Aviation, Plane & Pilot talk (formerly BBC 4 at 8pm)

[Johnboy]

Jets when Britain ruled the world . It's got the Vulcan and lightning in it . Need i go on. Great program

[Kegsti66]

JB, seen it before (well a few times because it was on BBC i player).
Brilliant and the second part is also good. Love the Meteor as well.

[KevJTD]

spotted this too late, thank goodness for catch up

[Johnboy]

Evening chaps

Yeah great program I've seen it before too . The other one is cold war hot jets . I've seen . Well worth a watch . Just annoys me a bit .Well quite a lot . how great this country was with aircraft design and technology. To be wittled down to one company now . Shocking!
For me it's all about the lightning. Just love that plane . Never forget seeing one take off a manston airshow in 88. My said watch this. And I was hooked they've got one at the museum now. Still haven't gone up there yet to have a proper look at .
This is the one they've got

[KevJTD]

John used to fly the lightnings, reckons it was an awesome 'plane

[Kegsti66]

I heard they could break the sound barrier in a vertical climb.
JB If you can, you will have to come up this neck of the woods one day to Bruntingthorp to the cold war jets day.

[Johnboy]

Morning chaps

Yes it's in my plans to come and see the fast runs with both jets
The one in south Africa is hopefully back in the air soon . That's a two seater

kev who used to fly them ?

[Spacenut]

Yes, it's really shocking how so many great aircraft companies, so many great ideas were lost in the 50s and 60s. I managed to get hold of a copy of "Project Cancelled" by Derek Wood which covers many of the great concepts that came out of that period. Check out the Avro 730 and then tell me that the SR-71 was advanced. Mach 2.5, 60,000 ft. No windscreen! In 1954!!! Cancelled in 1957

[Johnboy]

I'll have to check that out Lauren

[Marlow Sud]

The Lightning was fast and could zoom climb to 88,000ft. It was the only NATO aircraft in the 80s that could catch Concorde. When I say catch Concorde I have to say they used the fastest Lightning in the fleet and specially polished it and it struggled. Not sure if you guys read Flypast but this month there is an article about the difficulties for a Lightning to shoot down a Mach 2 Russian bomber. The speed of the missile and the speed of the target make it almost impossible to get the warhead to go off at the right moment to guarantee to bring the bomber down. The solution - make a bigger bang. They were looking at the Lightning lobbing a missile with a nuclear warhead and scooting away from the area as quickly as possible. As long as the missile was within half a mile of the target it would bring the bomber down.

Did you hear the story about the engineering officer sat on a garden chair in the cockpit of a Lightning on a ground run when it got stuck in reheat. He couldn't get it out of reheat and took the only option open to him, pulled the stick back and took off but pointing it skyward didn't slow it down very much. He eventually got it under control and landed it after several attempts. Poor guy had a break-down over it. It caused a bit of a cafuffle. The station thought a Russian had nicked it. The Saudis were being sold Hawks to train their Lightning pilots and when they heard how this engineer had flown a Lightning they said their pilots didn't need Hawks. Although he was an engineer, he did have his wings. Not sure if the aircraft even had a canopy on it. Amazing presence of mind in a terrifying situation.

[Marlow Sud]

Catch me if you can!

Here I come!

[Johnboy]

Morning Marlow sud
Great photos of two iconic planes .
Never heard about them thinking of use nukes on lightning's

Both story's I knew about and both lightning's survive too. The Concorde one is àt Glasgow airport if I remember and the other is at Duxford . The engineer met up with it years later.bet he didn't new underwear
Two other great stories I like. A cocky pilot on an exchange. Was told . Don't use full power on takeoff . As he's new. Needless to say. He did . He only managed to get the undercarriage up at 10000 feet .Once he regained control
The other. A pilot took one out . Came back .And was asked .How'd it go . He said , everything was fine until I let the brakes off
What a plane

[Marlow Sud]

Hi Johnboy,
I heard a good Concorde story recently. They didn't have any shots of Concorde flying above the speed of sound. Mike Bannister was flying Concorde just off the Welsh coast with two Tornado camera ships. He opened the throttles to accelerate to Mach 1 and the Tornados were no longer with them. He called them up and asked if there was a problem and the answer was "erm yes. we cant keep up".

I have an aircraft for Lauren. Miles M52. It never flew but the Whittle engine with thrust augmentation was so powerful that the pilot (Captain Eric Brown) was briefed that he would have to throttle back after achieving Mach 1 because the aircraft would keep accelerating beyond what the airframe could withstand.

The M52 project was handed over to the Americans and they achieved Mach 1 first with the Bell X1. The reason remains a secret but Eric Brown believed that there was a massive financial offset due to the amount of money the U.K. Owed the US.

Flights of rocket powered models of the M52 achieved Mach 1.38.

