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mhaselden

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  1. Many thanks for the replies, gents. I'm toying with investing in a WNW kit...but if I'm spending that much, I want to be sure I'm getting the right one. Unfortunately, OAW versions seem particularly scarce, and hence expensive.
  2. Given the different variants of Fokker D.VII, anyone out there in Britmodellerworld know what would be the best kit to represent his aircraft, as shown below?
  3. Possible but less likely, methinks. There were Oxboxes at 4 FTS in Habbaniyah still sporting the high demarcation line in May 1941. To me, the balance of probabilities leans towards Amy Johnson’s aircraft still having the high line….but we may never know for sure.
  4. From the limited available photographic evidence, I'd go with unpainted aluminium with no padding.
  5. Not a very accurate representation, I'm afraid. AN213 carried the codes TD-Z not TD-F.
  6. Well, it's only been 4+ years but I finally made a discovery that, although not a smoking gun, increases some potential connective tissue in the various records. I went to Kew today and pored through some files of Farnborough's daily routine orders. My relative was promoted to A/Cpl on 1 Jul 1916, with the event promulgated a few days later in the daily routine orders. That record identifies the owning unit of the individual and, in my relative's case, it's listed as SAD. Now, that's still a year prior to the crash of A5539 but it does link my relative to the unit from which that airframe made its last recorded flight. I had hoped that my relative's later promotion to Sergeant, in 1917 (acting in January, substantive in July) would provide conclusive proof but, alas, the daily routine orders for those periods seem not to have survived.
  7. I, too, was skeptical until I watched the video. The evidence as presented is pretty compelling, IMHO, and has nothing to do with "analyzing" a black and white photo.
  8. Running to an aircraft while wearing a parachute is less of a scramble and more of a (slow) waddle. As others have noted, the chute would either be in the pilot's seat or sitting on the wing/tailplane to be donned as the pilot approached the aircraft.
  9. Not sure if this helps but this video includes a few brief glimpses of the passenger compartment in the BOAC Mossies:
  10. Hi Christian, The Dutch Profile booklet on the Douglas DB-8A/3N does include a couple of photos of the gunner's cockpit. Unfortunately, the area is pretty cramped so there isn't much visible. However, it appears there's a mechanism attached to the gunner's seat so that the back can be folded down to enable access to the bombing position below. I'm guessing the gunner/bomb aimer would move forward from his seat, into the raised section of the central fuselage, and then descend into the lower fuselage to access the bombing window. There does appear to be a floor in the gunner's cockpit aft of the seat but it appears more like an U-shaped well rather than a flat floor. Recommend you try getting hold of the booklet as it's likely the best source you'll find. Here's an image of the cover in case it's helpful.
  11. Thanks Troy. One of these days I'll learn to actually read threads before posting stupid questions. MSG makes sense...but that also means the code letters were lighter, hence the potential they were Sky. Appreciate the quick response.
  12. Probably a dumb question but what shade of grey was used for the upper surfaces. It looks very light in several of the images, much lighter than Ocean Grey. Given that the paint is newly applied, fading can't be the cause. I'd welcome any thoughts on the topic.
  13. It seems to me that many respondents in this thread are willfully ignoring the above post. Yes, there are errors in logbooks and ORBs but it beggars belief that the same error would be repeated over two dozen times in the same record. We could ignore the fact that Deere flew P9390 multiple times and never flew P9398. We could also continue pointing to third-hand sources that do identify P9398 but don't cite any primary sources. I know where I'd put my money, though...and it's not with P9398.
  14. Fine...so go with 12,000 ft. That's still 2.27 miles away. How well can you discern ANYTHING at 2.27miles distance? Your questions have been answered. Pilots reported that the night/white scheme made them too visible to the enemy. This makes sense because Fighter Command wanted to attack incoming raids from a height advantage. Thus the Luftwaffe crews, who were much closer to the Hurricanes and Spitfires than were any Observer Corps bods on the ground, may well have found the night/white scheme helpful in identifying adversary aircraft as they drew closer. Replacing night/white with Sky makes perfect sense if the pilots wanted better camouflage so they could increase the odds of surprising the enemy. Whether it actually did a better job of hiding the Hurricanes and Spitfires against the sky is a different question altogether...and experience in other theatres (e.g. the Mediterranean) indicated that Sky wasn't particularly useful against the strong blue hues of the actual sky in that part of the world. Even the prewar trials came back with mixed results. Certainly nothing as definitive as saying that the white/night scheme consistently helped ground observers differentiate friend from foe.
  15. Depends at what altitude the aircraft were flying. The night/white undersides were to aid the Observer Corps reporting inbound raids, typically at high altitudes. The D-Day stripes were to prevent fratricide, either by air or ground forces. That’s a different problem with far more facets, such as low-level ground attack missions by Typhoons, and identification of friendly aircraft by other Allied aircraft over enemy territory etc.
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