Hi,

From what I have discovered it was only the Sea Glads on Malta that had VP props. These were the 2-3 that were fitted with Blenheim Mercury engines. The engineering officer on Malta, Wg Cdr A E Louks was extremely adaptable when it came to keeping the various aircraft in the air.

The Blenheim engined Glads, sometimes termed Bleriators, were fueled by a mix of 87 and 100 octane petrol. This raised the boost by 2lb/in and one Glad reached 10,000ft in just under 5 minutes. These revised Glads actually performed beter than some of the Hurricanes that were arriving. Thus the Hurricanes had to be tweeked as well.

At least two Glads, N5520 and N5529, were fitted with Blenheim engines. There was even one Glad fitted with twin guns on the upper wing, but before this was tested it was destroyed in an air raid.

Standard Mk II’s and the Sea Glads were fitted with fixed pitch threebalde props, although most pilots preferred the two blade prop.

daveobyrne

Would your father have any details of his time flying Glads on Cyprus that he would be willing to share? There may be a second edition of my Gladiator book out in 2006 so I am looking for further info/photos.

Alex

There are some very nice photos there.

Here’s one of a Hawk II. Some of these were built under license. The Turks encountered a few problems with the synchronisation gear for the fuselage mounted machine guns. So they mounted them in the wheel spats instead until they could fix the problem. There couldn’t have been much room for ammo.

Alex

So who picked up on the Highball? There was a clip of film that showed 618 Squadrons trials with the Highball. The Highball was for use against the Tirpitz, but I’m not sure if they thought about using it against tunnels though.

Perhaps they used that idea for the film and added the POW breakout based on the Amiens raid.

I’m sure they mentioned 633 Squadron, during the briefing for the raid, would be one of the squadrons earmarked to destroy the German buildongs.

Alex

My haul was mainly books;

‘Those other Eagles’
’12 Days in May’
‘605 Squadron’
‘Just One of The Pioneers’

Although not aviation related I also got the ‘Band of Brothers’ DVD set and ‘The Beast’, and excellent film about a Russian T-62 crew that gets lost in Afghanistan.

Alex

Yes, I wouldn’t mind knowing more about this airframe.

I’ll have to go out and buy the magazine.

I have been told that part of the FAA Museum fuselage frame contains parts from N5518, a Sea Glad. This was apparently recovered from Lesjaskog along with all the other bits and pieces. Anyone know how much of this airframe was recovered?

Alex