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walker

New Member
Location
Bromley, Kent
that looks great, I'd love to be there
 

Fnaar

Smutmaster General
Location
Thumberland
Bear with me for a small digression...
My mobile phone internet homepage is set to the BBC History site's "On this day" page, telling you events in history for that day (obviously). It struck me this morning that on the same day as the bouncing bombs were bouncing down the Ruhr, the Warsaw ghetto was being "cleared" of Jewish folk

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/

•1943: The Warsaw Ghetto uprising is crushed by German troops and 60,000 Jewish people are shot or deported.

•1943: The 'Dambusters Raid' by the RAF's elite 617 Squadron breaches two huge dams in Germany's Ruhr valley.
 

Arch

Married to Night Train
Location
Salford, UK
I'm sure I heard a story that some Spitfire pilots were practising 'low' flying in the Derwent area, and one of then suddenly realised a Lancaster doing dambuster practice had just passed UNDERNEATH him..

Amazing skill - and the beauty is, all the gear was so simple really. A pair of lights for height, a forked stick with nails in as a distance sight, and a spinning bomb.
 
My brother (aged 45) was in the Air Force for 24 years and never really notices/bothers looking at the modern jets/bombers, but when a WW2 plane flies passed he always looks in admiration, goose pimples breaking out all over. His mates and contempories were the same.
 

Mr Pig

New Member
The Spitfire is in my opinion the most beautiful aeroplane ever built, I always have a little model one in the house. I was blessed enough to see the Battle Of Britain air show at Duxford years ago and it was fantastic. What a wonderful sound those Merlins make.

I have great admiration for the men who flew these machines and gave their lives for us. We must never forget them.
 

Arch

Married to Night Train
Location
Salford, UK
I was once at a classic car rally, and a load of us were gathered around some huge ol' Cadillac which had its engine running, and then something started up in the background and Tom said "That almost sounds like a Merlin..." And it was, bolted to a trailer thing, and pegged to the ground, with a stub of propellor on the prop shaft. We all deserted that dull ol' Caddy quick enough. What a sound! ;)
 

TheDoctor

Europe Endless
Moderator
Location
The TerrorVortex
Arch said:
I'm sure I heard a story that some Spitfire pilots were practising 'low' flying in the Derwent area, and one of then suddenly realised a Lancaster doing dambuster practice had just passed UNDERNEATH him..

Amazing skill - and the beauty is, all the gear was so simple really. A pair of lights for height, a forked stick with nails in as a distance sight, and a spinning bomb.

And they got the idea for the lights-for-height by watching a stripper! We're a classy lot, us engineering types.;)
 

TheDoctor

Europe Endless
Moderator
Location
The TerrorVortex
Mr Pig said:
That's not in the film! ;0)

Where did you hear that, any more details? Was it spotlights on the stripper?

It's in the book. One of the boffins explains about spotlights under the plane, and one of the pilots said 'Oh, I thought of that last night when they had a stripper on in the Naafi!'
 
My in laws live in the Derwent Valley and had two passes for the flypast last Friday. They offered me of of them but I couldn't go - I was particularly disappointed because I think they had an old Vulcan bomber flying too. It was restored at Bruntingthorpe proving ground which is not far from where I live. Earlier this year (I think) they test flew it, which was an amazing sight.
 
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