JimAttrill

The only monoplane I know of was the Fokker FVIII but there may have been others.

Castor oil was a good lubricant for the rotary engine. Remember that the oil was not kept in the engine but blown out of exhausts and all over the pilot. Castor oil if kept in the engine tends to form gum which is not good. Note that the engines used in Speedway were also total-loss lubricated. Castor oil was used in some fuel dragsters as it works well with alcohol-based fuels. But those engines are stripped down and cleaned very often. I must say I love the smell

Remember what Groucho Marx said.....

There's a guy in Austria who says his collie understands 850 words of German. Not bad for a Welsh dog No, I'm wrong about that.... From Wikipedia: Betsy (born 2002) lives in Vienna, Austria with her owner, who goes by the pseudonym "Schäfer" (English: Shepherd). Betsy is also a pseudonym given to her by animal cognition researchers.At ten weeks of age, Betsy was able to sit on command and knew numerous objects, such as a ball and set of keys, by their name and would fetch them on verbal command. Betsy was discovered after her owner answered a request by National Geographic Magazine to submit intelligent animals for study. Betsy was one of two dogs (both of which were Border Collies) whose intelligence was beyond that of Rico, also a Border Collie, who knows over 200 words. Betsy was featured on the cover of the March 2008 edition of National Geographic. Betsy has a vocabulary of more than 340 words, which rivals that of the great apes, in terms of intelligence and lateral thinking. After hearing a word only twice, Betsy is able to decipher that the sound is a command or instruction and regards it as such. Betsy is believed to learn in the same way that human toddlers do, if not faster. Betsy is capable of interpreting the correlation between a two-dimensional photograph and the object it depicts, and is able to retrieve the item simply by seeing the image, despite never having seen the depicted object or the photograph before. During testing, Betsy retrieved the correct item 38 out of 40 times. Betsy knows 15 people by only their name. It is believed that Betsy's unusual intelligence can be attributed to dogs' prolonged association with humans, evolution and her breed—the Border Collie was found to be the most intelligent breed of dog by psychology professor Stanley Coren in his book The Intelligence of Dogs. Juliane Kaminski, a cognitive psychologist who tested Betsy, hypothesised that her abilities are the result of the use of the Border Collie breed as working dogs, their high motivation levels and that they historically had to pay close attention to their owners' commands when engaged in herding. I must get that book. I remember that it was ridiculously easy to train our collie to do almost anything. He discovered that he could open the door into the lounge/dining room which was the only room with a fire. This let in ferocious draughts. We showed him once that he could push the door closed with his nose, then fall on the door to complete the closure. He would also herd anything from seagulls to chickens to small children. We kept him welll away from sheep for this reason. I must say that from reading the above I am amazed to see a dog understands a photograph. All dogs I have known would be interested in a photo, sniff it and maybe try to eat it but they never 'looked' at a photo. Rather like dogs don't react to pictures of dogs on the TV, but they do react to those dogs barking. I have an old dog and will have to get another one of these days to keep the young one company. I rather fancy another Collie.

I have heard it was a good engine but let down by the ersatz castor oil that they had to use.

I must say I love the collie! I grew up with one when I was a kid. An extremely clever dog that knew many words of English and could also spell them like D.O.G and W.A.L.K I used to take him on our buses on the top floor - which was not 'allowed' but he knew all the conductors and they let him on. I often got 'nicked' by the local plod for walking him without a lead. To that I would say 'watch this' and cross the road. The dog would only cross the road on the command 'over' so he was quite safe from cars. Unfortunately he died while I was at Halton. My mother refused to have another dog after him.

Here is my little rescue dog... My nephew found him abandoned at the side of a dirt road near a squatter camp. He liked to sleep in a cardboard box for a while and attached himself to me so that when I went into the garage he would follow. I filled a cat box with sawdust and he loved it - being close to me all the time. That was a year ago and he is a wonderful happy dog now - he makes us laugh all the time and that is priceless!

