torqueofthedevil

Depends which kind of aviation you're involved in!

Thanks for the detailed reply. I am vaguely familiar with the nav systems you mention (Decca was another) but I just missed that era. The first aircraft I flew used a blended solution of Doppler and single GPS (backed up by unprocessed radar, complete with acetate overlays of the coast!), and these days we are completely spoiled with twin Integrated GPS/INS.

Was the cupola specifically for low level? While it certainly provided an excellent view for any flight deck passengers, I always thought its actual purpose was for the nav to view the firmament in the days of traditional methods of plodding around the globe!

Each to their own, and plenty of others don't like it either. Personally I'm just glad that a special scheme has been done at all. We will never reach a consensus on the best possible scheme, but I'm sure most would agree that the Typhoon's standard livery (along with most other military aircraft) is pretty drab!

Thanks, I wasn't aware of that. When did that start? There must have been a period after the war when consulting the Germans wouldn't even have occurred to the occupying powers, and presumably the same mentality lasted well into the NATO era?

Sure, but there is probably a difference between an aircraft being operated by foreign militaries (I suspect that the Germans have limited control over what the former occupying powers bring in!) and certifying the same aircraft to operate under your own flag. That said, one would expect that an aircraft as proven as the C-130 shouldn't need a long and difficult certification!

I think anything is better than nothing, especially in an era when military aircraft markings are so drab so I'm glad to see this scheme has come to fruition. I agree that a full repaint into the 1980 scheme would have been amazing to see...maybe for Chinook 50? On 5/7/2021 at 1:35 PM, perdu said: Sad to say I don't like it, the flag has been done before and frankly this time round it seems a bit 'bitty'. Ribbons and streamers off on trips of their own, oh well at least we still have Wokkas. Anniversaries and paint schemes will come and go, but there will always be Wokkas!

The cockpit isn't quite as spacious as you might think - put on a set of NVG and the roof console suddenly seems very close. And while you're right about the aircraft being used for training only, that actually exacerbates the space problem: for winch training, you need two people in the door (student and instructor) and two people to go on the end of the wire (typically, the instructor plays the part of the casualty, and the student winchman rescues them). Four people wearing immersion suits and life jackets makes the cabin and doorway very cosy!

No - both are between the seats. But because the weapons are identical and the seat mounts aren't (right hand side of the left seat and vice versa), one weapon is 'magazine forward' and the other is 'magazine aft'. I think the co-pilot's one is magazine aft.

Small correction: they face in opposite directions in a fore and aft sense, because the attachment which fits into the seat mount is on the same side of both weapons.

Thank you Rolls-Royce. What you say makes perfect sense, and the link is very interesting.

Good afternoon, Please could I ask for help identifying the colours inside an Me 262's intakes. I have got one of the big HobbyBoss kits so I'm keen to get it right! I have tried to figure it out for myself, but I can't be certain what I'm seeing. I have consulted the books I own, and looked for online references as well, but I'm finding it hard to tell - colour photos from the war/just afterwards which show the inside of the intake are rare, and I'm wary of assuming that museum restorers in recent decades have checked carefully what the Germans did. I prefer to put my faith in the depth of knowledge of BM members! From various B+W photos, the inside of the intake appears fairly dark, with the starter motor housing much paler - but is it primer, or camouflage paint wrapped round from the outside, or different shades of bare metal? And did it vary between aircraft which had camouflage on the outside of the intake vs those which had replacement (unpainted) intakes? The aircraft I'm going to do had one of each so I may need to treat the two intakes differently. Many thanks for any help. I have searched the forum in case anyone has asked this previously, but it appears not.

Any idea which airframe that is, and where and when the photo was taken?

Thank you, interesting ideas! Definitely worth investigating!

I think there are actually three possible lengths of carb intake for a C-47. I would imagine that checking references is the only way to be sure of getting the right variety. To answer the OP's second question, there is an aftermarket decal sheet for an all-silver 1/72 Dakota (1948, Oakington based I think). My son made it a while ago. I can try to find the details if that helps, but I'm pretty sure it came from Hannants website.

