Question from Airliners.net

[Typhoon1244]

Somebody help me. I have some pretty detailed books on the Superfort...but all my books are still in boxes. What is that under the fuselage?

(Please don't tell me it's an early chemgoo sprayer! )

 

[Skyboss]

It's a Penis.

No wait... Chem Goo Scooper!

 

[Typhoon1244]

It's a Penis.

And the thread grinds to a halt while everybody turns to stare at Skyboss.

 

[ShawnC]

Looks like some sort of antenna. Ten bucks says that it was classified when that picture was taken.

 

[great cornholio]

Maybe it was an early maglev test

 

[Jmmccutc]

fellas, you're all wrong, it's neither a chemgoo sprayer/scooper, penis (that just disturbing that you came up with that), or antenna...it's an in air BBQ dispenser...i mean hey, pilots get hungry too...

on a more serious note i read one time that it was an antenna for an instrument something like an ADF/NDB, that didn't get any further than testing...but who knows i'm probably wrong...

 

[A Squared]

Typhoon,

I would bet long odds that it is a SLAR (Side Looking Airborne Radar) antenna. The Defense Mapping Agency used those quite bit back then. Before the advent of Synthetic Aperature Radar, the resolution of a radar image was a function of the length of the antenna .. the longer the antenna, the higher the image resolution. .... so for high resolution imagry, you had the tote agournd a very long antenna.

 

[A Squared]

On second thought, I see the photo is from 1945, that would have been a little early for SLAR, it came out in 1954.

I'd still say it was some sort of antenna, maybe some sort of Radar antena