The M52 had an all flying tail plane and the Americans did not have this knowledge at the time and would not have broken the sound barrier without it.

All the best,
Simon

[Johnboy]

Hi Simon

We've given the yanks so much over the years . The tsr2 was scrapped because of them. They where going to call in the debt from ww2 if we carried on with it . Shocking

[Marlow Sud]

Hi Johnboy,
I didn't know that about TSR2. I do know that America only became a rich country after the First World War due to supplying goods and services to the UK and France for WW1. During the Second World War, America became twice as rich for the same reason. However, I can only imagine how grateful the country was for that support when in desperate need.

All the best,
Simon

[Johnboy]

Hi Simon
I'll try and find the website . It's all about British jets and there history.
Yeah my dad always said it was the russians that mad the Labour government cancel it . But not from what I've read.
I'm just off to manston . To checkout a future paint job Alfa sud . So I'll get a pic of the lightning

[Johnboy]

My local lightning
Not great shot as I was driving

And this as it's just such a cool shot

[junior]

Another way to look how well the USA did after the war is to look at how many Coke cola factories there were before the war and how many after.

Its quite a leap from what I remember.

[Marlow Sud]

Great shot. Beautiful colours and an appreciation of the shape of the belly tank and the considerations of area ruling.

[jobeed]

I'm ashamed to say my history knowledge is very poor indeed, but my best pal was one of the first to fly the Euro fighter (after it was released to the raf) He signed up for an extra 3 years for the sole purpose of getting in it after the delays. Anyway my point is he always reckoned the U.K. Had to bribe the U.S to get into both ww1 and ww2 by giving them nearly all of our technological developments. If it's true a worthwhile cost, but a bit sad at the same time.

[Johnboy]

I believe there is some truth there .
when you think we invented the carrier . The catapults on them . Missile silos where are idea.but as usual it cost to much .So we give them the plans .With the harrier .In stead of selling them to the yanks . We sold them the plans the list in endless
With the vulcans . A mate of my dad's back in the day was in the military police it was the yanks they kept catching trying to get a look at them .
Great allies.....not ! Now there selling us their f35 harrier replacements, that still aren't flight worthy .

[PETROLHEAD]

Thats the "Special Relationship" we enjoy with our chunky cousins across the pond!

Through desperation and neccessity we became their bitch, and its never changed. In fact i think Maggie and Reagan took us even deeper into their pockets and we'll never get out.

Uk? the 51st state of the usa!


Ooh I'm off on one now!


Now, about my infant school milk allowance Margaret!

[Johnboy]

yeah I want my milk back

[PETROLHEAD]

She took that hatred to the grave JB,

The miners were nothing compared to 28 sulking malnurished milkless nippers, we'd have ripped her to pieces!

[Marlow Sud]

I hate to burst your bubble guys but at the end of WW2 there was a race between the UK, USA & Russia to capture German Aerospace technology. We were amazed by their supersonic wind tunnels let alone all the amazing aircraft they had developed. All the beautiful supersonic aircraft were developed from what we learnt from German scientists. If you see swept wings - German research. Eric Brown - "Wings on my sleeve" is a great read in this respect.
Brgds,
Simon

[Kegsti66]

[quote="Johnboy"]My local lightning
Not great shot as I was driving


It was a good job your mate was able to lean across and take that shot eh JB.
There is a nice Lightning in the aero park around the back of Donnington. Plus a few other gems, Vulcan, Vampires Canberra etc. Even have a Nimrod.

[Crank]

Strange this thread should come up now as I have just finished the remarkable Eric "Winkle" Browns autobiography 'Wings on my sleeve' and its easily the best aviation book I have ever read and I have read many. Its a must for anyone interested in aviation.
I agree with all the previous comments but can't resist adding, that as my father kept telling me during my Airfix Kit years, "Its the Russians that won WW2". The fighting was much more bloody on the eastern front with the bulk of German losses being in the east and about 18 million Russians being killed. Without the Americans in Europe and their aid I don't think Stalin would have stopped in Berlin and we would have found ourselves facing the Russians across the English Channel instead of the Germans.

[PETROLHEAD]

I hate to burst your bubble guys but at the end of WW2 there was a race between the UK, USA & Russia to capture German Aerospace technology

and of course the scientists behind them!

America wouldn't have been in space when they were without their spoils of war in human resource!


If you believe in all that man on the moon mumbo jumbo, total phooey!

[jobeed]

Stage 2 at metro Goldwyn Mayer. I have proof. Well my mates mate has a pal who saw some proof one time.

[Marlow Sud]

Hi Crank,
Eric Brown was a bit of a hero of mine. I was lucky enough to have lunch with him a couple of times. He was as sharp as a tack even though he was in his 90s. I would never have got bored talking to him. Think of an aircraft and he has flown it. Here he is in West Sussex after one of our lunches - May 2015:

Brgds,
Simon