John B (Sc)

Superb pictures Andy, thanks for sharing them. The A-10 Thunderbolt 2 picture especially intrigued me - it has what I would normally assume were ailerons, both fully up. Odd position for spoilers, and the aircraft is banking. Do those surfaces split top and bottom to open as airbrakes - what in radio control modelling used to be called 'crow braking' ? EDIT : I found some video online which shows the A-10 controls operating - yes it does use 'crow braking'. Most impressive ! John B

Only one was completed and flew. As was said earlier on this thread, there was a second machine part built.

Thanks Graham, I wasn't aware of any of that about M. Ehrengardt. Sounds rather rough. My observation about Clostermann and war related to his fairly vigorous anti-war comments before the Gulf War. Earlier, yes of course he had flown in the Algerian war - 'Leo 45 Airborne'. (Still a difficult topic in some of France, best approached with care... There are parts of France where certain horn toots or rhythms are said to still be best avoided !) I know he praised the bravery of Argentinian pilots during the Falklands War for their very low level pressing of attacks - something he presumably knew something about. The Scapa Flow claim is a really odd one. Why? It is superbly written; maybe that is why - as you say good 'roman' material. A complex character.

Interesting, thanks Graham. I might order a copy of that one as a sample. I hadn't heard of Air Magazine's blackening of M. C-J Ehrengardt. I did see quite a lot of discussion a few years back about Pierre Clostermann. I had the pleasure of meeting M Clostermann' a long time ago, at an airfield in France. He whirled in flying a Reims Cessna, was briefly the life and soul of the party, then whirled away again. My brief chat with him was mostly about his time in Northern Scotland on Spitfires - he flew from a couple of fields my father helped build as a civil engineer early in the war. Seemed a nice chap from a very brief meeting, but no idea what the truth might be about his claims and accuracy of stories. I thought his descriptions of the dreadful toll of pilots in low level attack work after D-Day were impressive. If they were exaggerated, I can't really blame him, given all the circumstances. He certainly wasn't keen on war after that. John B

Thanks 'dragonlanceHR'. Ou peut etre - merci mon ami ! John B

Having seen some video of the large open hangar at Antonov Airport burning, I think it is confirmed the Mriya has gone - for now. Impressed that even with all the many worries and stresses of the moment, President Zelenskiy mentioned it in one of his videos and implied it would return one day. It is something of a symbol, given its name. My wife built the Revell kit of the Mriya when it first came out ; impressive even as a 1/144 model - a great and quite challenging build she found - enjoy it Beermonster ! John B

A pleasure Graham. I have found another online version of what I saw before - https://www.traditions-air.fr/unit/photo/124.htm If you scan down you will find a picture of pilots of Escadrille N124 along with those of SPA 167 at Casablanca in front of an aircraft I can't identify -though I wondered if it might be a Mohawk. The Cicognes/Canardes tie -in is mentioned there. I asked a retired Armee de l'Air pilot about this a few years back, since les Cicognes were a well known unit. He told me its was an affectionate jibe. He mentioned a few other nicknames; I must hunt out my note on that ! You mention 'Les Ailes 2' - is that a current French aviation magazine? It rings a very vague bell. 'Le Fana de l'Aviation' and 'Air Magazine' were the two I most often used to buy. Haven't seen them for a while now ! John B

I believe it is a long standing Armee de l'Air tradition Graham. The SPA 167 'Cicognes' are referred to as Les Canards - in fact they themselves use the term, or did. Somewhere in my gatherings of online scraps I have a picture with a caption below it, referencing les Sioux and and les Canards. Probably like the RAF Squadron known as the 'Mucky Ducks' or similar. (Can't recall what the magnificent 43 Sqn used to be called by the other units, but they similarly had a mildly rude nickname they were mildly proud of) John B

Yes, although a major problem with the Nimrods was that they had all spent many years being flown and hauled around hard in turbulent low level conditions over water. Not surprisingly, although all 48(?) would have been built using the same jigs originally, thirty years of that sort of beating meant no two were quite identical any more. It is why apparently identical aircraft on a Squadron - or in an airline - do not necessarily all quite fly the same; there are good 'uns and less good uns. So trying to save money an Nimrod MR4 by re-using old fuselages was not particularly smart !

Yes - Could be that the report was due to the understandable confusion (etc!). Quite a few large Antonov aircraft are routinely sitting on the hardstandings outside there, so it is possible that something else got clobbered. Fingers crossed for everyone there - I have some friends there, as many of us no doubt have.

