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Folkbox1

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  1. An interesting topic, I shall have to see if I can find any interesting books on that era RAF
  2. I've read somewhere that they were experimenting with drop tanks in the 1920s so perhaps the interceptor role was prioritised over any other type of single engined figher
  3. Is this because of the pre war thinking that the bomber would always get through so they didn't need an escort nd as they were as fast as fighters.
  4. Cheers, still seems dodgy balancing the on their tail fins and then man handling them. Rather them than me
  5. Saw this on X this morning. Any ideas? Never seen bombs stored this way, only seen bomb trolleys for allied planes. Wondered if they weren't bombs at all, gas bottles? If they are bombs then surely they must be light enough to safely be manhandled into the bomb bay. Could they contain leaflets or something similar that isn't explosive?
  6. Did they do shrinkflation back then? I remember (it must have been in the 80s or even 90s) someone proposing a way of measuring the relative costs over time was to use the price of mars bars as they hadn't changed the recipe, ingredients or size for most of the 20th century so if a plane cost the equivalent of 100,000 mars bars in 1940 it would give you a good idea of the price of that plane in 1990 money. That doesn't tally with your memory though (I don't think I had my first mars bar till the mid 70s so can't say - I was into Kitkats or flakes at the time)
  7. Thanks guys. Interesting subject and one of my favourite planes. After years of thinking it was the engine it was interesting to hear why it wasn't (aerodynamics isn't my forte but I think i've understood the reasons). Still baffling that they stuck with that propeller and didn't go for the one used on the prototype - perhaps that was needed more urgently by Spits or Hurris, I don't know. Darren
  8. Blackburn Blackburn - a seriously unloved machine for some reason
  9. Prompted by a comment from the We Have Ways.. history podcast a search on t'net revealed that the problem with the Whirlwind was not the engine but the propellers. Turns out they were not the same as fitted to the prototype, were too thick and caused too much drag at high speeds/altitude. The constant speed unit couldn't adjust the angle of the blades to compensate enough so power and performance dropped off. Admittedly, merlins would probably have had enough power to compensate but if the Whirlwind had the same props as fitted to the prototype the Peregrine would have been sufficient. Who knew?
  10. Thanks 🙂 Yes, it seems like that to me too 😞
  11. My wife has just completed a masters (woo hoo) but a while ago when she was starting she said degrees were called that because they were made up of 360 credits. I thought this was just some sort of urban myth or a wind up but although I'm sure degrees were degrees before credits modules and semesters when did British universities start using them? I was at Uni in Newcastle in the mid 80s and I'd never heard of credits, modules and semesters except in American films. We just had subjects, exams and three terms and if you failed a subject you retook it or retook the whole year - it was never expressed any other way.
  12. I asked about this a few years back and as others have said it doesn't look like any protection was issued (although perhaps Naval gunners had ear protection along with their flash hoods). I was prompted to ask as one of my uncles served on AA guns in WW2 London and my mum told me she had read letters to his wife about how much pain (enough to bring him to tears) he suffered from his ears at that time. As long as I knew him he had to have a hearing aid and could hear sod all without it.
  13. No idea what the differences between Ausf D and A and B etc might be but two things spring to mind. Could the various versions been designed at the same time and the D happened to be ready first (like the Tempest 5 came out before the Tempest 2 iirc). Could it just be different manufacturers had different letters for some reason?
  14. Lol - logo looks like a U with an umlaut but didn't notice the clearer print below🤣
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