JimAttrill

I recall reading somewhere that the Fokker DVIIs were supposed to be given to the Frogs as 'reparations'. I also read that Goering's Jasta flew to Darmstadt where they destroyed their aircraft by taxying them into hangars and other buildings.

I only got 17 out of 50 cows. Not very good. Can do better, as my old school reports used to say.

This is not about a relation, but a few years ago I got my first copy of Combat Report by Bill Lambert who flew with 24 Sqn in 1918 in SE5As. He talks about a pilot called Southey who was a South African (and shot a few aircraft off his tail apparently). At the time I was working with a girl called Gill Southey (she is now married and has changed her name). I asked her if she was related, and she said he was her grandfather. Unfortunately there is no photo of Southey in the book, although he was still alive when the book was written in the 60s.

I have a feeling that you shouldn't be giving us - your clients and users - all this extra stuff for free. I would be prepared to pay for these things. I have found in life that anything that is free is considered of little worth. Make the buggers pay and then they will appreciate it. (I include myself as one of the buggers, of course). (As you lot owe me $10 I should get the upgrade for free, of course )

Was this rather strange rule adhered to? Did it matter if the father was still serving or not? It's a bit tough if your father was a Gefrieter

If you just want to practice flying, try a BE2 at the beginning. It's at least easy to fly, and there's nobody else about. I joined no 4 on 23 March 1915 and by 10 April have got 40 hours and am now a major. It's a bit boring though, and I am trying to learn how to loop properly. I can't seem to get it to roll at all, but will start practicing the Immelman turns which don't require much aerobatic ability on the part of both of us. Hopefully by the time I come across an EIII or two I will be good enough to shoot them down or at least do the 'Sir Robin' manoevre

The reason I say this is because many of the RFC scout squadrons flew it at one time or the other, so the lack of a DH5 means that you can't fly through the war, for example in 24 Sqn, which went from the DH2 to the DH5 and after that to the SE5a. It wasn't a bad aircraft, quite strong and the visibility was good because of the back-staggered top wing. They say it didn't have enough power really, but the engine was basically the same as used in the Fokker Triplane - a Le Rhone 9J, 110hp. It also only had one Vickers gun with no Lewis on a Foster mount. Here's a link to a picture of one: http://www.greatwarf...illand_dh5.html

Thanks for showing me that post I must have missed it.

It's the asbestos long-johns that help Oh sorry Olham, you might not have heard of them. They were quite popular at the time, being a woolen undergarment with long legs and arms, and a flap which buttoned up to do the necessary. Why they were called 'long johns' is still a mystery, I believe. With the cold up there in flight I reckon quite a few aircrew wore them in WWI. Sounds a bit scratchy to me. I'm not sure if you can even buy them nowadays, though forumeers who come from colder climates than mine will doubtless put me right.

If you are an American you get lots of medals before even leaving home. I don't think this really raises morale very much, it just devalues the currency.

Once someone has answered this rather good 'Trivial pursuits' question (good, because it is more-or-less unGooglable) I have a question to ask the aviation fundis out there, especially the Germans as Richard Wagner was German, of course.

If any of you come to this country for the Football World Cup next year, you must visit the War Museum in Joburg. They have what looks like a complete set of Russian tanks and artillery - all captured in Angola from the Cubans. There is definitely a T55 and a T72. And also 'red 8' the only surviving Me262 radar-equipped 2 seater night fighter, a nice FW190 A-4, a couple of Me109s (one crashed), a Mosquito, a Spitfire, a Hurricane, a lovely original SE5a and a Hawker Hartebees. And (I think) a DH9 (not a 9A). And for the jet fans there is a Buccaneer a Mirage and an Impala.

Well, engines in 1929 didn't have a lot of poke, so to get a gigantic thing like the DO-X off the water it needed a lot of engines. Also the engineer could get to the engines in flight to do maintenance of a sort. It originally had Siemens-built Bristol Jupiter radials of 524hp and was politically re-engined with Curtiss Conqueror 610hp water-cooled engines before its trip to the US. The water cooled engines being heavier, what with radiators and coolant, it didn't make much difference to the performance or lack of it. The DO-X flew across to Brazil, up the coast of the US to New York and back across the Atlantic, all at about 30 feet off the water in order to use the ground effect, or water effect in this case. I don't fancy the pilot's job flying that thing for hours at such a height. It was unfortunately destroyed in Berlin in WWII, along with most of the rest of Berlin. Sorry I got the date wrong, it first flew on 12th July 1929. But it does seem to have had more engines than any other aircraft ever built.

