Comments by "Sar Jim" (@sarjim4381) on "PeriscopeFilm" channel.

  1. "Space Cadet". Good username. Railroads have been one of the largest taxpaying industries in country. The railroads long ago pad the government back for their land grants in the 1800's. The railroad accident rate has been in a constant decline since about 1995 and is now the lowest in history for fatal crashes. Railroads have been winning freight traffic back from long haul trucks because of their on-time deliveries compared to trucks fighting the heavy traffic on freeways, something the government built. And who exactly was supposed to pay for this nationwide system of monorails? The railroads, that were rarely profitable in the 1950's? No, it would have to be done by the taxpayer. And what exactly would have been gained by constructing monorails. Even now, the longest monorail in the world is only 60.8 miles while the longest maglev lines 19 miles. Both of these systems are in China and both were built by the government. The technical and financial issues with maglevs make it impossible to built a nationwide system. Typical monorails have no speed advantage over high speed trains already in service in many parts of the world, but they do have horrendously high costs of maintenance, another good reason why no country has thousands of miles of monorails in service. Building high speed rail lines for passengers might make sense, but you can't build a high speed line that competes with jets for long haul routes. Long distance commuter serve the likes the Northeast Corridor where we already have trains running at 120-150 mph. Other high speed lines with speeds of 220 mph are in the works for lines where passenger traffic will support them. That's a faster speed than any monorail. It sounds like you actually know very little about railroads.
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  4. The biplane trainer was the Boeing/Stearman PT-13/17. They were what almost all military pilots used in the first phase of training, and over 10,000 were built. The low wing monoplane was the Vultee BT-13 Valiant, the next step up from the biplane. The next step was not shown in flight, but the T-6 Texan retractable gear trainer was shown facing the cadets in several shots. They were the planes at 13:39 being used to sight in their machine guns. The T-6 was built to be a lead in for single engine fighter training. The T-6 was easily the longest lived in service of any of the aircraft seen. It wasn't retired by USAF as a trainer until 1959, but a few served as counter insurgency aircraft in Vietnam, while others flew in the same role in places like Algeria and Angola. The last T-6 in military service was retired from the South African Air Force in 1995. Several hundred are still flying today as warbirds and in air races. The twin engine craft In the row facing the cadets are Cessna AT-17 Bobcats. This was the standard twin engine trainer of AAF for the whole war. Generally, pilots who weren't successful as single engine fighter pilots had the chance to fly multi engine aircraft instead. Some, wanting to be bomber pilots, chose to go to multi engine training as soon as basic flight training was completed. Almost 6,000 AT-17s were built, and they were commonly used as "station hacks" for the CO and XO to keep up their flying hours, and general transports for other pilots from the base. Pilots being trained at March Field in Riverside reputedly used AT-17s to visit brothels across the border in Nevada, many of which had their own airstrips. Some went for the swimming pools, horseback riding, tennis, and excellent meals, along with gambling in the small casinos of the larger brothels. The single rooms each had comfortable beds with top grade mattresses, a radio in each room, big bathtubs and showers, plenty of hot water, and, most importantly, air conditioning. The price of a room without female accompaniment was only $2 a night, and that included a steak dinner at some of them. That was a pretty nice way to spend the weekend after barracks life. The madams knew what to do to make sure the pilots would keep coming back. Of course, others went for more nefarious purposes, but the pilots of March field were setting the scene for the resort hotel casinos of the Vegas we know today. The fighters were were twin-engine Lockheed P-38 Lightning and the Bell P-39 Airacobra. The P-39 was already obsolescent by mid-1942 and was only used for training in the US, although we sent thousands to the USSR on Lend Lease. It was a well loved airplane there. The four engine bomber was, of course, the famous B-17 Flying Fortress. It was in use from before the war all they way to the end of it and after. The film must have been made in late 1942. The red "meatball" that was in the center of the star marking was removed in May 1942. The B-17s shown are F models, not put in squadron use until June, 1942. The film was careful not to show our more modern fighters like the P-47 Thunderbolt or P-51 Mustang
