Keeping the state from Tyranny is the reason. It’s worth it. Our Founding Fathers in the US, based on their, and their parents experience in Europe, believed it to be so fundamental that it was codified in our Bill of Rights.

From an outsider’s point of view that does seem the strangest of arguments for gun ownership; you talk of protecting yourself from tyranny, and about how gun ownership is enshrined in the Bill-of-Rights and yet the main source of you fears seems to be your government itself?

What’s with the ‘Red Arrows’ Alphajet? :confused:

…these events happen once every 10-12 years in the UK, but happen almost annually in the rest of Europe. Tighter legislation hasn’t stopped the gun crime in the UK…

…but it would seem to have reduced such tragedies considerably…..by your own admission.

Yes, an Apache (or Hind) gunship helicopter is going to be no match for four guys with shotguns in a pickup truck! :rolleyes:

Guns, of any description, certainly have a PR problem because the only time they are ever brought to the attention of the average person is in the aftermath of a tragedy such as this, and as has been said, they are principally designed to kill. However the vast majority of legal gun-owners seem to manage their ‘unhealthy obsession’ without harming anybody and when handguns were banned following the Dumblane tragedy it seems that every single handgun was handed in without any of their owners going ‘off the rails’.

Comparisons between banning cars and banning handguns are not really valid as without cars Britain’s economy would simple grind to a halt; cars are needed, guns are not.

Curiously when tragedies strike other ‘unnecessary’ human activities there never seem to be the same calls for an outright ban. A ban on large crowds watching football matches following the Bradford City stadium fire would certainly have prevented the loss of ninety-six lives at Hillborough only four years later, yet after each disaster I don’t recall any calls for such a ban.

If they had done the 4 engined conversion much earlier in the war and dispensed with the ridiculous dive bombing requirement…

I suppose the real irony is that the He177 always was a four-engined aircraft only it was designed as a twin-propellered aircraft. I’m not sure whether that was really to give the small advantage in drag over four separate engines or whether it was to humour the Nazi higher-ups who disliked four-engined designs.

I wonder also if some of the over-engineering was due to the weakness of the Fw200 Condor that the Luftwaffe kept breaking in half. I suppose you can only take the dive-bombing thing so far but in the (far smaller) Ju88 it seemed to work and produced the most versatile German aircraft of the war.

Not really sure how more visitors to RAFM Hendon will actually lift the fortunes of the entire area, visitor numbers and spend being so small (museum still free to enter)? I would have thought that building swanky new flats would be hugely more effective, and that seems to be happening already.

Maybe the beacon design could be ‘recycled’ on the Thames ; would the Heathrow Concorde fit, sitting vertically on its tail? I’d pay to see that! 😀

Pumping money into the RAFM has merit, regenerating the Hendon area has merit, the beacon building design has merit and remembering the Battle-of-Britain (and all other RAF history) certainly has merit but it doesn’t follow that all these things can be best served in one iconic project.

Nice thought, but capability must have been a strong factor when it came to defence even then, look at the American kit we were using, AI radar, tactical nuclear weapons etc.

The Harrier GR.3 I find interesting as I have seen it somewhere that it was Sidewinder capable just prior to the Falklands, but it was that conflict that made it AIM-9L capable, does anyone know precise details on this?

True, Britain used (and uses) a lot of US kit but then even a government that appreciates the benefit of indigenous design and production cannot usually fund everything.

It was just a question of ‘wiring’ as I think the USMC Harriers carried Sidewinder from day one; the RAF Harriers could have carried Sidewinder if the RAF had wanted that option but apparently they didn’t.

Maybe it is not always the case that US kit is better; I seem to remember that Skyflash, a re-working of Sparrow, was widely regarded to be superior in many respects and was even exported to Sweden.

Also don’t forget the US is rather good at ‘pushing’ their own kit (and there’s nothing wrong with that).