JimAttrill

I must beg your pardon, this aircraft is actually a TR IX (not a TR9 for above reasons). Only 26 were ever made - it is a two-seat Mk IX. Pilots were normally just pushed into the aircraft without trying a two-seater in those days so twin-seaters were considered a waste of resources. The two-seat Me109 was terrible for the instructor as he couldn't see a dickie bird forward at all! There is no mention of the Me109 two-seater in Wiki, yet the famous Eric Brown flew one - I think he flew more German aircraft than any German pilot! But he didn't fly a two-seater Spitfire as far as I can find out. There are some two-seaters which have been converted, though.

It was - to see a good example compare the Mitsubishi A6M2 'Reisen' (aka Zeke or Zero) with the later A6M5 version with ejector stubs. As you may have gathered I love big piston engines! My father started on Vimy's in 1922 with RR Eagles and then Virginias with Napier Lions. I was lucky (or oiler) enough to work on Bristol Hercules 14-cyl radials before switching to RR Darts and Avons before the Bristol (RR) Pegasus Harrier motor. Most modern aircraft engineers have never seen a non-jet motor except perhaps a Lycoming (boring!) Starting a big radial was not like the Merlin, for a start they sound like a bag of bones at low revs because of the epycyclic reduction gear and give off clouds of lovely oil smoke. Those were the days!

Nice to hear and to watch - although it can't be a TR9 because there is no such aircraft. It must be a late-model PRIX or more likely a PRXI judging by the tail fin. The RAF only swopped to Arabic numerals with the FR XVIII - FR 18 which had the bigger Griffon engine. The DB60n V12's had an advantage at night because as they were inverted the pilot was not blinded by the exhausts. The 'ejector' exhausts gave about 70lb of thrust which worked out at 10mph extra or so ...

My mother used to watch his shows because he was so madly enthusiastic about stars. She didn't know a dicky bird about astronomy but enjoyed watching him. He always looked as if he had just got out of bed without brushing his hair.

I did it once, but now I've forgotten how I did it! The old brain cells aren't what they used to be IIRC there is a file that has to be edited to point at the number of the pilot etc.

Which only goes to prove you shouldn't believe everything you read in Wikipedia. It looks like a neologism and illiteratism that I will avoid, even though I have been a computer professional for 30 years now. When my dictionary shows that meaning I might use the word with that meaning. At the moment it does not. Signed: James Attrill BA(Hons) Linguistics 1981 :-)

Could someone please explain the use of the word 'deprecates' in this thread. It makes no sense to me.

The Allison V-1710 was designed to be all things for all aircraft and could rotate in either direction and have various supercharger gearings or a turbocharger as used in the P38 'Lightning'. Unfortunately they put most of their research into the turbocharged version which was not used in the Mustang. That engine was a failure in Europe due to the cold at altitude and many engine failures caused them to move to the eastern war against the Japanese. The 60 series Merlin was quite something with two two-speed superchargers with an intercooler between the stages and an aftercooler. It also ran on 100/130 Octane petrol which helped a lot - the Germans only ever used 87 Octane so needed a bigger capacity engine to get the same power - the Merlin was only 27 litres and the DB 605 was 36 litres. My father worked on Allisons in Egypt in WWII and reckoned they were very unreliable compared to the Merlin. The pilots had to fly with their eyes glued to the oil pressure gauge. He was not biased against American engines as he loved the P&W R-1830. He also thought American tools were great (and so do I if I can afford Snap-on)

Hey, FastCargo, does your comment mean you actually pay real money for a M$soft operating system. I have loaded everything from Dos 1.0 to W7 Ultimate for free. I might even try W8 if it is offered. But I don't think so as I hate touch screens and smartphones.

After my pooter was struck by lightning (a common thing in SA) I splashed out on a Gigabyte mobo and an AMD 965 quad-core running at 3.2 Ghz, now clocked to 3.8 reliably. My video isn't so wonderful due to money but I have a 6470 (I think). Well, it's better than the 4350 or whatever I had before and is quieter with no fan. My old ASUS card sounded like a Boeing 747. The new one is by CLUB, the cheapest for that spec I could find. Dutch company, but the card is made in China of course.

Doughnuts look VERY nice! Germans are strange with the names of food - while there I must have eaten lots of "Halbe Hanchen mit pommes frites" but I was warned not to order this in Köln as you get a cheese sandwich

Isn't it a small sausage?

I was near to Mönchengladbach - where is Ostfreisland? Sounds a bit like Holland...

