Wasn’t this the famous incident where the Pilot was demoted over the phone from Colonel to Lieutenant within minutes of landing and sent home under arrest by no less than Curtis LeMay himself ? 😮

And a good bit of that money will be spent in the UK. It seems someone might finally have seen some sense. I wonder if the RAF has been playing games, by selecting an American aircraft (Gold plated) that they know will prove unacceptable at some point in the procurement process to the Politicians, you end up getting what you wanted all along :eek::diablo: Time will tell.

Are they still scheduled to visit again Wednesday ? If so will pop along with my two young F1 mad nephews who would love to see this. They go to DX regularly so know how to appreciate both 😎

They will be making claims about their contribution to the history and development of Carrier operations next :diablo:

Yes, they may have supplied a significant proportion of the fuel early in the war, but the rights to make that high octane fuel that way were sold to them several years before by BP’s forerunner as they invented it in their labs in west London. This is alluded to on BP’s website, although other publications of theirs have told the story in more detail

“The British Air Force turned to Anglo-Iranian, which had recently found a way to improve aviation fuel’s efficiency”

Anyway, as others have said there was much more to it than fuel alone.

Not sure it can fly high enough for sensible coverage compared to a helicopter. Maybe just a little too cheap and cheerful solution even for a cash strapped MOD

Stephen Fry who is writing it was on Radio 5 this afternoon, and the way he was talking its still very much proceeding. He said he visted Peter Jackson recently about the film. Interestingly he also said that he very much felt the importance of this film on his shoulders and that he was doing his best not to dishonour the original. He did hint that we might see a slightly softer more human side to Guy Gibson. He didn’t say anything about the schedule though

Attack on Cruise ship Thwarted

An Italian cruise ship has fended off a pirate attack off the coast of Somalia, the vessel’s captain has said.

Ciro Pitno said six pirates in a speedboat approached his Melody ship and opened fire, but were forced to flee after security men fired back.

He said no-one was hurt in the incident late on Saturday. Some 1,500 passengers and crew were on board.

Pirates have recently intensified attacks on shipping in the region, despite patrols by the foreign navies.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/8019084.stm

If they start making a habit of that then it could get really serious. One must wonder at the cruise operator routing a ship unescorted in that area

There isn’t really much to choose from is there unless either a new design is made from scratch or an old design is revamped.

I would have like to have thought that a starting point would be the Agusta BA609 (Ok its not quite fixed wing) but I have never seen mention of if the wing/rotor mechanism could be folded, so I doubt that thats a runner either.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell/Agusta_BA609