Winged Heroes

[Tizer]

Thanks for the link Stanley, I've added it to the Wellington post. I had put a link to the old Heroes thread in the first post of the new thread but when I looked now it didn't work, so I've replaced it with yours.

[Stanley]

Despite the fact that the archive as posted is incomplete useful links are popping up on the search engines.
I went to have a look for the Wellington with the jet up its bum. It was the testing of the RR Welland engine. See this LINK.

[GAK]

Hi all
We have just had the 75yh Anniversary of the RNZAF at Ohakea aerodrome near where I live, very interesting! One of the exhibits was a model flying boat, about 8ft span, of an aircraft called a Singapore. I had not heard of this before, so looked it up on google.
The model was not quite finished, and we are all waiting for its maiden flight. Four engines, two tractor, and two pusher. Should make for some interesting handling.
The build quality was excellent.
GAK

[Stanley]

Wiki LINK for the Singapore. Omissi mentioned it in "Air Power" I think.

[Tizer]

There are some great photos from about 1920 on this RAF Hendon Museum Flickr LINK. The Museum is trying to collect information about the photos. Click on the thumbnail to get a bigger picture and then click that to enlarge it. You can toggle through the photos. The Museum has some interesting news stories in its list HERE, including information about women's suffrage and women pilots, and the raising of the Dornier bomber by Richard Branson's appeal.

[Stanley]

Sorry about the quality but this is a painting by Frank Wootton on the front cover of Omissi#s book on Air Power. Harts over the Himalayas. (LINK)

[Tizer]

After the Battle of Britain my father was posted to South Africa as part of the Joint Air Training Scheme and he remembers the SAAF still having Hawker Harts. Reading your Wiki link about the Hart, they could have been the modified jobs called Hartebees. I got diverted into reading some history of the SAAF and found this particularly interesting - what a way for a new air force to make its first operational sorties:

"The first operational deployment of the newly formed Air Force was to quell internal dissent, when in 1922 a miner’s strike on the Johannesburg gold mines turned violent and led to the declaration of martial law. 1 Squadron was called to fly reconnaissance missions and to bombard the strikers’ positions. Sorties in support of the police amounted to 127 flight hours between 10 and 15 March and this inauspicious start for the SAAF led to two pilot losses, two wounded and two aircraft lost to ground fire. The SAAF was again deployed to suppress the Bondelzwart Rebellion at Kalkfontein between 29 May and 3 July 1922."

[Stanley]

That's an interesting snippet Peter! The main thesis of David Omissi's book on Air Power was the effect on the inter-war development of the RAF of it's use as a police force to cut down on the expense of using troops on the ground. It was a successful ploy as far as people like Churchill were concerned as it saved money. Machine gunning and bombing Kurdish villages to force them to pay taxes had a 'gratifying effect'. In 1926 Trenchard suggested to Churchill that attacking working class areas could bring the strikers to heel. Looks as though the SAA were using the same tactics!

[Whyperion]

With much less social separation in England between the classes , and the proximity of home to work , would such a policy have been practically worth while ? Did the RAF have enough personnel for such an operation ?

[Tizer]

Whippy, you have to remember that this was the early days of aviation, the planes were often used to strike terror into those on the ground. You didn't need to shoot or bomb accurately, or even shoot or bomb at all, the sight and sound of a flying machine could frighten the wits out of people who thought it was after them. They could (or had to) fly so slowly and low that it was also easy to take potshots at anybody in range, again raising the level of terror. And with the class attitudes at the time, Trenchard may have seen the white British miners as targets for terror just as much as he would the black SA miners.

[Stanley]

Dead right Tiz. We forget how prevalent Imperial ethics were at the time. The RAF was used during the General Strike to keep up essential communications and to distribute copies of the 'Gazette', the anti strike newspaper produced for propaganda by the government. In 1919 when the Clyde-side strikers were marching for a 40 hour week they were dubbed revolutionaries by the government who moved troops in and had tanks ready in the Gallowgate cattle market ready to subdue the 'revolutionaries'. Remember that the revolution in Russia struck terror into the hearts of the ruling classes. Not a big step from tanks in Glasgow to bombing Salford. Remember troops being used to break strikes, look up Tonypandy on the web. We tend to forget the history, some of us keep digging to try to understand how this country works, in may ways the working classes are still seen by some to be the enemy.

