The true old times are dead (1/72 92 Squadron Lightning F.2)

[jackroadkill]

I once hit my brother over the head with the pommel of my stepfather's ex-father-in-law's ceremonial sword.  At the time we laughed but every time I think about it now I have a cold sweat; it made one hell of a mess and could have hurt him really badly.  I was about 14 and should have known better.  There was claret everywhere, and I blamed Sharpe, despite never having seen the TV program or (as yet) read the books.  How it didn't fracture his skull I'll never know...  Your boy will be grand.

 

Also, if the young chap likes crazy Welsh fantasy / mythology, get him a kids' version of the Mabinogion.

[Mr T]

I knew Mrs T was worried as being in the job she has, not much fazes her. Our two adult children still hold it against us that as we were both nurses of some seniority, it was difficult to pretend to be ill to get off school like all their friends did. Children are, by and large, remarkably robust beings. 

[Gondor44]

On 12/1/2022 at 7:24 AM, Procopius said:

So the 30th was WSC's birthday, so I figured I ought to do some modelling. First, though, the real triumph of the day, a Winstonmas miracle, if you will. 

 

As I mentioned, I've been reading The Book of Three, which is a piece of juvenile literature written in the mid-1960s by an American; it's clearly, as all fantasy novels since 1937 are, a reaction, one way or another, to Tolkein, though it is, despite borrowing, often wildly out of context, names ripped from the pages of Welsh mythology (rather cruel of the author, as I have to read this aloud), distinctly American, and it probably bears a closer resemblance to, say, the Belgariad novels (also later American works) than Lieutenant Tolkein's work. Which is okay, because the pacing of the lattermost leaves something to be desired. In any case, we read three chapters tonight, and Winston was so desirous of reading more that he seized the book, opened it himself, and haltingly, laboriously, began to read it to himself. You cannot know how long I have waited for this moment, and how often I feared that it would never come. I know that's ridiculous, but he's fought me so hard on this, and to have him actually want to read a book... My Winston is the most frustrating person I have ever known -- in which respect, by all accounts, he is very like his namesake -- but he is also my gift to the future.

 

He reminds me of a cartoon series I have a few books of, does he have a toy Tiger he carries around with him or something simmilar by any chance?

 

Gondor

[Procopius]

Hello on the other side of my vasectomy, which I found profoundly frightening (if not very painful), because there's something about hearing the sound of someone cutting curtains with scissors and knowing that in fact it's you they're cutting that just gives me the screaming heebie-jeebies. 

 

For obvious reasons I'm not doing a lot of modelling (or even many sudden movements) this weekend as a result, but as a gift for Future Me (which, technically, the vasectomy also is, I suppose), I dipped the clear parts in Alclad Aqua Gloss.

 

 

I also painted the coaming.

 

 

I've spent my afternoon dodging my idiot children, who keep trying to throw things in my lap or seeing how much they can get away with now that daddy can't lift them for a few days. Anyway, the ibuprofen is wearing off, so I think I'm going to head out for a lie-down now.

 

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

May you have a speedy recovery Edward, I’m also looking into said procedure. If there is anything you need say something even if its to just talk. 

Edited December 3, 2022 by Corsairfoxfouruncle

[stevehnz]

Nothing to it guys, I had two of them.  When, after several tests (I found being asked how recent the sample was a bit off putting ) they couldn't be sure of the success of the first one, I was wheeled in for a rerun, happily successful  

Steve. 

[perdu]

I found it very easy, after all I had nothing to do but lie there young and handsome.

 

Of course, I didn't manage that being, at the time, young but not.   

 

Take it easy, you will soon be fine.

 

Possibly fine-r than before.  

[Procopius]

15 hours ago, stevehnz said:

Nothing to it guys, I had two of them.  When, after several tests (I found being asked how recent the sample was a bit off putting ) they couldn't be sure of the success of the first one, I was wheeled in for a rerun, happily successful  

Steve. 

So this thought has terrified me ever since I learned some "don't take". Is the do-over free?

[stevehnz]

39 minutes ago, Procopius said:

So this thought has terrified me ever since I learned some "don't take". Is the do-over free?

