Of the 168,040 Merlins built, 55,523 were Packard-built including (or in addition, not sure) 897 built by Continental.

I don`t recall seeing any mention of Nitromethane in the Merlin running notes.

Pete

I think you hava the same book as me.

Nitro wasn’t advised I know but the ‘R’ series did run on an exotic mix. On one run they used a mixture of benzol, methanol and acetone.

We certainly invented sarcasm:D

And we’re so good at it. A pity the same can’t be said for other things.

This was actually a topic of discussion within the RAF in the ’80’s.
One suggestion was to reverse the number (ie 101AA) the reasoning being that you could still use the three digits for individual a/c identification.
It seems the most logical to me, but when have the military been that?

This is what I got when I googled ER.103

http://www.skomer.u-net.com/projects/fd2.htm

http://aviation.elettra.co.uk/rafmuseum/page.php?aircraft=delta

there would be an arbitary finite altitude limit on any jet,
The SA CAA might put a limit on the a/c
or it may depend on the type of flying gear available,if i remember correctly from many years ago 48000′ might be a reasonable limit wearing normal flying clothing but I dont have any books to hand at the mo!!

cheers baz

I think you’ll find that the Lightning was limited to 56,000 ft in service due to the lack of pressure suit. The early Lightnings could have gone higher of course when the aircrew were using a pressure helmet. The helmet was discontinued as it was unpopular with the aircrew. I know of one F2(a?) having peaked at 65,000 ft during a PI. If he had been found out he would have had a severe talking to from the boss.

Reading from left to right, the fin ‘last three’ or the full serials as they come in to view.
1) 449
2) 178
3) 452
4) 969
5) 171
6) Union Flag only
7) 968
8) XM997
9) XS457
10) 994
11) Union Flag XM905 best guess
12) XM987
13) XM974
14) XR718
15) XS450
16) XS459
17) XS458

Mark

1) XS449 T5
2) XM178 F1a
3) XS452 T5
4) XM969 T4
5) XM171 F1a
6) XM183 or XM216?
7) XM968 T4
10) XM994 T4
11) XM215 F1a

Phantom XV422 ended up at Stornaway on the Outer Hebrides and was scrapped in 1998. While there the aircraft supposedly was named ‘JAG KILLER’ and a Kill marking of a Jaguar was on the port intake (A mate of mine was based there in 1998 and has photos of it, I will see if he has a copy handy). Lawrence and Inverarity were both convicted by Court Marshal for gross negligence and were punished with loss of all seniority in their rank at the time (Lawrence was a Squadron leader if I remember correctly, I’m not sure what rank Inverarity was at the time). I’m sure that from what I was told about the incident at the time from a guy I worked with in 1985 who had been at Wildernrath at the time that the Phantom’s had been on a Battle flight ‘Q’ Scramble practice and were doing some practice intercepts under the control of SOC 3, the crew of the Phantom forgot that they were carring live weapons (tape over the switches was the approved method of reminding them, and had not been done) and the Controller at SOC3 forgot to do the check switches call, hence the Phantom did a Fox 2 attack which resulted in the Sidewinder (which was a AIM-9G, not an L (most of the UK’s stock of 9 lima’s were 8000 miles away at the time) flying up the starboard engine of the Jaguar and chopping the rear of the aircraft off.

Indeed, the missile chopped the airframe off aft of the engine inlet joint.
It was a great photo on the cover of the accident report. I wish I’d kept a copy now.

Please show me any aircraft that went into USAF inventory that started with an X designation? Many/all aircraft had the Y designation (for prototype).

Incorrect, most American a/c do start with a prototype designation of X. Y is pre-production or development a/c designation.
If you want proof then go look up pretty much any a/c type that Amercan has or had. They do generally start with an X version although they can be designated a WS number (weapon system) in the concept phase.