As the Russians discovered with the Tu-26 Backfire…..

(pic from Colin Body/Milavia)

Does the Tu-22M series have air to air refuelling? Does Concorde? I rest my case.

Yes, if it had been designed as a bomber from the original piece of paper it might have worked but I somehow doubt it given that its internal capacity is not that great compared to a Backfire. And yes, I’ve stood under an open Backfire bomb bay so have seen for myself how big it actually is.

I’ve got some general pictures of the Moycroft yard back in its ‘heyday’ – getting them scanned will be the problem (maybe).

Concorde as a bomber? I have this vision of the range 2 miles, lethal distance 2.5 miles comment from the approving junk thread. I think Concorde’s range and fuel consumption would have put paid to any long distance flights…

Ah thanks, I understand where it was now. Somewhat irritating to have missed it given that I live not more than 10 miles away from Lasham now.

A picture I took at Grantham in 1958, doubt whether you were there Trinny, incidentally, I need a new pair of jeans, what do you reccomend.

Absolutely massive!! Wonderful, I can feel the air vibrating even now.

At my 50th birthday bash I managed to play the opening bit from the Crazy World of Arthur Brown’s “Fire” mixed with 55014 starting off and accelerating away from Peterborough. The few railway enthusiasts present appreciated it…

that did occur, but that was just a system being late into service, so its not really relevant.

True, but the fact that the radar system was not ready when the airframe was merits a mention by itself, as does the fact that the entire Tornado F2 fleet (apart from a small number of experimental frames) had a relatively short life in service before going into storage, before their mid fuselage sections were used to repair the Airwork damaged F3 fuselages. I wonder how much that all really cost.

ok, we’ll take this slowly….

Deltic was a protoype high speed locomotive built as a privately funded venture by the English Electric Company. It was powered by two Napier Deltic power units. The prototype after carrying out proving trials for BR was withdrawn from service and put on display at the Science Museum later being moved to York and now Shildon.

BR ordered a series of 22 Type 5 diesels from EE which were also known as Deltics because of the power units. BR also bought a number of locos which were later known as the Baby Deltics because they were only fitted with one Deltic power unit. The locos were renumbered as the Class 23 while the twin engined deltics were renumbered as the Class 55.

Napier became part of GEC and the Deltic power units were then produced by the Rushton-Paxman division. The power units which were fitted to the Class 55 locos were 18 cylinder beasts but a 9 cylinder version was fitted to many minesweeper and mine hunter ships largely built by Vosper Thorneycroft.

Incidentally, the New York Fire Brigade had a fire engine which had a Deltic power unit to power the water pump….

Does this make sense now? I’ll be asking quaestions later to make sure you are all awake.