It is a free op in New Zealand anyway, so yes, the re-run was a freeby too. I'd heard the odd horror story & worked with a guy who had his op in the afternoon & came to work that night, mistake.  Both of mine were quite unremarkable though. I'd have thought that if you're paying for it, a rework should be on the house.

Steve.

[Dave Wilko]

A wonderful read so far young Sir.

 

1/ If one may,another strong vote for a 92 Sqn aircraft,one's favoured RAF fighter Sqn

(memories of Bob Tuck's "Fly For Your Life" in one's youth)

 

2/ Also if one may(though this tome may be in your library),might one recommend this:

 

https://www.librarycat.org/lib/Lalabert/item/149891977

 

A great book with numerous amusing tales(especially "Bugs"Bendell's sound barrier escapade, it's priceless).

Edited December 4, 2022 by Dave Wilko

[Sergeant]

On 11/18/2022 at 9:29 PM, Procopius said:

I. The End

 

"This was the last time that such a thing could happen. This was the last time that London would be the capital of the world. This was an act of mourning for the imperial past. This marked the final act in Britain's greatness. This was a great gesture of self-pity and after this the coldness of reality and the status of Scandinavia... It was a celebration of a great thing that we did in the past."
-- Patrick O'Donovan, The Observer, 31 January 1965

 

"My life is over, but it has not yet ended."
-- WSC to Diana Churchill, c.1960

 

“He is not a man for whom I ever had esteem. Always in the wrong, always surrounded by crooks, a most unsuccessful father.”

-- Evelyn Waugh to Ann Fleming, c. late January 1965

 

He had, virtually everyone agreed -- even if they believed it for wildly differing reasons and could agree on nothing else -- lived too long.

 

Little more than a month prior, the Beatles released their fourth studio album, setting "Eight Days a Week" loose upon an unsuspecting world, and William Hartnell had rolled up the Dalek invasion of Earth in six episodes. It was inconvenient that he should die then, to provide an uncomfortable reminder of a world that had ceased existing almost imperceptibly, by degrees, until the change was so far advanced that to be confronted with the reminder of what had once been, for good or ill, was jarring. And yet he had known it was coming, or rather, for they are not the same thing, he had been seized by that powerful certainty which so often lead him astray in his long, eventful life, until at last it made him immortal, whatever happened to the wasted prison of flesh that failed him at last on 24 January of 1965. 

 

As the barge that bore his body made its way up the Thames, they came. He had been asked, long after the war, after he had been prime minister twice, exceeding the promise of his cruel and revered father exponentially, after the little boy whom nobody loved and who had made himself difficult to love stood on that balcony in 1945 and told the cheering crowds "This is your victory", and they had roared back, voices thick and heavy with love, "No, it is yours", after all of that, what year of his life he would relive again had he the chance. "1940, every time. Every time." Time had stopped, or rather ceased to exist for him then. Everything before fell away; everything after faded into insignificance, washed out by the bright flare of that single perfect year when everything fell apart, and he picked up that shattered sword and that broken shield and made the choice that meant that all of this was happening now, twenty-four years and some months later.

 

They came. All the fighting services had been there on the ground, the RAF escort, the Grenadier Guards, the Navy (always so ambivalent about him -- Somerville, who loathed him, had written to his wife that "we are just as much a dictator country as either Germany or Italy and one day the British public will wake up and ask what we are fighting for") and the Royal Marines all had played their part. But at last, as the Havengore set off, the heirs of his paladins arrived. 

 

Sixteen Lightnings in four diamonds of four dropped, one after the other, from the murk of the dead January sky and roared low over the Thames. In 1940, that magical year already receding into myth, before the glorious boys who had not burned to death in falling aeroplanes, or drowned in the Channel, or been dashed to pieces against the fields and towns of a world on fire, eating itself alive insatiably, entered inconvenient middle age, still alive, still with opinions, able to embarrass and annoy the children who now inherited the world they had saved, before all of that, the American correspondent Vincent Sheean had stood on the white cliffs of Dover and gazed into the summer sky of a world that seemed destined for a darkness more profound and more profane than could be conceived by the human mind. He had written then: "The flash of the Spitfire’s wing, then, through the mist glare of the summer sky, was the first flash of a sharpened sword; they would fight, they would hold out." For the last time, the wings of the RAF would gleam under the shrouded sun for him, elegaic and mournful despite the overwhelming roar from their engines, a sound still not loud enough to rouse the dead. 

