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torqueofthedevil

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Everything posted by torqueofthedevil

  1. Not true - how about the grey BAe 146s? Only a tiny fleet, which only appeared long after the demise of the Andover, but they are quite useful nonetheless.
  2. If the Puma is replaced by more Chinooks, then there is nothing in size between Wildcat and Merlin, which is a pretty big void. I'm aware of the planned OSD for the Puma, but an extension is inevitable. A single type to replace Puma and both flavours of Merlin would make a lot of sense - NH90 maybe, or yet another attempt to get H-60 derivatives. And, funnily enough, both of these are more akin to Puma than Merlin, and all the better for it! I agree that the Puma HC.1 would have struggled in Helmand - but that's not why the Merlins went there! And of course the fact that every other type struggled is why the Chinook lobby is so strong. But while some in the Army would gladly bin everything apart from Chinook and Apache, wiser heads have so far prevailed, and so the Puma has managed to survive every attempt to get rid of it.
  3. The RAF doesn't think that - but the Army does. And while new Chinooks will be bought in the next few years, that's to replace the oldest Chinooks in the inventory, not the Puma. The Puma will be replaced in due course by something in the same class. And it's not strange at all that the RAF kept the Puma and got rid of the Merlin. The cliché about the Merlin being the size and cost of a Chinook but the capability of a Puma isn't strictly accurate - but it's not far off! Just look at what the Pumas are doing on Op Toral to see why the RAF is better off with Puma over Merlin. And the fact that the Puma airframe is much older doesn't really matter in this case - it's not as if the Merlin has ever been blessed with stunning serviceability rates. NB it's not as if it was the RAF's decision back in 2010, or that the decision was made purely on capability grounds, but it was in most respects a reasonable attempt to rationalize fleets across the services given the impending retirement of the Sea King.
  4. Whereas none of the GR1Bs got upgraded - that niche capability just disappeared
  5. Thank you Nicholas and Nick. Sorry for the slow acknowledgement, there's been a lot going on in the last few days!
  6. There may have been talk, but I don't think it ever translated into action - unsurprising really, seeing as no helicopter fleet in the world could prevent a flash flood like Boscastle. I'll check back through my photos but I'm not expecting to see any SACRUs in the last 12 years or so of the SAR Force. And fitting SACRUs or anything else to aircraft on SAR readiness isn't about popularity - it's about doing with what the tasking authority requires, which was usually life-saving but occasionally MAC-A or similar. What wouldn't be popular is to turn up to any task requiring USLs to be carried and then being unable to assist because the SACRU was u/s having been carried around over the sea for years gathering salt but not being used!
  7. SACRUs were removed from all the airframes apart from the pair in the Falklands, because they saw very little use and they got ruined by all the salt spray. The cables also created a snagging hazard in the event of a ditching; OC D Flt 202 Sqn from 2002-4 had been in the Wessex which ditched off Hong Kong ten years earlier and I suspect he may have highlighted this point. I can't recall exactly when this decision was made, but 2003-4 sounds about right; I don't think this policy was ever revisited (@rickoshea why would Boscastle have created a requirement for them to be refitted?). The SACRU could be refitted without undue delay when needed - this happened regularly on the OCU when the students reached the single USL sortie, but elsewhere on occasion too, such as at Boulmer in April 2008 for firefighting around Harbottle.
  8. Thanks Fernando, So it's not just me (apart from the 81!). Plenty for me to ponder!
  9. For the Luftwaffe experten, I would be grateful for thoughts on which paint manufacturers offer the best representation of the following: RLM 81 RLM 74/75 I mostly use Xtracolor, but the 81 they offer looks too green to be Braunviolett (I know there are variations). Meanwhile the 74 and 75 appear too close in hue and offer much less contrast than is apparent on period photos. I recently had a go with a couple of random other greys, which gave (I felt) a better result (as shown here - NB it's not finished yet!). I would be very grateful for advice or recommendations.
  10. Thank you, I will! Great information, much appreciated
  11. Thanks Smithy, what ratio do you use for paint to thinner?
  12. Thanks for the replies, plenty of good gen to go on! When I was searching this topic before starting this, the only relevant thread I found suggested that using enamel-based wash over enamel paint was a no-no and acrylic wash would work better (and vice versa). Is this always the case?
  13. I'm keen to experiment with using washes to improve the finish of my models, so I would be very grateful for any tips on which wash(es) I should try - colour and brand - and how to get the best results. The models I make are mostly large scale WWII era aircraft, though I also do some vehicles for dioramas. Many thanks in advance for any help!
  14. How many Spitfires were captured when France fell? I'm only aware of a single specimen. And if you're going to go to the great lengths required to reverse engineer an entire aircraft, you wouldn't then limit yourself to a production run of a few dozen! And while the Germans did subsequently capture plenty of Spitfires, they never (to my knowledge) got their hands on 'modern' variants - as brewerjerry suggests in the post above, Spitfire Vs in autumn 1943 were well into obsolesence and therefore not much use to the Germans. By that time, the RAF was testing the Mk XIV, while the Germans were well advanced with the Fw 190D and had already flown the Me 262 on jet power and a tricycle undercarriage!
  15. The Apaches embarked during Op Ellamy, so they were stored on board for some weeks (if memory serves - time period might be amiss but they definitely went to sea). And as for Chinook blades, I'm pretty confident in saying that not all of them have the ability to fold. I can't speak for every variant worldwide (not many people could!) but I have checked with several friends who work on the aircraft and they assure me that blade folding is not an option on 'their' airframes.
  16. ...although it's not uncommon to see helicopters without folding blades operating from ships - Chinook and Apache in British use alone. Some Chinook variants may have had provision for folding blades, but the vast majority don't, and I don't recall ever seeing a picture of a Chinook at sea with the blades folded.
  17. Your opinion is completely plausible - there would need to be a compelling reason to paint the inside a different colour (Sorry I don't know how to remove the tags from a quotation - I can't delete them!)
  18. I can't offer definite information on the H-53 family, but the two flavours of British Merlin (until the RN took the HC3s and 3As) illustrate a type where one variant has blade fold and another doesn't. Bear in mind that the blade fold has several significant drawbacks which can hinder a land-based unit. The RAF had a lot of trouble over the years with the blade fold on Sea Kings, and not much benefit, but it was always going to be just that little bit too difficult to remove.
  19. You're absolutely right, and once again my apologies, both to you and to the OP.
  20. I think one can excuse the German planners for this – not many folk would expect to acquire air and naval bases in France when planning an invasion of Russia starting from Germany!
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