the scenes towards the end features one of the main characters, a former bombardier, sitting in a B-17 in an aircraft boneyard, struggling with his PTSD memories. Symbolically, he ends his struggle to find work — and get his life on track — by getting a job demolishing them .
Humans have a love-hate relationship with the machines they build for their wars. I’d guess there were plenty of veterans who could empathize with the plight of John and Mary — and of the veterans in “The Best Years of Our Lives.”
Keeping those machines flying today is in part to honor all those who flew their counterparts and sacrificed so much — even as there are still casualties today, even with more modern aircraft, because it was not and still isn’t without risk to demonstrate the capabilities they were designed to have, to be used by humans in combat.
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https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/1/28/2149825/-A-blast-from-the-past-Little-Johnny-Jet
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