 

II. πόλλ' οἶδ' ἀλώπηξ, ἀλλ' ἐχῖνος ἓν μέγα

 

And well for thee, saying in my dark hour,
When all the purport of my throne hath failed,
That quick or dead thou holdest me for King.
King am I, whatsoever be their cry;
And one last act of kinghood shalt thou see
Yet, ere I pass. 

-- Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Idylls of the King, "The Passing of Arthur"

 

"I thought Winston talked about the most frightful rot...I despair when he works himself up to a passion of emotion when he ought to make his brain think and reason."

-- Edward Wood, Lord Halifax, diary entry for 27 May 1940

 

"THE PRIME MINISTER said that the nations which went down fighting rose again, but those which surrendered tamely were finished."

-- CAB 65/13, WM (40) 145: Confidential Annex to War Cabinet Minutes, 16:00 meeting on 28 May 1940

 

But you don't hoot at Stalin — that's “not done” —
Only at Churchill; I've no wish to praise him,
I'd gladly shoot him when the war is won,
Or now, if there was someone to replace him.
But unlike some, I'll pay him what I owe him;
There was a time when empires crashed like houses,
And many a pink who'd titter at your poem
Was glad enough to cling to Churchill's trousers.
Christ! How they huddled up to one another
Like day-old chicks about their foster-mother!

 

I'm not a fan for “fighting on the beaches,”
And still less for the “breezy uplands” stuff,
I seldom listen-in to Churchill's speeches,
But I'd far sooner hear that kind of guff
Than your remark, a year or so ago,
That if the Nazis came you'd knuckle under
And peaceably “accept the status quo.”
Maybe you would! But I've a right to wonder
Which will sound better in the days to come,
“Blood, toil and sweat” or “Kiss the Nazi's bum.”
-- Eric Blair (writing as George Orwell), "From One Non-Combatant to Another (A Letter to ‘Obadiah Hornbooke’ [Alex Comfort])", Tribune, 18 June 1943
 

Here he is now, alive, at his moment, the moment when, as if by magic, a switch was flipped, and he transformed from an erratic failure into the hero he had always dreamed of being, when every melodramatic, emotive instinct that had driven him relentlessly to disaster after disaster drove him to an act of self-abnegation sublime enough to give his country at least eighty more years of life. 

 

It isn't September yet, and he has not yet sat with Park and seen too few squadrons being marshalled to hold back the might of something terrible and so far inexorable. It is May, and he has been Prime Minister for only a few weeks, a moment he has perhaps waited for all his adult life and longer too. It is gift and curse, for it is, at this moment, no longer a position where raw ambition is enough to see one through. Political survival is suddenly secondary to the survival of a small island and part of another, separated from a continent now ruined, possibly for ever, by a thin strip of sea, barely more than twenty miles, practically close enough to touch. 

 

And now, he is sitting at a table with men who have outmaneuvered him at the oleaginous game of politics for a decade or more, men who know him to be an imbecile, wrong about everything, and Lord Halifax, his opposite in every way, is patiently explaining to him that to continue the war past the defeat of France, indeed, for any length of time at all, will result inexorably in the destruction of the one thing everyone knows the arch-imperialist loves, that massive empire, and the ineluctable bankruptcy of a country that cannot afford a long war. And perhaps, if he was the caricature so many for and against him believe him to be, it might have given him pause. Even before he was eclipsed as the worst chancellor of the exchequer in history by subsequent developments, he was still capable of basic math. But it is also safe to say that he never truly cared about money; he was never truly financially secure until after the war. In 1937, when he began The History of the English Speaking Peoples, its publication delayed by his obdurately remaining in politics until 1955, long past the patience of his party and all but his closest friends, he wrote: "And wherever men are fighting against barbarism, tyranny, and massacre, for freedom, law, and honour, let them remember that the fame of their deeds, even though they themselves be exterminated, may perhaps be celebrated as long as the world rolls round. Let us then declare that King Arthur and his noble knights, guarding the Sacred Flame of Christianity and the theme of a world order, sustained by valour, physical strength, and good horses and armour, slaughtered innumerable hosts of foul barbarians and set decent folk an example for all time." Was he thinking of those words during that awful May of 1940? We know Arthur, or at least Tennyson's Arthur, is much on his mind, for he will reference a stanza on 4 June, when committing a nation to fight on the beaches and beyond: 
 

"The great French Army was very largely, for the time being, cast back and disturbed by the onrush of a few thousands of armored vehicles. May it not also be that the cause of civilization itself will be defended by the skill and devotion of a few thousand airmen?

