Found this which shows all the chutes.

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/dambusters/idea2.htm

The ‘footbridge’ at the base of the dam also appears to be different.

This must have been swept away when the dam was breached and rebuilt to a different design.

I’ve no doubt there were dozens of Wessex and Scout (or Wasp) helicopters in a RN storage depot ‘a few years back’…

…but surely these were instructional airframes used to train maintenance personnel.

Cosford has about forty Jet Provost T5 and over thirty Jaguar GR1 and when did they last see service…nothing sinister in that. 🙂

Is it possible to split this into two threads?

The original “The Ultimate Aviation Question” thread in Historic Aviation and another thread “Will an Aircraft Take-Off from a Conveyor Belt?” in General Discussion.

Post #40 started the conveyor question and after that only posts #54, #59, #60, #65, #70, #73, #84, #87 and half #93 are anything to do with the original thread.

I wouldn’t want to be responsible for having the original thread evicted. 🙂

Why not ‘buy’ an operation, in their name, for somebody less fortunate?

You will often see appeals by charities for money to save the sight, or correct the cleft pallet of a child born into poverty in the third world.

The ‘cost’ to literally change a life can be quite modest, usually much the same as some pointless piece of ‘must-have’ consumer junk that will be in a landfill within three years.

Now that would be a true Christmas gift.

I’ve just been re-reading the excellent ‘The Hardest Day’ by Dr Alfred Price.

RNAS Ford was one of the airfields attacked by Stukas on the 18th August 1940 when more aircraft (British and German) were destroyed than on any other day during the Battle of Britain. Many people were killed during the bombing of the airfield that day.

If there must be street names why not commemorate these people who made the ultimate sacrifice?

One officer of the Royal Navy was killed (literally blown apart) while firing his Webley revolver at the attacking dive-bombers. I’m ashamed to say I can’t remember his name but I will look it up today.

Of course if we are only allowed to believe what the UK government officially accepts…

…and claims by those who actually claim to have been there are dismissed out of hand…

We are ‘allowed’ to believe whatever we want…but to have a rational argument we must evaluate evidence, examine history, understand technology and balance probability…even then we could be wrong.

Let me remind you of my original statement:

“I find it difficult to believe that the Royal Navy or the British Secret Services would do anything as stupid as to plant ‘limpet’ mines on a Russian warship that was in Portsmouth harbour on a diplomatic mission.”

Nobody disputes Crabb was diving around the Ordzhonikidze and that he ‘disappeared’….but was he:

A – Examining the propellers, hull, bow-thrusters or sonar of the ship? 95.00%

B – Planting some sort of listening, monitoring or tracking device? 0.99%

C – Planting a delayed action mine to destroy or damage the ship? 0.01%

D – Something else (please give details)? 4.00%

I’ve given you my percentage probability for each of these but, of course, that is just what I think. 🙂

So, GarryB, what do you believe in percentage terms?

Right…this is going to be my last post on this thread since it seems that everybody else has moved on. 😮

I’ve thought of a third scenario…and I think this is why some are convinced the aircraft will not fly.

Scenario C:

“…the conveyor is trying to prevent the aircraft from flying…”

The only way the conveyor can stop the aircraft from reaching take-off speed is to increase the resistance (force) it applies to the aircraft…

…and the only way it can do that is to increase the speed that the conveyor moves.

Assuming the conveyor can accelerate quickly to a very high speed, the various resistances (rolling resistance, inertia of the wheels and air-resistance against the rotating wheels) will build-up so that…

…they will be equal-and-opposite to the thrust generated by the propeller.

When this is so the aircraft will stop accelerating, stop moving (relative to a fixed datum and the stationary air) and so will never be able to take-off.

Of course before this conveyor speed is reached the aircraft tyres will have exploded and the wheel-bearings will have vaporised! 😀

But does the original question state that the conveyor is trying to prevent the aircraft from flying?

No, I don’t think it did.

It was hardly peacetime…it was the most paranoid part of the cold war…

Yes, I think the important part of ‘Cold War’ is the ‘cold’ part…so peacetime really.

A delayed fuse would mean if it was sunk or damaged it would be after it left British waters.

Yes, I understood that part.

There were plenty of mines floating around the place or uxo that could be blamed for the incident and any accusations against the Brits could be countered with… but the brits would never do such a thing.

So, let me get this correct…fifty years after the event you are convinced that one Russian diver must be believed when he says Crabb was planting a mine…

…but if a hole is blown in the bottom of a Russian cruiser twenty-four hours after it leaves British waters, at (as you say) the height of the Cold War…then nobody will suspect the British…and the British defence should be “we’ve never done this before”?

Note there was very little international outcry when the French blew up a greenpeace vessel in a New Zealand harbour except from greenpeace and New Zealand. Are you suggesting the British wouldn’t where the French do?

I don’t think I mentioned Greenpeace…but since you’ve brought it up I don’t believe Britain would ever have acted the way that France did. What the French did to Greenpeace in New Zealand was an absolute outrage and I was astonished how little France was made to atone for it.

Placed over the postion where an internal ammo mag is the likelyhood of sinking the vessel would be pretty good.

And how would Britain know exactly where the magazines were…the Russians would be unlikely to supply the British with blueprints!

Wasn’t it the Antelope that sank in the Falklands when a fire reached its missile mag and blew it in half?

Frankly the chances of sinking a 16000 ton armoured cruiser with a limpet mine containing about 5kg of explosive are about zero. The un-armoured Antelope, 3000 tons, had a 1000lb bomb explode in her engine room, an uncontrolled fire raging for many hours and multiple magazine explosions. She was still afloat the next day. Can you name a single armoured cruiser-sized warship that has been sunk by a limpet mine?

The loss of a major flagship might bring into question their safety record and reduce confidence in their navy.

I suspect that defeating Britain in the war that followed would restore their moral a bit!

I doubt they would have taken it aboard the ship, it might have been boobytrapped. They probably would have attached a line to it and dragged it as far from the ship as possible and then let it sink to the bottom and cover it with rubbish on the seabed.

So, a limpet mine that lets you remove it from the ship, drag it along the bottom and bury it in rubbish without exploding but will explode if taken aboard ship…clever stuff for 1956!

The Russians would have photographed it presumably…or they could simply have announced to the world press that they had found it and demanded that the British remove it…or explode it off the ship in the harbour…or they could evacuate part of the ship and sit-tight until it exploded. Any of these would cause the British more embarrassment than removing the mine and hiding it.

Well it could just as easily have been a listening device or any other of a number of different electronic devices…

I think you’ve been watching too much James Bond…this was 1956, electronics were in their infancy, and how is the device (data) recovered…swim to Russia?