Object Identified !
In the Tale Spin of Vayu’s Issue VI/2018, the tantalising photograph (re-produced) evoked the interest of multiple readers including that of our own venerable Prodyut Das who writes that “this was one of the most challenging spotter’s quiz I have faced so far”.
He continues: “My guess is that this is the tip tank of a Canberra B( I) 58 photographed by the navigator whilst flying over the Taj sometime between 1966-1980 around 12 o’clock in the noon in the month of May-June. How the Taj Mahal came into the picture I am sure I don’t know !
To explain: Turning over my mind and rejecting spinner of Avro 748/Antonov An32/ Vampire NF.10, what twigged me on was the small projection on the nose of the object. The Canberra tip tank had such a projections, possibly an axial tie member to which the suspension lugs were somehow attached. Incidentally the tip tank was supposed to increase the theoretical aspect ratio by acting as a endplate-so typically Petter!
Canberra B(I) 58 because the navigator had a small window on the port side which matches the angle of the shot.In the Canberra B.2/ B.10 the window was so far back the Avon would get in the way!
1966-1980? Prior to 1965 the tank would have been painted silver. 1980? I guess from the sparsity of the habitat around the Taj.
12 o’clock May-June from the fact of the shadows: the sun is almost vertical over the Taj as it would be in June and no damned tourist–the whole concourse is empty as a church’s contribution plate.
Elementary my dear Holmes! (even that dumb Watson got it!) Great fun! Thanks!”
Thanks, Prodyut and one and all but perhaps this has not really been fair to Vayu’s myriad of readers and air enthusiasts in India and the world. Thus to end the suspense, this is it:
The image is really of an USAAF B-25 Mitchell, aft end of starboard nacelle pictured over the Taj, photo taken from the starboard waist gun in 1944. The photographer recorded: “Just after takeoff from Agra air base, the flight pattern goes over the Taj. This view is toward the southeast from a US Army Air Force B-25 that was taking us back to Calcutta after the Agra visit.”
This image is part of a rich array of photographs taken in Calcutta during 1943-44 by Glenn S Hensley, a professional photographer participating in the surveillance of the Japanese in Burma for the US Army. During his off-duty time Hensley used his ethnographer’s eye to capture daily life in a number of locations around India. The majority of the images are from Calcutta and its environs. Other locations in this collection are Madras, Kharagpur, Agra, and Burma. The photographs and notes were prepared by Hensley for his wife to use in teaching world history courses in Missouri during World War II.