Yes. Not a theory, according to ex-Buccaneer aircrew. At very low level over reasonably calm water, the Buccaneer was quite stable, resisting any mild attempts to push it lower. It was possible to trim it to fly hands off at absurdly low height as a result, and maritime crews had great confidence in it. And 'chopper61' - that is what I was told too. Even quite a firm forward pressure wouldn't affect it. ( I think some of these ultra low level fliers got a touch blase about ground hugging! ) John B

Interesting discussion. Mine doesn't have anything like the extensive flash in those photographs. Good surface detail and a fairly hard plastic, not waxy. Mine may be from an early run. I agree that some of the edges need trueing up and those heavy sprue gates are annoyingly awkward to deal with. Why the cockpit assembly ahs been made so complex puzzles me; it certainly makes the cannon troughs a challenging area ! I also found a few errors in the assembly drawings, a not uncommon fault. The end result though is a rather nice Venom. Sadly, I believe the moulding and decal production is done in Ukraine, so this may rapidly become a rarity. Venoms don't seem to have much luck as kits... John B

Thanks Giorgio. Looking at the picture on the website you noted, the colours on the Chinook tail do look to be dark blue and yellow. A better picture than the one I'd found ! John B

Oops. I imagine that didn't help his future career progression. Or maybe they took it out of his mess bills. Wild scheme, The whitewall tyres especially are 'of an era' !

Hi All. Can anyone tell me what the colours used by No28 Squadron were/are? A question brought up now because amongst the schemes provided in the new AccsGB Venom FB Mk4 kit is a 28 Sqn scheme. The colours are black rectangles with a yellow surround. A Profile which I have shows very dark blue rectangles with yellow for the Venom, and a Hunter drawing I found also suggests dark blue. Wikipedia suggest medium green with yellow - a scheme I think I recall seeing on a Wessex once, though was that 28 Sqn? The Chinook which was painted for the 100th anniversary back in 2016 looks to have been black and yellow. Hmm. Does anyone know? John B

Mine are here now too - super stuff - some interesting reading for us to do tonight! John B

Impressive when such large machines are being pushed around like that. The sky is a big place and even our large machines are tiny ! I seem to recall reading that the option to align the B-52's landing gear for crosswinds had been disabled some years ago, possibly for simplicity. Does anyone know if that is true ? - I saw no sign of offset on those gears - maybe needs closer inspection of the film ! John

That might be quite a challenge to repair. Another picture I saw suggested that the wood of the cockpit nacelle is well rotted away. Was it a balsa core with plywood skins? Looked as if the core may be what has rotted. At least wood re-building is still a fairly well known skill in light aircraft circles. The LAA, or the BMFA large model folk ? There are still a few wooden sailplanes around but not many, so that skill set is disappearing from the BGA. John B

Sounds like an oversight somewhere, which given the apparent recycling of previously used material isn't too surprising. Must get tricky keeping track of all these former companies !

I thought an organisation called 'MA Publications Ltd., had taken over. Same officers as SAM Publications Ltd had at time of its dissolution. MA Publications Ltd has a suspended 'Compulsory Strike Off action, apparently due to overdue accounts and failure to report, so it may have similar troubles. Companies House appears to have very limited powers.

Thanks, Paul J. That corresponds with my memory, for timescale. I agree, some decal information sheets are dubious, to say the least.

A pleasure. I am fairly sure none of the RAF's training machines were natural metal. All were sprayed aluminium. I saw brand new Gnat trainers at Valley in the early Sixties which were aluminium painted for protection. John B

In the Eighties I'd bet on light grey. I think the use of light aircraft grey started in the late Sixties on Training Command aircraft and spread fairly rapidly during the Seventies but I haven't got good photographic evidence to hand. Not white on the tailplane as far as I know - that seems to come up often; perhaps one odd drawing or photo misinterpretation, or maybe somewhere somebody did paint one white by mistake ! (Something I am struggling with because some sources suggest that light aircraft grey was being used alongside dayglo strips on Chipmunks quite early on - my personal memories of UAS aircraft suggests aluminium with dayglo mostly, but memory ...)

Thanks Graham. Hadn't thought of the Venom using the same zinc- magnesium alloy as the Valiant, a good point. (Was that only the Mk1. Valiant? - must look that up. DTD 683?) I seem to recall that the allow was 'pushed' by the relevant authorities at the time of the design. Unlucky. Military aircraft then were expected to have much shorter lives of course, and the rate of advance as well as design limitations - educated guesses in some cases - contributed. Of course the Sandys absurdity owed more to Duncan Sandys bias than to logic. Coincidentally, on the topic of Venoms, apparently the Venom which was pole mounted near Grove Airfield has been blown off - a short and damaging 'flight' today in the storm.

Thank you James and John - most interesting. That makes sense. I was wondering whether the pale strips were inside or outside the perspex, not that it matters for modelling purposes. It is easy to forget how little was known at the time of the design & build of these machines, about so many factors, including the longer term challenges of pressurising ageing and frequently flexed fittings etc. I was astonished to read that many Venoms were scrapped after 750 hrs, apparently as being life expired. The subject of my 1/48th build was apparently withdrawn from service after around 500 hrs because of 'loose wing bolts' ! Very low time. John B