Remember John F. Kennedy "ich bin ein Berliner"

Olham, I hate to say it but having spent 3 years in Germany I gave up on trying to get a decent cup of tea. 'Tea' would arrive with a mingy little bag in a glass of warm water with no milk in sight. But if you make your own it is a different story of course. In the last couple of years I have discovered Dilmah pure Ceylon tea which is wonderful stuff. If you like strong tea it is worth a try if you can find it... http://www.dilmahtea.com/

In 1968 I worked with an 'ancient' Cpl rigger who had experience of Spitfires and Hurricanes. He was detached from the RAF to work on the aircraft used in the film. He didn't mind as he was paid two salaries! He told us some funny stories. All the real fighters had 4-bladed props and the BoB aircraft had 3-bladers. So they had some glass-fibre replicas made which had lawn mower engines to turn the props and pyrotechnics to simulate the smoke out of the exhausts when the engine fired. The 'pilots' and the ground crew had trouble not laughing when they started a 'Spitfire'. The aircraft had little signs inside that said something like 'Do NOT attempt aerobatics in this aeroplane' Out of interest, nearly all the 'gate guardians' in the UK have been replaced with glass fibre replicas. The real things are kept under cover or are being refurbished. But I think XV779 which was originally a 4Sqn Harrier GR1 is now a GR3 with the laser rangefinder (ugly) nose and is still outside what used to be RAF Wittering, unfortunately in 20Sqn colours. It used to be tail code 'A' and was the commanders plane.

Our war museum here in Joburg has what looks like a brand-new Flak 88. All the dials and even the leather straps are perfect. It is pointing at Russian tanks across the courtyard - no T34s but a T52 and other stuff from the war in Angola. And close to the Flak 88 are a Me!09, a Fw190A and a Me262 night fighter 2 seater - the only one in the world. The yanks had one once but lost it somehow. The british main anti-aircraft gun was a 3.5" (88.9mm) but for some reason they never thought of using it as an anti-tank weapon. Strange when they could see how good it would be. Maybe no AP ammo?

I was there last August - visiting an ex-RAF Halton apprentice friend from 1966-8. Most of the holiday was spent with friends in Bloomfield Hills Michigan and right at the North of Michigan on the lake. My mate still works on aircraft whereas I haven't touched one since 1976 (to work on, that is). He lives in Hillsboro and works at the airfield that used to be DHL before they pulled out of the states. The lighting is a bit difficult in the museum, but they do warn you about the 'white balance' problem. Unfortunately I only read the warning on leaving! Here are my photos, not all of WWI aircraft of course. The most impressive is the B36 which must be seen to be believed. It would take a few days to do a plug change! http://s11.photobucket.com/albums/a196/JimAttrill/USAF%20Museum/

My father was stationed at Manston for a few years from 1922, working as a Fitter IIE (ie. Engines) on Vickers Vimy's and Later Virginias. He met my mother while there - she worked at a hotel in Margate. So I reckon I owe my existence in some way to Manston!

I have to disable Skype to get my TrackIR to work properly. Not really a problem. With Skype running all I see is the ground underneath the aircraft. Most annoying until I found the reason. This is with W7 64 and TrackIR 4 software and TrackIR 3 hardware. TrackIR connected to USB 2 although I also have USB 3 ports.

As this topic is so OT it can't get much further, so let me add my 2c worth .... "Pigs Ear" is (or was) Cockney rhyming slang for "Beer". Was definitely in use in WWI. One of the strangest German 'exports' I have come across is the French name for the little round windows above front doors. It is spelt either 'wasida' or 'vasida', most likely the second as French doesn't really have a W except in a couple of English words - wagon comes to mind. Unfortunately my French/English dictionary does not mention it, but there are lots of words that dictionary doesn't know (Collins). Apparently the word comes from 1870 when Germans would wander round Paris and point at these windows and say "Was ist das?" It seems that German houses did not have these windows. It rather reminds me of the word that the English-speakers in Natal use to describe Afrikaners on holiday down at the coast. They are called "Kaydaars" which comes from "Kyk daar" (look at that). It is not really a complimentary term, though terms for tourists rarely are. I remember the Devon/Cornwall expression "grockles" (and nobody knows where that comes from). Oh, and AA fire got the third A at the time of the Vietnam war. It is purely American and certainly not used by the Brits. The Americans tend to call it "triple A" rather than "AAA".

Here we go - anorak on I have examined my books and found that a 4-6-0 was not as unusual as I thought. In the USA they were called 'ten-wheelers' and tended to replace those wood-burning 4-4-0s that you see in cowboy films! But a 4-6-0 made in great numbers was German! Originally Royal Prussian Union Railway (KPEV) 1906 named the Class P8. By the end of WWI 2,350 had been made and although many were given to other countries as reparations they carried on in Germany through WWII. Eventually 3,438 were built in Germany and about 500 in other countries. Anorak off So there you go. I must say that in a picture the driving wheels are separated at the back to give an effect that looks like a 4-2 rather than a 6.

Hi Olham, the film 'trainspotting' (one word) was actually about Heroin junkies in Edinburgh Scotland. The only connection I can come up with is that both 'spotting' trains and being a junkie are a form of compulsive behaviour. Trainspotters would live on railway platforms (sometimes wearing anoraks ) and note the numbers of all trains passing through. A rather wierd pastime really. DB trains are also numbered so maybe they exist in Germany as well? Aircraft spotting doesn't seem to have caught on at all ....

Please tell us who are those pilots? I recognise only a few of them

Being anoraked is rather like being hit from behind with a machine gun in OFF. You can at least get another pilot and have another go