There is a Micro$oft photo resizer that you can download. It is handy because all you have to do is right-click on the photo in Expoder and the option is there. I normally take photos down to less than 200k before posting them. They look the same on the screen.

Interesting that the two aircraft of WWII which did all sorts of things were both designed as fast bombers in the first place and were modified to do other things as the war went on. This would be the Mosquito and the Ju88. I do rate the FW190 D ('dora') as the best German fighter of WWII. Many didn't rate it at first because it had a 'bomber' engine but they were wrong. Not a 'pretty' aircraft but functional!

It may be correct, but personally I wouldn't believe anything in the Daily Mail. I thought MvR was shot down by an Australian mg crew. He should of course have been taken off flying duties as his loss was terrible for German morale.

No, the F35 is the 'Lightning II' - a famous name for the US and the British. Pity it's such a heap of cr@p. See here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-35_Lightning_II I see that Germany has not joined in the project which is a great idea for you! I think the UK should pull out of it and leave the thing to the Yanks and anyone else with more money than sense.

Olham, the wonderful thing about the Harrier and why it worked so well was that it was so SIMPLE. A good example is the nozzle movement arrangement. The pilot had one lever for the nozzles which operated an air turbine servo motor under the engine and fed by engine air pressure. There was a gearbox which fed fore and aft driveshafts which then plugged into gearboxes which drove left and right shafts. Actually the whole setup was rather like a 4x4 except there were no differentials required. The four drive shafts then drove enclosed chains and the nozzles were bolted on the outside. One of the prototypes crashed when a front (cold) nozzle made of glass fibre broke up. The production versions had all steel nozzles and never ever gave any problems. The nozzles could point about 8 degrees forward which gave reverse thrust and of course the nozzles could be used for 'VIFFING' (Vectoring in Forward Flight) which made the aircraft impossible to out-manoevre. I know our pilots used to have fun with Phantoms - the Phantom would be going in circles with full afterburner to keep up the speed while the Harrier just whizzed around inside it. And in the Falklands the Harrier proved that even Mach 1 was not necessary for a good fighter. And the other great Falklands aircraft was the simple and light Skyhawk. And as for the F35 it is overcomplicated, too heavy, unmanoeverable and way way too expensive for what it is. They have tried to make it do everything and as a result it does nothing well. Shades of the Me Zerstorer 210 and 410! Will they never learn?

They are all in museums now - I trained on Canberras, Hunters, Vulcans, Bristol Sycamore helicopters, Piston Provosts and suchlike. The Beaufighter was an old airframe with the wings removed and a classroom built on the back to demonstrate running engines. Actually I worked on Vickers Varsities, Armstrong Whitworth Argosy's, one HP Hastings and then Hunter FGA9s and FR10s and T7s followed by 3 years on the early Harrier Mk 1s and 1As and 2s- most of that at Wildenrath in Germany. After the RAF I worked on Saudi Air Force Lightnings. I left the aircraft business in 1976 when I came to South Africa.

Only one factual complaint - the Bristol Beaufighter had Bristol Hercules 14-cyl 2-row radials and not the Bristol Pegasus which was a much less powerful 9-cyl single row radial. I know because I ran one up on the ground in 1967.

I'll have a read of Captain Brown's book (he is still alive, believe it or not, at about 92) to see what he says about the Me109. As a person who flew just about every aircraft of that era he is generally very unbiased about any aircraft. The 'worst' aircraft he flew were British! There could have been a problem with different parachute setups on the German and British side which would cause problems eg. when using a British parachute in a German aircraft. When I say he is unbiased it is interesting to read his write-up of the Me110 - he does not consider it a 'failure' as some have and says that he never met a German pilot who disliked flying it. As its two replacements were both failures (and he says exactly why as he flew them as well) I reckon he is right.