 

"There never has been, I suppose, in all the world, in all the history of war, such an opportunity for youth. The Knights of the Round Table, the Crusaders, all fall back into the past-not only distant but prosaic; these young men, going forth every morn to guard their native land and all that we stand for, holding in their hands these instruments of colossal and shattering power, of whom it may be said that:

 

"'Every morn brought forth a noble chance
"'And every chance brought forth a noble knight,'

"deserve our gratitude, as do all the brave men who, in so many ways and on so many occasions, are ready, and continue ready to give life and all for their native land."

 

In context, the stanza is a mournful one: "For now I see the true old times are dead,/When every morning brought a noble chance..." And there is something apocalyptic in the choice to fight on, as there was when Britain ended the Great War. All present remember the world that 1914 swept away. 

 

Archilochus, a poet beloved by the ancient Greeks, but of whose work only fragmentary quotations remain, is said to have remarked "πόλλ' οἶδ' ἀλώπηξ, ἀλλ' ἐχῖνος ἓν μέγα." This is generally translated to mean "a fox knows many things, but a hedgehog knows one big thing", though I have always rendered it to my children as "the fox knows many tricks, but the hedgehog one mighty truth." For the hedgehog, the one big thing, the mighty truth, if you will indulge me, is that so long as it remains true to its essential nature, so long as it remains curled up, the fox cannot destroy it. Winston's idee fixe is Britain's greatness, and he has decided that it would be greater to lose the Empire and see every reactionary cause he has fought his whole life for (and there have been many, with more to come) destroyed than to give in now, at this moment, to that man, who somehow has brought something to life that must be burnt out of the world.  

 

III. The Beginning

 

 

And here he is, aged seven in 1881, the same age as my Winnie now, and looking so much like him to my eye that it hurts, still just a little boy, living without a purpose in a world that will not know Hitler for eight more years. He is for now, unencumbered by destiny, or greatness, or the unmet expectations of his father, not yet ideological shorthand or a distorted mirror for those who despise or love who they imagine him to be, just a naughty little boy. He has yet to stumble and crash his way through history. Though probably not his parents, there was someone who loved him and tucked him in at night, who held him when he cried -- even the Victorians were not so wholly insensate to human feeling as we like to believe -- and hoped he would never grow up while wishing he would do so faster. In fifty-nine years, this little boy, grown old but still, somewhere, deep inside, the same person, will be called upon to pull forth from his deepest self something like the will of a nation. 

 

IV. (and finally) The Build

 

I hope you will forgive the lengthy -- even by the standards of my vapid pseudointellectual pontifications -- introduction before we actually talk about the model. If not, I understand.  During the RAF flypast on 30 January 1965, Lightnings from four squadrons, Battle of Britain veterans all, participated: 19, 56, 92, and 111. This would have represented a substantial portion of the Lightning force in 1965, and given the type's serviceability early on in its career, probably also a large percentage of the aircraft capable of generating sorties on any given day. (Duncan Sandys, Churchill's one-time son-in-law, the only minster of defence to have been punched by the Chief of the Imperial General Staff in the course of his duties, may have inadvertently done the Lightning a favour after trying to throttle it and all other manned aircraft in their cradles, by phasing out National Service, for after the end of conscription, serviceability slowly improved, though it didn't peak until almost the end of the aircraft's career.) In any case, my research outside of archival sources suggests that one of the aircraft participating was XM190/G of Treble One. By coincidence, this aircraft was lost due to that frequent killer of Lightnings, an engine fire on March 15 -- my birthday -- in 1966* after transfer to 226 OCU (111 re-equipped with new F.3s in early 1965), with American exchange pilot Captain A C Petersen, who ejected successfully, at the controls. Happily a photo of the aircraft with 111 exists.

