Mike Dora

Well 19 and 23 did use SPADs once. Over a hundred years ago.. ;) PS for nitpickers, the Moranes, Farmans, Nieuports etc don’t count. They were RNAS/RFC.

Hate to quibble, but why would 23 Sqn be on Mirage IVs? They’re a fighter sqn, it’s a bomber. The RAF is particular about its sqn traditions.. ;) Nice model though :))

Nothing is invulnerable, but a lot depends on how the kit is operated. For example the second pic, of the turret lying on the ground, clearly shows a national flag on the side of the turret - is it Egypt? So the tanks shown are not necessarily American and German. I wonder who the wrecks in all the other pics belonged to, and how they were using them.

I’m reminded by all this that round about 1970 I saw a report in the aviation press of the F-105 “Thunderstick” mod. This was a complete modernisation of the ac’s avionics to give it an all-weather strike capability. Must have made the Thud’s Vietnam veterans smile (sidebar: the USAF exchange instructor when I was at RAFC Cranwell in 1976 was a 100-mission Thud driver. Although RAF exchange pilots with the USAF weren’t allowed to fly in Vietnam, with our traditional extensive cross-embedding we still got to learn all the operational lessons. Thank you USAF) The Thunderstick’’s visible difference from a regular Thud was a much bigger spine fairing, with the canopy cross-section being carried back all the way to the base of the fin. I don’t think many were converted though, maybe only a couple of dozen.

Whether it works right or not, if you ever have a forced landing never forget to detach the clock and bring it with you. Because while the Army will always forgive the loss of an aeroplane, it will never forget the loss of a clock. (I’m not making this up, that is how things really worked in the RFC).

You’re right Wrench, they had Beagles. Saw some in Phnom Penh in late 1979, when we were flying in supplies for the Red Cross just after the NVA had kicked out the Khmer Rouge. Also saw what looked like Farmers. Bit hard to tell with those, all the VPAF ac were on the opposite side of the runway from the civil ramp that we used for our Herc.

Nice! But why not cut your losses, chaps, and use a more effective British design? ..as happened in real life :) “Cranberry” Wrench? That was our alternate name for them. In my time they were better known as “Berrycans”. BTW, sidenote, the British smirked somewhat when Martin manufactured its B-57s to far tighter tolerance margins than our own Berrycans, for no discernible difference in performance. Fast forward to the early 2000s’, when BAe’s attempts to attach new Nimrod MR4 CAD/CAM-made wings to 1960s/70s hand-manufactured Nimrod MR2 fuselages ended in tears*. Perhaps the American approach to manufacturing tolerances (choking on my scotch here) may actually have been the right one? * sooo bloody frustrating, If only they’d spoken to any flight sergeant/chief tech on the Nimrod fleet, they’d have told them how each airframe was subtly different. Personally (as an air mover) I recall how we all knew that a couple of our VC10s were a “bit different” from the rest. In Nimrod’s case, could have meant that Britain would have retained its extremely efficient MPA capability without the unfortunate 10-year gap until the acquisition - at significant extra cost - of the arguably less-capable P-8 Poseidon. End of rant. PS for Spinners, apologies for wandering off topic. Again. Consequences of being an aviation type for >50 years 😉😉

Nice! But why not cut your losses, chaps, and use a more effective design, like that Limey “Canberra” thing?

Wasn’t just the B-52 that was tested carrying dummy Skybolts, they were tried on Vulcans as well. The RAF intent was for Skybolt to replace the rather unreliable Blue Steel. Preparations went as far as most Vulcan B2s being manufactured with the necessary wing hard points. Twenty years after Skybolt was cancelled, these hardpoints suddenly became useful as somewhere to hang Shrike ARMs for long-range SEAD sorties during the Falklands War.

Hunter F.6M? Just looked that up, a Spinners SF2 job with Firestreaks. Interesting. However, having crawled over Lightnings, and seeing the size of the alternate internal systems packs for their Firestreak and Red Top missiles, am fairly sure that the only way the Firestreak pack would fit in a Hunter would be to use the space allocated for the Aden gun pack. Meaning, no guns. BTW Snowburn, by your suggested timescale those Hunters would have been replaced by ex-RAFG Lightning F2As. Which in the real world were by then parked around RAFG airfields as decoy targets. Finally! A role for which the “Frightning” had adequate range.. (that ac was so fuel-desperate, it had fuel tanks in its flaps. Really). Changing angle slightly, I see that Spinners “assigned” his Hunters F.6M to 1435 Flt, which since 1982 has operated Phantoms, Tornados and now Typhoons from the Malvinas/Falklands. Nice piece of historical continuity there on the part of my former service. The original 1435 Flt operated 3 Sea Gladiators in defence of Malta in 1940. So it is therefore our “remote island defence flight”. Those Gladiators were famously named “Faith”, “Hope” and “Charity”. Today’s 1435 Typhoons (as were the Phantoms and Tornados before them) are correspondingly marked “F”, “H”, “C”, and “D”. “D”? “Desperation”...

Don’t forget: RN “nothing” for Gannet AEW3 Which, combined with the Phantom FG1’s superb BVR capability, would perhaps give the British a very unfair advantage? ...in other words, exactly the way the British prefer to fight😉 Of course this assumes that the old Ark Royal could make it that far. I was on her for a couple of weeks in early 1978, by when only 3 of her 4 main engines were working, and halfway across the Atlantic she broke down altogether. Luckily it was fine, calm weather, but even in peacetime it felt very odd sitting there motionless while the engine room team frantically fixed things. Reminded us of a key scene from “The Cruel Sea”.