If you can get hold of a copy it is worthwhile to read 'Wings of the Luftwaffe' by Capt Eric Brown RN who was a fluent German speaker and knew Ernst Udet and Hanna Reitsch and even interviewed Goering after the war. He found the Me109 cockpit claustrophobic even though he was small himself. Unlike the Hurricane and Spitfire it did not have elevator trim so was a bit of a handful in a dive. Also it (like the Me110) had automatic slats which would come out of the leading edge to stop the stall, but they tended to come out one side at a time which made aiming in the turn very difficult. The Spitfire took a long time from prototype to production because the wing was difficult to make and difficult to fit 8 guns into it. Early Hurricanes had canvas covered wings though by the BoB they were replaced by aluminium skins. I worked with some 'riggers' who had worked on Hurricanes and Spitfires and with one guy who - while serving in the RAF - was seconded to the film being made in 1968. He got paid by both so he was very happy! The Hurricane IID with the Rolls-Royce 40mm anti-tank guns was used a lot in the western desert. Many were shot down by Me109Fs as they were not manoeverable with those big guns hanging down. But they destroyed lots of Panzers. Of course the Stuka was fitted with the Flak 37 gun with huge ammunition and flown with great success by Rudel on the Eastern Front. He is said to have destroyed something like 350 tanks with that aircraft. The interesting thing about the Hawker Hart, Hurricane, Typhoon, Tempest, Fury, Hunter, Harrier and Hawk is that they all have similar tail fin shapes! I worked 4 years on Hunters and Harriers myself.

Well I did find 4 SPADS on my six and tried to shoot one of them down but there were too many of them. I think I'll go back to my Sopwith Camel

Oh well on my 11th sortie I was shot down by a SPAD. This gun at the back doesn't seem to work too well against many opponents. Anyway, his brother Dieter von Doodad is to take over....

I am trying to be barmy but WOFF won't let me. Claus von Doodad has flown twice in his Rumpler CIV from Bisegheim today, both times on autopilot and being the gunner in the back seat. He has now done 10 sorties of 11.85 hours and never an enemy aircraft in sight. Although these last two sorties had both flights and AI Alabatri also on patrol. Maybe I should try long distance bombing sorties rather than the closest as set in workshops.

I have tried all sorts of things Strange - when I post on OFF/WOFF I get a beige background (shows all white on this forum) with a white band across it. Obviously the defaults here are different!

got rid of the BOC badge and the text but the white is still there.... Edited it again. On the top row of the edit is a strange looking icon like a square with four dots in the corners and a cylinder in the middle. It doesn't say what that is but it fixed it! (it is to the left of the eraser) I then put the BOC badge back in.

Done but how do I get rid of the white background?

The history of English is a fascinating study mainly because it is an example of languages 'in contact'. After all, Early Anglo-Saxon and the Danish and Norwegian Viking languages were basically similar, but not completely. For this reason, even before the French invaded the English had started to drop many grammatical differences between these two Germanic languages. The Danes took over the north of England and the Angles and Saxons kept the south. But they had to talk to each other. I find it of great interest that the Germanic 'himmel' somehow got lost and was replaced by the Danish 'sky'. But Danish 'sky' means a cloud! You can imagine these guys in their hairy shirts pointing up at the heavens and one saying 'himmel' and the other pointing at a cloud and saying 'sky'!! And the later languages in contact were Middle English (as spoken by Chaucer) and the Norman French of the court and nobles. Eventually English just took over most of the French words and has been doing the same ever since. We will steal words from anyone!

The Pup is a lovely aircraft to fly in WOFF as well, though I'm not sure I noticed the gyroscopic precession which was a lot more noticeable in the Camel. Flying training was very hit or miss in those days - more RFC pilots died in training crashes than were shot down by the Germans. But imagine flying in a thing which had only been invented a decade before! And if you read the books on aerodynamics of the time you realise that nobody really knew how an aircraft actually flew !!

Can I join the BOC - what qualifications are required?