[Nolic]

See link below for an amazing story of a P40 Kittyhawk that has been untouched in the desert in western Egypt since it crash landed in 1942. It is almost perfectly preserved. Nolic
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... esert.html

[Tizer]

Great pictures, thanks for the link Nolic! I see they mention the RAF Hendon Museum is interested - I was there last week and took this photo of their present Kittyhawk on display. (Sorry for the poor quality - I found it difficult to take photos under the subdued lighting in the museum - you really need a tripod and floodlights!). Note the difference in camouflage colours between the two aircraft - Hendon's plane is painted in the colours of a 112 Squadron Kittyhawk while operating in Italy in 1944.

[Wendyf]

When my Dad talks about the "kites" in his war journal, would he have been referring to planes in general or could it have been a nickname for the Kittyhawks? He was out in the Middle East.

[PanBiker]

I would assume the former Wendy, the term was in general use throughout the RAF to describe a multitude of different aircraft types. He would almost certainly have been acquainted with the Kittyhawk in that particular theatre though.

[Tizer]

Talking of terminology, I was surprised to learn recently that when the term `aeroplane' was first in use it was applied equally to winged aircraft and to balloons. I found this in a recent copy of `Picture Postcard Monthly' magazine in an article about early aerial photography. Some of the first postcards showing aerial photography say the photos were taken from an aeroplane but you can't assume that it was what we now call an aeroplane, it could just as well have been a balloon. Also they sometimes said it was aerial photography when the photo was taken from a high point on the ground, or a tower or steeple.

[Stanley]

I'm reading 'Secret War' again (yes, Ian. I'm up to my knees in the Battle of the Beams!) and it's quite surprising how many obsolete aircraft the RAF had that were still serviceable and used during tests on the early RDF installations.

[Stanley]

I've finished Secret War and came across some interesting references to strange aircraft so I've been doing some furtling!
Have a look at this LINK for the ME 321 'Gigant' cargo carrying glider. Worth looking up 'troikaschlepp as well. (LINK)
The ME 323 was essentially a 321 with six engines. (LINK) They were quite successful and I think were the biggest aircraft of WW2.
Here's another strange one, the HE 111Z 'Zwilling' designed as a glider tower for the Gigants. (LINK)



What struck me as strange was the fact that German designers never went for mass production of large 4 engined bombers like ours but were prepared to push the boat out and make these gigantic planes. One wonders what the German equivalent of the Lancaster would have looked like....

[Tizer]

It's interesting to see the two turrets on the top of the wings of the Me323! The Germans took several Lancaster equivalents as far as prototypes and sometimes into production. The Amerika Bomber project was intended to provide aircraft capable of flying across the Atlantic to bomb American aircraft manufacturing plants and even carry atomic bombs. The project was already under way by 1938 so we can assume Hitler intended to pre-empt America's entry into the coming European war. Among them were the:
Me264 (4 engines): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messerschmitt_Me_264
and
Ju390 (6 engines): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junkers_Ju_390

The 4-engined Ju290 bomber was used for long-range maritime reconnaissance: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junkers_Ju_290
and the Ju89 was a 4-engine protoytpe bomber: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junkers_Ju_89
as were the He277: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinkel_He_277
and Dornier Do19: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dornier_Do_19

[Tizer]

For those of you who appreciate good photography have a look at this fabulous web page of old pics of US navy flyers and planes:
http://navypilotoverseas.wordpress.com/ ... /seaplane/

I found it after discovering this Flying Boat forum:
http://theflyingboatforum.hostingdelive ... /index.php
(Notice the forum design is the same as OGFB!)

Here is a cropped bit from one of the navy pilot photos to give you an idea of the quality...

[PanBiker]

Well, these links are going to while away a few hours! Fantastic pictures Peter.

[Stanley]

Looking at the gun-sight..... Can you imagine having to lean forward and look through that while attacking an enemy target?

[Stanley]

Bumped.

[Stanley]

Have a look at this LINK. A couple of days ago I got one of those forwarded messages that pass for communication these days with some people. It was the story of Charlie Brown and the escape. I have a healthy scepticism about these things but it looked more genuine than most. I consulted Tiz and he referred me to Snopes which I had forgotten about. If you look at the link, whilst they identify some slight embellishment the story is basically true. Not a lot of this about during the war.

[Wendyf]

Saw on the local news that the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight is doing a fly past over York tomorrow at 12.45. The Dakota will be taking off & returning to Blackpool, so there might be a chance of seeing it.