These would have been great in the 1982 Falklands/Malvinas War. Even better than the Mirage IIIEA. For the SHARs... BTW do not misunderstand, I have 4 friends who served in that unfortunate conflict. Two on each side, one each navy, air force. All highly respected (though of the 2 navy friends, I liked Carlos; less sure of David.. )

RAF Starfighters? So to whom did Lockheed pay their “commission” in Britain? 😉 Sidebar: wonder which had the shorter range, Starfighter or Frightning? Important in the competition to be first back to the bar..

I’ve been playing the SF series since they began, many moons ago, but one thing has always frustrated me, the apparent inability to amend a flight plan before launching. Maybe I was spoiled by DI’s “Tornado” even more moons ago. This thing has finally driven me to ask the following question (maybe I’m slow).. I know that one can shift waypoints in the planning Map, by clicking and dragging them. But what I’d really like to be able to do, is edit airspeeds and altitudes at those waypoints. My frustration is based on seeing Buccaneers, Jaguars, Harriers and even Tornados trundling on autopilot at ~5000ft, when in the real world RAF strike & attack ac worked at 250ft or lower*. So tell me please, have I been missing something all these years, is there a way to edit the flight parameters at the waypoints? Thanks Mike *Even our Hercs regularly flew low. I once flew down the Grand Canyon in the back of one of our Hercs, looking up at the clifftops.

Excellent find Wrench! Some wonderful footage of period ac, especially that KB-50, a favourite of mine since a mid-Sixties article in “Airfix Magazine”. Plot and realism not bad too, though surprised to see a 1958 USAF brig gen without a single medal ribbon(?), and the RAF exchange “sqn ldr” (nice to see a Brit included!) was wearing wg cdr rank on his tunic..

Seem to recall the height limit for the Harrier GR1/3 was something like 5’ 10”. Disappointed some of my taller contemporaries at Cranwell (1976-77). On the other hand, helped strengthen the case for RAF female aircrew (admit bias there, ladyfriend is former USN aircrew 🇺🇸🙂)

Good call, I’ll try that. Looks like TK may have used USAF definitions of “Low” and “Very Low”? 😉🇬🇧 Even “Very High”, my V-Force friends used to wander around at FL5500+, which translates as 16500m.

Thanks SD, I've been playing these sims so long using automatic mission creation, I wasn't seeing that "edit" icon any more! Silly me. However I've now discovered a couple of constraints with the mission editor. It doesn't allow waypoint settings above 592kt, or below 1000ft. If you try to use settings above/below these, the waypoint defaults to these max/min values. Secondly, even when you do accept these max/min values, the in-sim autopilot makes the ac porpoise horribly, cycling several hundred feet below and above the selected (1000ft) altitude. So next steps, will experiment with Wrench's suggestions.

Excellent! B-52G I think? Actor Jimmy Stewart* seem to narrate with some authority, wonder why? *Brig Gen James Stewart AFDSM DFC* AM*** CdG USAF

I see the conversation has moved on to helmet styles? The British "soup-plate" (Brodie) helmet maligned above, was actually very good for its purpose, which was to minimize head wounds for the troops in the trenches in WW1. It was also pretty good at keeping a chap's head and shoulders dry.. I'm rather familiar with it, both from wearing it in an amateur production of RC Sherriff's "Journey's End" in 1970 (see first pic, I'm the Tommy on the left - the scene is set on 20 March 1918 on the Fifth Army front, rather not a good place and time to be.. ), and also because back in 1979, my warrant officer at RAF Lyneham insisted on still wearing his old 1916-style helmet whenever we had a Station tactical evaluation/exercise - "this is what I was issued with in 1944 Sir!". Not even the Station Commander would contradict him :) For most of my RAF career though we used the 1944 pattern "turtle" helmet (second pic). Also very good in the rain. However sometimes some of the less experienced would put it on back-to-front, we thought it made them look like East Germans.. Finally, in the mid-Eighties I was issued with the then-new Mk 6 Kevlar helmet. When I left the Service in 1997 - by then with UN Peacekeeping, after 3 years' Loan Service with UNHQ here in New York ;) - a minor "accounting error" meant that I was left in possession of this helmet. The stores corporal back in Britain was most understanding, when he realized that my helmet wasn't showing on his records, he asked "so do you want all the different covers for it sir?" This came in very useful a few years later, when I was in Bunia, NE DR Congo at a particularly unpleasant time, see third pic. Felt much (much!) happier with a combat-proven British Army helmet*, than with a cheap UN blue Kevlar helmet procured from the lowest bidder on an international contract**. Besides my British helmet had the advantage that if things got really really bad, one could always lie down, pull off the blue cover to reveal the camo cover underneath, and "make a noise like a bush". Cheers Stay Well Mike *..and with a US Army flak jacket, for same reasons. ** not saying where those came from, except - mes excuses mes amis…

Very interesting film. What always bothered me about the DDR Army, is that if you changed the helmet “back”, with their legacy uniform style they would look just like the Wehrmacht. With a group of fellow trainee RAF officers, visited the Inner German Border in the mid-Seventies. A chilling sight. Glad (very) that is all old history now.

Oh how the Wildenrath crowd would have loved those! They were still on Frightning 2A's up to 1976 I think (Saw those on an early training det to Gutersloh in 1974. Discovered Jägermeister. Don't remember much else.. )

In practice the Sidewinder system is pretty self-contained, with the coolant in a long conical, almost needle-shaped bottle inside the launcher. Compare and contrast with Britain’s heavy IR missiles, Firestreak and Red Top, which needed considerable internal electronics packs in the carrier ac. Indeed with some relatively minor wiring mods, can hang Sidewinder on just about anything::. RAF Nimrod MR2 - they got their Sidewinder fix in a just a couple of weeks during the Falklands War

Is that “Extinct” pod? Because one suspects that would be the fate of the passenger! I wonder when this bright idea was first put forward - any date between 31 March and 2 April perhaps?