An old friend just sent me this pic, and I thought it was an interesting visual on aircraft sizes.
That's a SPAD XIII in front of a 1950s F-106 Delta Dart like my grandfather wrenched and my college mentor flew--the Dart's tail fin alone is only a foot shorter than the entire SPAD airframe! When we consider that in tandem with the only about 40 years between the two birds, the stature of typical WWI pilots (remember, as former horse cavalry most would have been in the low 5'/100lb size/weight class) and that every pound of weight counted... amazing the evolution in engines too, from frequently being unable to lift a mere second gun or even an added PARACHUTE to the Six having the power if properly flown to toss a payload suborbital into space. This had to be done on the ground because a SPAD's V-max is BELOW the speed where a Six falls out of the sky...
Gives you a whole new appreciation for those guys a hundred years ago... makes ya wonder how they WALKED with the huevos they were dragging around.
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