JohnT

looks like the whole front of the engine came off. Glad all on board are safely down so kudos to the crew. That picture out of the window must have been hairy for the passengers http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-41454712

That's a very good imaginative choice of subject in that scale. I do wonder what Dornier did to deserve being ignored? Still no 217 ! The only issue with Hph is their price point. I have looked at their 410 more games than I can say. This new Sparviero would be a buy at £120-150 but it's going to be north of £250 so not for me

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-41446043 Lets hope they manage a few celebratory drinks tonight

I have both the Paragon conversion and separately Paragons saddle tank. I will pull them out later to see if any lines were put on them but being Vac moulds I suspect not.

Woody I have the Warpaint publication and while there are only good close ups of the housing that are "coloured" and not clear there are two pictures on page 14 that clearly show the outlines of joins. Happy to scan that page over to you. Drop me a PM. I guess you will be aware that there were 2 different types of housing, one for the Mk 3G and another for the Mk 4A. One looks more like the Lancaster housing and the other like it had been on steroids!

Keep what going until Telford?

Giorgio On the profiles and the photos they appear to be about the same size as the RAF roundels on the fuselage sides of RAF machines. As best I can see the upper wing surface has a similar sized roundel located quite far outboard towards the wing tip unlike RAF roundels which are much larger and further inboard on early Gnats. However I see that later Gnats (e.g. 1970) have a smaller upper wing roundel further outboard like the Indian machines. Not sure if I am allowed to copy onto here - probably not !! John

Giorgio I have the Warpaint publication and it looks like the first deliveries from the UK production and by Hindustan in India were the same as the Gnat. By that I mean that the book does not highlight any changes and it seesm to suggest that the Mk1 single seater was unchanged from the first one built. By 1972 Hindustan had licence built 195 Gnat Mk1 aircraft but an improved version was done by them locally. This mostly involved internal improvements such as hydraulics and controls, new avionics and ejection seat and internal wing fuel tanks. This became the Ajeet. It had 4 under-wing hard points as compared to the Gnats 2. Between 1977 and 1982 they built 79 of them. The same Orpheus engine was used throughout. The Warpaint publication has some great colour photos of Indian aircraft and also colour profiles too. Feel free to PM me for more info. regards John

A member of the Guinea Pig Club I cam across this by chance on the BBC web site and apologise if its been seen before. The video of his flight was quite something and I think Simon Callows words are very apt. Anyone seen the play be any chance? http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leicestershire-39113871

They have opened the new Forth Bridge now and closed the old one for repairs. The traffic going over has slowed and there are long waits to cross as there are reports of tourists going to see the new crossing and 3 bridges. I didn't believe it till I had to drive up North myself. Got there and found huge delays and all these tourists waiting. I was in a hurry and lost it and went over and just told them "Look its just a bridge OK? Just get over it." Thats andthen.....

Interesting question posed b y the OP. I would suggest that the first reason was range. The B-29 figures will vary with load etc but has a suggested range of 3,250 miles whereas the B-17G has 2,000 or so and the B-24 2,100. I used Wikipedia which may or may not be 100% right but its the same source for all three. I think we also continuously grossly underestimate the importance of production and logistics. How often have there been examples of equipment that was inferior yet successful as it was available in quantity? The Sherman tank springs to mind. In aviation often modest incremental improvements were not made to aircraft due to the perceived interruption to production. WW2 was a production and numbers war as much as anything. I can see why the US would think to have B-29s in one theatre and the B-17/B-24 combination in another.

Or even the Kawanishi K-200 WW2 Japanese concept for a turbojet flying boat. It didn't get to the drawing board so much is speculation but gives the whiffer lots to play with - sadly not in this GB as I think whiffery is strictly forbidden

One might be cruel and suggest that observation may explain why so many F104s appeared to drop out of the sky. (To be fair in the end the loss ratio does not appear to have been worse than many other Cold War Warriors of the same period.)

Well done the Perlan Project team. Clearly a head for heights. They broke their own record by 3% raising the bar to 52,172 feet. Full article here:- http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-41172587

I note that the answers are mostly in relation to post WW2 aircraft. What of types form an earlier time? Obviously some aircraft self answer the question themselves more or less e.g. Spitfire Mk 1 would be clean I would suggest while the Stuka would proably be posed with a bomb load, - well mostly. But there are types when it could be optional e.g. Typhoon - clean or with bombs or RPs? Personally I think a Tiffie needs 8 RP's but that's just me. On the other hand the Me 110 looks so much better "clean" as does the 109