 

XM190 by Edward IX, on Flickr

 

As you can see, most interestingly for an F.1A, she has her cannon mounted in the lower nose, rather than the upper as is typical for this mark. I am attempting to obtain a digital copy of the relevant portion of 111's ORB from the National Archives to confirm the aircraft was used in the flypast, but I have a large and expensive collection of Lightning decal sheets and whatever I uncover, I should be able to represent a Treble One Lightning overflying Churchill's funeral. I will be using the Sword kit, the best of a series of rather weak options for an early Lightning (if I could afford it, I would almost switch to 1/48 for Airfix's excellent 1960s jets in that scale, but how could I afford it or offer enough space to display any that I actually built, instead of hording?), as I don't relish the thought of doing all the wing cutting on the Airfix F.2A/F.6 to use the Alley Cat conversion set. 

 

As we all know that more aftermarket=more gooder, I am delighted to inform you that this kit is using a boatload. I have a set of the Quickboost intakes for the Airfix Lightning, just in case; a resin seat from Barracuda; resin exhausts from Reskit (I know the kit comes with one, but I built at least two Sword F.1A/F.3 kits back in the day, and both had hideously warped resin exhausts that were a trial. I would like a different trial this time. Assuming it even fits, it was allegedly made for the Airfix kit); and en route to me, a turned metal shock cone and intake ring; and also another one of Master's ludicrously small pitot tubes, none of the ones on the surviving Lightnings I built back in the day having survived the tender and enthusiastic ministrations of my own Winston. Barracuda have also been promising to release some new Lightning aftermarket this week for the past two weeks, so if time and funds permit, some of that may find its way into the build as well. 

 

Anyway, we're off. I enjoin you tenderly to please check out the Wants link in my signature -- if you like my builds, you can support more of the same awful crap by selling me things I want, and if you hate them, you can squeeze precious money out of me like the juice from a pomegranate. 

 

 

 

 

* Obviously a few years before I was born.

 

 

Very well said.

Edited December 5, 2022 by Sergeant

[Procopius]

5 hours ago, Dave Wilko said:

 

 

https://www.librarycat.org/lib/Lalabert/item/149891977

 

A great book with numerous amusing tales(especially "Bugs"Bendell's sound barrier escapade, it's priceless).

 

Indeed it is in my library, along with quite a few other volumes in the series!

 

 

Slowly recovering, feeling somewhat better today after a very shakey yesterday. Haven't quite felt up to modelling again yet.

 

Dennis, I'll PM you my final thoughts once I get through this week. 

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

Good to hear you're on the mend sir, maybe we can have this lunch with @John Laidlawthat we've planned by spring. 

[Mr T]

Hi Edward, glad you are on the mend after your encounter with the scissors. My encounter was in 1996, and although the surgery was relatively pain free, the aftermath was less so as I had a, wound infection. Antibiotics and a few days rest and all was well. 

When I was an ENT charge nurse (male sister back in the day), when our surgeons were away some of the vacant theatre sessions were used to do  some vasectomy lists. There was always at least one man who would take fright. Once we had someone jump off the trolley on the way to theatre. Got an earful from his wife! 

[Terry1954]

Wishing you a speedy recovery Edward.

 

I am intruiged with your very respectable bookshelf contents. I'd send  a pic of my own, but one pic wouldn't cover it at all! Lets hope one day, I can show you for real?

 

Now, forget the pecker pain, let's see more of that Lightning! 😜

 

T.

AKA unsympathetic of Dorset.

[Procopius]

5 hours ago, Terry1954 said:

Wishing you a speedy recovery Edward.

 

I am intruiged with your very respectable bookshelf contents. I'd send  a pic of my own, but one pic wouldn't cover it at all! Lets hope one day, I can show you for real?

 

Indeed, I too hope for that, and I shall wear my most shapeless clothes, with my largest pockets.

 

As it happens, that is certainly not my only bookshelf, but one of four (plus two for naval and one for cold war subjects specifically), along with many books lacking shelves in other parts of the basement. No reasonable person has just one bookshelf.

 

EDIT: Also two bookshelves for fiction, and really nerdy stuff like Battletech.