Let it go! While the Sea King was pretty good at its intended role, it was aggressively average at everything else. Funny old thing, the qualities which make a good ASW aircraft don't really suit various other roles. And like every type apart from the Chinook it struggled with hot and high operations - to claim it was optimized for anything other than sea level is absurd! I'm not saying that it couldn't or didn't achieve anything - far from it - but that is down to the skill of the crews more than the ability of the airframe. The Puma has always been a much better battlefield helicopter design (as it should be - that was the main military role from the outset) but until the HC2 upgrade, it suffered from several vices which limited its effectiveness. As it is now, it's really very good at what it does. The only thing it can't do much of is deck operations - although most Puma crews would put that on the list of pros rather than cons... Returning to the thread, the right answer is emphatically not more Chinooks. As others have pointed out, the Chinook is big (NB still a medium lift helicopter, fact fans), noisy, possessed of terrible downwash - and hideously expensive to run. Look at the fleets which are being replaced and then look at a Chinook! Having just ordered more Chinooks to replace the very tired original batch, I cannot see any further order for Chinooks in the short to medium term. Another suggestion which I cannot envisage for many decades is the unmanned route. While many roles in military flying can be done effectively by RPAS (or will be able to before long), moving troops on and off the battlefield is not one of them. The problem is not the technology, but the moral aspect - similar to the self-driving car quandary, but more complex and even less likely to be resolved. If I was an FJ or ISR pilot, I might be looking into alternative employment, but I don't think that helicopter crews need worry any time soon. The answer may of course be nothing at all - not my idea of fun, but to a bean counter, JHC will still possess three types of helicopters of different sizes with passenger seats even after the Pumas have gone. The finer points of supporting the Army are likely to elude those who make the decisions. Of the list of the four most likely contenders, none of them is ideal (some things never change) but the AW149 is probably the best, and also the most likely. Frankly, I would take any of them over not getting a replacement at all (even NH90s - and I hear there may be some low hours pre-loved examples coming onto the market soon...), but I'll believe it when I see it. Time will tell...

Given all the problems during development and testing, and the years lost trying to give the aircraft some basic capability, the exhaust issue probably seemed like a tiny detail!

My experience is somewhat different - many of the accounts I have read are straightforward (and, I hope, reasonably factual!) descriptions of their experiences doing things which people like us find interesting. Off the top of my head, Hermann Buchner and Johannes Kaufmann's memoirs fit straight into this category, as do numerous others - although I have no way of judging the accuracy of most of what they write. Sure, there are some who have an axe to grind...understandably so, in some cases! Going back to Clostermann, it just seems a shame that he chose to embellish what he actually achieved. I always feel that Hollywood is doing historical figures a disservice by trying to 'sex up' real events for cinema audiences - was the reality not exciting enough, and if so, was it really not possible to portray what actually happened in a sufficiently gripping manner? But I can mostly forgive a film studio executive, forced to reach a compromise between what someone else actually did in the past and the modern constraints of time, budget, and expected profit. A personal memoir shouldn't need to be subject to the same pressures (or at least, not to anything like the same extent). I remember reading the account of a SAR pilot who flew a notable rescue several decades ago, who stated that he had flown two other challenging rescues earlier in the day of the well known mission. As it happened, not long afterwards, I was looking at the operational record of the unit in question, and the first two jobs turned out to be fictional! Probably based on previous experiences, but not even faintly accurate in terms of the day when the noteworthy rescue happened. No doubt others feel differently, but my preference would be to focus on the one real mission (which was a remarkable exploit in itself) than to add in fictitious embellishments. If I ever achieve something interesting or remarkable, and decide to write about it, I'll tell it like it is, rather than making out that I was cleverer/braver/more successful than was actually the case. But this is all entirely hypothetical!

Thanks Armando, PM sent!

Could have been a major drama if the large pieces of debris had damaged the aircraft! But there are worse places to crash, I suppose...

Now that is an interesting one! And the website is fascinating as well. But I can't see any Colombian national markings in the photos...not a major problem, but I was originally hoping to use up the other decals on the sheet which I have. Great idea though, thanks again!

Thanks Tato, much appreciated. Those are indeed all colourful and interesting aircraft! I'm surprised that they don't feature on decal sheets (at least, I haven't seen them in 1/48!). My only concern is getting the Chilean national insignia...if I could find aircraft similar to any of those, but operated by Colombia or Cuba, I would be sorted!

Folks, I have the ICM 1/48 decal sheet for Invaders, and I'm going to use one of the Brazilian schemes. The Colombian and Cuban markings on the same sheet are very striking, but I would rather use them on a different type than do two Invaders. Could anyone recommend interesting aircraft/schemes used by those countries? A couple of caveats: I would prefer a twin (or larger), and I don't particularly like single-colour paint schemes. I have done a little bit of research, and the C-47 unsurprisingly figures large; I already have both an OD and grey C-47 (French) and a silver/white roof one (Spanish), so I'm not keen on doing another one unless the paint scheme is somewhat different to either of these. I'm happy to sort out individual aircraft markings - it's just suggestions for the type and general paint scheme which I would appreciate. Many thanks for any ideas!

That was before my time, but there was certainly the possibility to fit a GPMG to an HAR3, and I think it's a safe assumption that it would be a very similar (probably identical) mount to an HC4. I don't have any pictures to help you, sorry - by the start of this millennium, when I started going to the Falklands, there was no need to carry the weapon! And even the grey paint gave way to yellow in the end.