sloegin57

Aerocraft Models are Alistair McLean - formerly Mr Allycat of renown. I have never heard of Meridia either

Mike, I cannot give it to you in feet/inches/metric as it depends on freight/fuel load carried etc but I do recall that a crew changed a main wheel at Luqa back in the sixties and tried to roll it under the fuselage. It got slightly stuck but a well aimed boot shifted it. So I would say that the height would be 1 x main wheel diameter plus or minus a bit. Attached a shot of subject "Belf" :- HTH Dennis

Spot on as near as dammit. Not spring loaded but cables attached to each end of the chain halves and probably retracted by means of winches mounted on the bomb bay roof inside the main cabin :- Still from a film made during the raid on the Bielefeld viaduct :- Note the stbd chain being drawn up into the bay. There also appears to be some sort of support "pad" in the bay roof Loading a Grand Slam:- Final attachment of the support chain. Note the electrical cable top right and the "hoist" cable in front of the SNCO's face I would imagine that the Tallboy chains were retracted enough for the bay doors to be closed on them but that the Grand Slam chains would form two neat but secure "loops" when pulled in. The bulged area at the back of the Tallboy bomb doors look as if they were incorporated to clear the fins of the weapon, it being mounted in the bay with the fins in an 'X' position. HTH Dennis (Rigger/Sootie)

The following has been extracted from "Meteor Age" by Mike Cooper, a former pilot on 616Sqdn :- EE239 was flown by Sqd/Ldr Dennis Barry. As related by Geoff Thomas, all the early Meteor III's of 616 had Welland engines and effectively Mk.I mainplanes. None had airbrakes. None of the white painted aircraft had airbrakes. The date of posting to Melsbroek is given as February 5th Once at Melsbroek, Meteor III's with air brakes started to be delivered. First one with, believed to have been EE270 dd 28/2/45 (damaged 6/45) HTH Dennis

I agree with 71chally but for starters, Moyes' Bomber Squadrons of the RAF lists the following for each Squadron :- 9 Squadron, 5/52 - 7/61 (all B.2's) WD999, WE111, WF907, WJ728 617 Squadron, 1/52 - 4/55 WD980, WH706, WK108 Just one point about the early B.2's and applicable to David's model. If you look at the photo in Post 40 of the formation, you will notice what appear to be small stubs just under the nose immediately behind the bomb aimers blister. These are the early positions of the pitot head, as shown in the photo below, before it was placed in the now standard place on the front of the blister. :- B.2 WD987 of 12 Squadron at Binbrook 20/10/52 prior to the start of Operation "Round Trip", a 24,000 mile tour of South America by three aircraft of the Squadron led by AVM Dermott Boyle (shown) and whose two star ranking badge can just be seen behind the officer on the right. Also repeated on the stbd side. Flash was Gold outlined either Black, Blue or Red (!!) and the original pitot position can be seen just behind the bomb-aimers blister. HTH Dennis

XV (15) Squadron John not 617 Dennis

May I refer you to this :- Dennis

Very useful Jamie. Very useful indeed. Been a long time since I heard the (correct) expressions "Cure" and "Flash-off". Dennis

How very very true - and in a much shorter period of time than many people realise. When I first saw the photos of the float in almost four years ago, my immediate reaction was that the Luftwaffe must have used some captured or copied FAA EDSG. Looking now at the photo of the fuselage, my opinion has not changed. Dennis

Yes I could see that, but that was all. When clicked on all I got was the home page. Thank you for putting the entire image up. Dennis

Publish the document Kaldrack, the above is only a blind lead to ImgBB and there is nothing there of interest Dennis

If you don't have the book Larry, try and get hold of a copy. It has quite a good description of the layout of those B-25C's. Dennis

I agree with Graham Boak. having been attempting to model for around the same time, the only reference I have to Dark Blue is in Part 1 of an article in Aircraft Illustrated for January 1969 by a J.Richard Smith entitled "A plain man's guide to Luftwaffe camouflage and markings" part one, where it is listed as RLM 24 and used for lettering and special identifications. It is only recently, within the past decade, that RLM 83 has been associated with Dark Blue. I can add no other comment except that my knowledge of WWII Luftwaffe camouflage is limited to the kit instructions when building/painting. Dennis

In his book, "Above All Unseen" (ISBN 1 85260 528 6), Edward Leaf describes, on P.71, how 1 PRU having lost some of its early PR Mosquitos, obtained two Mk.II fighters and converted them to PR.II's. No further details are given. Again from the same book, on P.161/162, the author states that when 'C' Flight of 681 Sqdn was split to form 684 Sqdn at Dum Dum on 29-9-43 (the split actually occurred in the November), it was planned for the Unit to have 20 PR Mosquitos but at first only had four B-25 Mitchells and five Mosquitos (two PR.II's and three PR.VI's). Again no further details are regrettably given. A little - but may help Dennis

James both aircraft had underwing serials applied. On the MD55 decal sheet itself, there was "not enough room to put both serials" so Dick Ward put the primary aircraft, XV424, on and stated, "To complete a model of XV486 you will also need the numerals "8" and "6" from Modeldecal set 35 (or your spares box)". As well as being very good at producing excellent decals, the late Lamented Dick Ward was also a bloody good businessman !!. Dennis