I never knew when he died, thanks for that. But he was the pilot of the Dornier DO-X which was the biggest aeroplane to fly for quite a few years. The question I want to ask of you all is whether the DO-X with 12 engines still holds the record for the most engines in one aircraft? I can't think of any other which gets to more than 8 - the B52 for example.

I was landing using Target view and as usual I stuffed it up. The left wing hit the ground and about half of it got ground away. I thought 'here we go' but managed to right the plane. Then the wing remade itself. I laughed at this, but was quite happy that the ground crew had flown along with me and managed to fix the problem so quickly

And what aeroplane did Richard Wagner fly?

There was a WWI recruiting poster around somewhere which said something like 'join the RFC and you won't get called up for the Army'. Of course being an aircraft technician is a pretty safe job. I buried a few pilots in my time.

You must have read 'Chickenhawk' by Robert Mason I suppose? Best book about choppers in Nam I have come across. He also dug some holes

Well, it was 4 squadron as you can tell by my sig on the left. I had wonderful fun in those days because we were the first squadron in Germany to use grass airfields. This also meant we were away from the powers that be and could almost do what we liked. I remember a wonderful time when I was sent to another RAF station in a completely dirty camouflaged Land Rover (unusual as most RAF transport was blue) with trailer with a liquid oxygen trailer on that, to get some LOX. We were wearing Army camouflage uniforms (in those days the RAF didn't wear that stuff), with no rank badges (the snipers will get you), and we had one RAF hat between the three of us. I was wearing a Norwegian AF hat, another guy had a Luftwaffe hat, but I borrowed the RAF beret to confront the RAF police. We at least had SLR rifles (same as the German Forces) which showed we were SERIOUS. The RAF Police at the gate wanted to know where we had come from, but apart from showing our ID documents I refused to say. This was because we were on the other side, so to speak. So as a P.O.W in WWII I would give my rank and serial no but refuse to say where I had come from. I also told them that if I didn't get my load of Liquid Oxygen they would be stuffed up by various high-ranking officers (without saying who they were). Oh what a wonderful day that was! As, like all other technical people I hated the RAF Police I had a lovely time refusing to answer their questions. Such is life. We also loved doing these trips because we could stop at the occasional bar and have a drink or two, and use their toilet facilities which were much better than those we had in the camp. I think I have mentioned that at one place we used the cut-outs in the trees as used by Luftwaffe fighters in 1944/5. This meant we could hide our Harriers withour cutting down any trees which is not allowed in Germany.

Leadtek nVidia Quadro FX 5800 16xPCIe 512-bit 4GB GDDR3 This card alone costs more than ten times my whole pc, and the card costs about 50 times the cost of my graphics card. I never realised that you could spend so much on a card. And using SLI you could fit two of them! I suppose these must be for high-end CAD or something like that? I know gamers spend money, but this is amazing!

That could have been my old squadron which used RE8s until the end of the war. And as the first Nato Harrier squadron operating off grass in 1970 the scene was not much different, though the planes were newer. Same old tents, etc. The advantage we had over the fixed squadrons it that we could 'lose' all sorts of tools, equipment and stuff and nobody even asked where it went because it was in a wood in Germany somewhere.

Thanks Pol, I did just that and signed on as a fighter pilot in no 48. The interesting thing is that when I look at the pilot it says he is a bomber pilot. Also my first sortie was a bombing run. Not that I mind. I know that this fighter/bomber pilot thing is really a hangover from CSF3, so I have to put up with it. This sort of MRCA is hard to define - likewise the Mosquito and JU88 in WWII.

Funny, I tried a while back to fly with no 48 in the F2B and no 48 didn't appear in the list. Nor did 10, so I ended up in 11. Maybe I was going about it the wrong way or something. I'll try again. I did get a bit suspicious as OFF has perfect mapping of squadrons to aircraft and airfields depending on the date. I didn't want to whinge about it.

There is a lot of doubt about Ball, because he just disappeared. So did Guynemer for that matter. McCudden killed himself turning back on engine failure and Mannock was killed by ground fire.

As a point, the F2B had only two guns, one fixed Vickers for the pilot and one flexibly mounted Lewis for the observer. Maybe some had two Lewises though. But look at the score of McKeever and Powell with scores of 31 and 19 as pilot and observer. Meeting them could ruin your whole day It's a pity one can't fly with no 48 squadron with Brisfits, but no matter really. http://books.google....page&q=&f=false