Mk 1 Spitfire

Hello Sopwith,

Thank you for agreeing with me, I hope those who’s comments made Mark12 make the hard decision to walk way from the forum are now engaging brain before replying to any thread first.
As you say, lets hope we see him return to the forum very soon.

Regards

John

Well I for one am very sorry that Mark 12 is not on here anymore, and oldgit158 made a good statement above which I totally agree with. I do hope that he returns soon as he is a wealth of information. Further to the Burma job, it’s reported in another quality mag that there is another dig coming off next January, so we will have to wait and see.

“In our conversation the phrase “A pointless ‘Burma Bash’ too far” came up which I think describes the situation quite nicely.”

First of all these are entirely my own thoughts .

To be very honest I do not blame Mark12 from walking away, too many times armchair critics bash away at people on any internet forum without any shred of personal experience of the subject they are talking about, comment yes, air your thoughts yes but not bash away until someone of Mark12’s standing walks away leaving the forum at a loss.
I have no doubt that there is a lot of forum members who would back me up in saying Mark12 always assists out with information freely without asking anything in return apart from a simple thank you and some respect. He may not be everybody’s cup of tea and nobody goes through life without at least upsetting a few people however that does not retract from the fact this gentleman has received more than h is fair share of disrespect of late over one subject.
I ask some of those armchair critics how much of their hard earned cash did Mark12 spend when he went overseas on a private venture to report on progress of a certain project, how much taxpayers money did Mark12 receive to pay towards his overseas jolly? I know I can say NONE , but just look at the amount of first hand information he shared with all of us !
I know through personal experience that there are some great people on this forum, very helpful and always willing to share information along with research that may have cost them a fair amount of cash/time to accumulate and then there are a few others that seem to enjoy teasing, saying yes I will help you then nothing at all but that the nature of the beast.
I am friends with a person who was once a member of this forum some years ago, a few bashed away at him with comments until he left simply because he did not let them have their own way, a case of throwing teddy out of the playpen, he has great knowledge and has helped many behind the scenes, even those in the early days of their own projects who bashed him, the comments got so personal he had to walk away from the scene resulting a member of his own family had to write to those concerned warning of possible legal action.
All I am asking is that all of us enjoy the forum, always engage brain before typing, and show some respect to those who know more about a subject than you do before we all lose out.
Mark12 has helped quite a few of my friends out and for that I would like to pass on my own along with their thanks and hopefully he will grace our forum once again in the not too distant future.

Jason

Spoke to the man himself last night.

In our conversation the phrase “A pointless ‘Burma Bash’ too far” came up which I think describes the situation quite nicely.

To echo Bruce’s comment above, Mark12 is having a break from the forum and may return at some point.

That’s a very great shame, but I can’t blame him.

Pity. Thanks for the info.

For the time being, yes. I believe the background noise was getting a bit loud.

Bruce

Speaking to him today, I believe Mark 12 has left the building…

Bump once more, Mr Arnold are you out there?

Just bumping this thread as the identity of the Spitfire in question intrigues me. I was hoping that Mark 12 would be around to elucidate but he does not seem to have been active lately?

Yes I wonder that he hasn’t put a reply in about this one.(bumping thread again)

Just bumping this thread as the identity of the Spitfire in question intrigues me. I was hoping that Mark 12 would be around to elucidate but he does not seem to have been active lately?

I stand corrected! Interestingly, the Airscrew Co still exists, as a division of Ametek inc.

The two blader was an Aeroproducts prop – Watts two bladers were fitted to Hurricanes, but not Spits 🙂

Really? I thought they were both Airscrew Co. props. Heh!

Quite possibly so.

Ah, but didn’t the scrappers check ‘350’s logbooks and realise the significance?

If the airframe was a bent aircraft with little combat history, would they have bothered?

Logically you would have thought that as the scrappers were switched-on enough to realise that P7350 was a significant airframe, then they would have noticed a MkI with a 2 blade prop too …

The two blader was an Aeroproducts prop – Watts two bladers were fitted to Hurricanes, but not Spits 🙂

If it had a Watts prop and managed to hang on to it up until ’47 then a bent airframe sent to the Technical Training Schools is the only real possibility. Unfortunately the newness of retractable undercarriages seems to have caught quite a few 19 and 65 Squadron pilots out and a least a dozen ended up in the hands of the SoTTs before 1940!

Did any Spitfire keep a 2 blade prop after 1940?

Possibly an instructional airframe? There were a few mark 1 that served in this capacity until 1944. K9806 was the 27th production machine and so fitted with the two blader and was written off after a wheels up landing in 1939 and went on to 1 SoTT until reduced to produce in 1944 so could have turned up as a fuselage at Cosford. Interestingly this was a 66 sq machine coded RB-A…

It wouldn’t have been P7350 – she had her 3-bladed prop fitted and was stored outside

The OP stated that it was stored outside.