KevinK

GD was never involved: it was Rockwell who bought NAA in 1967, followed by Boeing in 1996. I rather suspect that the closure of Downey with the Boeing merger would be when records disappeared.

All working well from here - I just placed an order and tried to 'stress test' the site by making changes in the cart, changing payment method, overusing the 'back' arrow but it all worked smoothly! Thanks for all your quality work, Ali.

Out of interest, the nozzles were made of a columbium / hafnium alloy. The uneven discolouration visible in the photos occurs after the first firing - the acceptance test of the thruster before it was installed in a quad. Of course, this doesn't actually help you find a paint, but burnt steel/titanium doesn't look that different.

Absolutely true. In the '80s there was an article in the Times-Picayune - the local paper - which noted that New Orleans was possibly the only city in the world to have streets named after all nine of the Greek muses, but mispronounced every one of them.

Yes, indeed! A family holiday to Austria in 1969 - Austrian Airways from LHR to Innsbruck, with the fighter-like descent into the Inn valley. Those big windows gave a breathtaking view of the scenery. Excellent model and diorama!

Don't be cowed by authority!

Ah yes! The Belgian teams were some of the very best: as well as the Diables Rouge, there were Stampes "mirror flying" and then, to top it all, mirror flying from Starfighters! Very professional.

Are you sure you really, really want to say that?

That photo, or another from the same sequence, was on the cover of an Airfix Magazine circa 1970 or so, in colour. Sorry, I can't recall the exact issue at 50 years' distance, but since colourisation wasn't really going back then, I'm pretty sure it's genuine! It looks like Kodachrome. Kevin

Mikro-Mir do that one injection moulded. One I would like to see is the Supermarine 508. I know that Maintrack did one but as others say, unobtainable in practice.

So now the dihedral issue appears settled, the question remaining is: "IIB or not IIB" ..

"Gas-powered mainframe"? You were lucky! In my day we had to make do with a coal-fired Difference Engine, but we were 'appy!

Just an observation on JF299, if you choose that one as a subject: it's not a Mk XVI, it is in fact one of the rarest of Spitfires, a Mk VIII with a cut-down rear fuselage. It's from the first production batch of Mk VIIIs and was retained by Supermarine to try out the change before it was introduced on production, for late Mk IXs and XVIs at Castle Bromwich. Otherwise, it's a straight Mk VIII, with shortened ailerons, 18 gal/side wing tanks, tropical filter, retractable tailwheel, etc. when compared with a Mk XVI. As it's early production, it has the rounded rudder prior to the pointed one on later production.

I'm not sure, but it's not part of the aircraft. My guess would be a cup/can of some sort, resting against the base of the windscreen as it's about the only place on the outside of the Spit fuselage where you could do that.

They shipped it via Liverpool.....

Works for me on a ten-year-old desktop running Windows 10.

Not bare metal on a naval aircraft. Blackburn was a very experienced naval contractor and would have had an effective anti-corrosion finish. Perhaps a cerrux grey?

Weathering's a bit overdone in places, though.

Possibly it's copied from a museum aircraft stored outside. I can't see a service aircraft having that sort of wording, except for a temporary 'zap' along the lines of "Colonial Navy" on the F-4K.

Just a speculation: the Vimy replica G-AWAU, which was built at Weybridge, flew in 1969. The Dr Who film was released Aug 1966. Is is possible that components such as cowlings were being mocked-up early in the Vimy build and were offered to the nearby film studio when surplus? I seriously doubt that the RR engines are in the cowlings, given the flimsy-looking supports partly visible in the screenshots.

Somewhat off-topic, but most Windows users would agree.....

A tree? You lot didn't know how lucky you were. We had to gather dry grass and bind it together with mud at midnight.....

Hmm...I wouldn't agree with that. Mk VIIIs and IXs were very successfully used for exactly that purpose by Balkan Air Force (part of Mediterranean Allied Air Forces) in Italy and Yugoslavia, dive-bombing and strafing trains and trucks as the Germans were trying to resist the Soviet advance and the Yugoslav Partisan army. With 2 x 250 lb bombs, 2 x 20 mm cannons and 4 x .303, plus the use of a 30, 45 or 90 gal drop-tank, it had the performance, armament and range to strike at a wide range of targets over a good radius of action. As an example, my father flew them with 253 Sqn in 1944/45 and - at least one occasion - flew a 4-hour sweep from Prkos, Yugoslavia into Romania. His logbook shows squadron dive bombing accuracies of 17-50 yards, locomotives and trucks destroyed - with camera-gun photos. The only obvious vulnerability of the Spitfire in this role was the loss of the cooling system to minor damage, but this was exactly the same as for the Hurricane, Mustang, Typhoon and Mosquito, all of which were Merlin-powered.

I don't think it's actually PRU blue. Rolls-Royce has a blue "house colour" which may be the blue used.

I'm not sure that your assumption of the Mk VIF inherently being a night fighter variant is correct. Beaufighter VI s were either C (Coastal) or F (Fighter). Both types were long-range fighters, the main difference being the VIF engine was optimised for high altitude and the VIC for low. It is true that (most?) home-based Mk VIFs were equipped as night fighters because that was the local need in 1942/3, but overseas units in the India/Burma theatre also needed the Mk VIF as a day fighter, mainly for the range but also because there weren't many other suitable types available. It's also the case that the Far East was one of the lowest priority theatres of operations for equipment supply: it may have been that the Mk VIC would have been desired but not available due to Coastal Command's home-based needs - just a thought. The other obvious type - the Mosquito - came much later to the Far East because - initially at least - there were serious problems with the glued structure in hot, high-humidity conditions.