 

5 hours ago, Terry1954 said:

Now, forget the pecker pain, let's see more of that Lightning! 😜

What I often said about the creatures this is mean to prevent is equally relevant now: who would have thought something so small could cause so much trouble?

6 hours ago, Mr T said:

There was always at least one man who would take fright. Once we had someone jump off the trolley on the way to theatre. Got an earful from his wife! 

 

I can believe it, I was drenched in fearful sweat the entire time. I just lacked the courage to make a dash for it.

[Fritag]

1 hour ago, Procopius said:

As it happens, that is certainly not my only bookshelf, but one of four (plus two for naval and one for cold war subjects specifically), along with many books lacking shelves in other parts of the basement.

 

I am entirely unsurprised to hear you’re a multiple bookshelf sort of person PC.

 

1 hour ago, Procopius said:

No reasonable person has just one bookshelf.

 

Quite.

 

Doubtless you’ll require a few days off work now Edward; and it would be shame to waste them by not progressing the Lightning 

 

 

[Procopius]

3 minutes ago, Fritag said:

Doubtless you’ll require a few days off work now Edward; and it would be shame to waste them by not progressing the Lightning 

 

 

Oh, that's not how we do things here in Freedomland! I am back at work tomorrow, mercifully I work from home.

[Procopius]

I couldn't resist a little grotto time, so crept down and worked on the coaming etch:

 

 

This is just a test-fit of the coaming, which, amazingly, fits perfectly at present. The little side console (which I believe should be the Standard Warning Panel and associated switches and volume control, probably something Lightning pilots had the dubious pleasure of seeing light up quite a bit) fell off subsequently, but I think I want to reposition it slightly anyway. 

 

Don't let me forget to add the gunsight, either. The F.2/F.2A was the last fighter mark to have a decent one -- the F.3/F.3A/F.6 dispensed with the radar-ranging Pilot Attack Sight (the "PAS" in AIRPASS, the second "S" being for "System", and the AIR being the AI.23 radar) and resorted to the Light Fighter Sight, which I gather was closer to a WWII-era gyro gunsight, down to selecting the target wingspan to make the reticule the appropriate size. Given the rate of closure in a Lightning for a target, using the guns in the F.3A/F.6 must have been a fairly hairy proposition. 

 

[Quiet Mike]

You'll be back to normal very soon Ed! Well, hopefully apart from being able to make new Edwards and Edwinas of course. I think I was back on my pushbike in under a week after mine.

@stevehnz, I never did the 'test' 😳  but I do remember the consultant surgeon looking over the young student drs shoulder to check his work and saying, in a very offhand way to him, "Well he'll not be able to get that reversed!". 🤣

[Procopius]

7 hours ago, Quiet Mike said:

You'll be back to normal very soon Ed! Well, hopefully apart from being able to make new Edwards and Edwinas of course. I think I was back on my pushbike in under a week after mine.

 

Strewth! I guess everything that comes from Southampton is built to a different standard.

 

 

[Dave Wilko]

13 hours ago, Procopius said:

Given the rate of closure in a Lightning for a target, using the guns in the F.3A/F.6 must have been a fairly hairy proposition. 

And a very,very brief squirt to boot.

One would imagine one's gunnery had to be "spot-on".

[Procopius]

3 minutes ago, Dave Wilko said:

And a very,very brief squirt to boot.

One would imagine one's gunnery had to be "spot-on".

 

Oh, for a second I thought we were still talking about vasectomies and the aftermath.

 

But yes. Apparently when the guns were in the upper nose, firing them was quite disconcerting for the pilot, as the breeches were alongside his shoulders and the cockpit suddenly stank of cordite. Just one more thing to think about as you attacked a Tu-16 head-on at 50,000 feet with a combined closing speed anywhere from Mach 1.96 to Mach 3. 

[John Laidlaw]

10 minutes ago, Procopius said:

Oh, for a second I thought we were still talking about vasectomies and the aftermath.

🤣

[Dave Wilko]

45 minutes ago, Procopius said:

firing them was quite disconcerting for the pilot

One would imagine so,especially if the jet was configured in four gun and no missiles mode,it literally must have been quite "a blast"

and most spectacular if the rounds were on target.