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  8. I love the Caribbean, but things were different in 1948. The idea of being "whisked" there in a couple hours from Miami in an unpressurized, non-air conditioned DC-4, bumping along at 15,000 feet while dodging thunderstorms in not my idea of being whisked now. At 560 miles, it wasn't exactly a fast trip in a plane cruising at about 220 mph. The four hours time from Trinidad to Jamaica must have been on a Constellation since it was the only plane flying in 1948 with the required cruising speed of 350 mph. It would have been a lot more pleasant than the DC-4 since it was pressurized, air conditioned, and cruised at 23,000 feet. That '48 Chrysler woody cab may still be driving around Havana for all I know. The Tropicana was the premiere nightclub/casino during the postwar period and up to Castro's takeover in 1959. The casino was run by Mafia mobsters during the 50's after most had left the US during the times of Keufhaufer hearings. Although the casino is going, the Trop is still there, with the lavish shows and showgirls not much changed from 1948. Unfortunately, I was a mere 13 years old when Castro "liberated" Cuba, so it's the one Caribbean island I've never seen. San Juan has turned into a huge third world dump. The big hotel/casinos are, of course, safe and nice to visit, and Old San Juan is still safe and a tourist mecca, at least during the day. The rest of the city has been left to rot as Puerto Rico teeters on the edge of bankruptcy. The murder rate is about the same as Chicago, and police and government corruption is common. I haven't been back since Hurricane Maria last year, but I imagine things are even worse. Jamaica in 1948, and Kingston in particular, had one of the lowest murder rate in the world, even lower than London. Police were unarmed and, from what residents of Jamaica have told me. it really was a tropical paradise. After independence in 1962, drugs and drug gangs became a growing problem, and the police were generally armed by 1990. The murder rate is one of the highest in the world, and the police are now armed to the teeth, but very poorly trained. It's the only place in the Caribbean I've ever been caught in the middle of a gunfight. The special drug squad had apparently cornered several gang members at an outdoor cafe almost in the heart of downtown Kingston, and the police were determined to take them into custody. The gang members were just as determined not to be. The result was a 15 minute gun battle with automatic weapons on both sides. All my late wife and I could do is huddle in a doorway and keep our heads down as rounds whizzed around us. I was a police officer in the US at the time, and it was one of the few times traveling overseas that I wish I had my gun. There are some very nice resorts on the north coast like Ocho Rios and Negril that were still safe the last time I was there in 2003. If you decide to visit Jamaica, go to the north coast and try to get a flight into Sangster International (MJB) in Montego Bay. It's modern, air conditioned, and efficient. It allows you to avoid all the problems of Kingston.
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  44. The revised movie was released in 1952. Most of the stainless steel cars are post WWII. The New York Central E-7 locomotives with the large number boxes weren't built until 1949. Most of the cabs are 1948-9 Chryslers with very few pre-war Checkers. The UN building was just under construction in 1948 and completed in 1952. The SS United States. the large liner shown several times, wasn't christened until 1951. The radio station section and experimental TV were both from the 1942 film. It would appear that large sections of the 1942 movie were junked and 1952 footage substituted. Most of the NYC passenger fleet was still heavyweight cars and many of the trains were still pulled by streamlined steam locomotives. I suspect that the movie had the misfortune of being released just before Pearl Harbor. No NYC tourism movie was going to get any theater time after Pearl Harbor. Once the war was over, all the train footage would have to be reshot since the NYC management wanted to show off the new postwar trains. They also had to be reshot a lot of the street footage since 1q941 cars looked old by 1948. They used the 1942 footage when they could but it must have been an expensive undertaking to shoot new film and then intersperse the new footage with the old. The NYC was unfortunate again because, in that same ten year period between the old and new move, many of the passenger trains had ceased to exist, and the NYC was getting reading to merge with the Pennsylvania RR to form the Penn Central, another disaster for the NYC. The NYC then ceased to exist, at least the end of their long string of bad luck.
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