I have a turret from an RNZAF Sunderland Mk.5 I have no idea if it from the nose or the tail – is there any way I can tell?

This turret would never have actually carried armament, at least during it’s RNZAF service, as these aircraft were all operated postwar and in a benign environment.

I realize no guns would have been fitted in RNZAF service but the basic turret arrangement was:

FN11 (Front) – Two Guns

FN13 (Rear) – Four Guns

Turrets would have been manufactured by (Frazer) Nash & Thomson (hence ‘FN’).

That depends on what you are using as a coolant but assuming you’ll have mostly water with a minimum of standard automotive antifreeze (with corrosion inhibitor).

Forgetting that this is a Merlin/Meteor for the moment (as a rough guide) a typical ‘earthbound’ engines coolant will expand by about 5% of volume as the temperature rises from 10°C to 110°C.

Ideally the header tank needs to be at the highest point in the cooling system and have a flow of coolant through it so that air can be purged from the system.

You’re going to have a lot of coolant obviously but if your only intending to run for 10 to 15 minutes you could just let the ‘excess’ coolant escape (via the system pressure valve) as the engine warms up and then replace it when the engine has cooled down.

How are you going to regulate the pressure in the system?

I’m not sure if you can do an Anti-G Straining Manoeuvre (AGSM) while reverse bangee jumping…

…whatever that is! :confused:

A correction:

HMS Sheffield (04:37)
HMS Ardent or HMS Antelope (05:22)
HMS Brilliant (05:56)
HMS Sheffield (05:58)
HMS Antelope (06:05)
HMS Coventry (06:28)
RFA Sir Galahad / RFA Sir Tristram (07:02)

The ‘gun camera’ footage is actually the attack on HMS Brilliant by a Dagger on 21st May outside San Carlos Bay.

Rough guide to ships (with video time in brackets):

HMS Sheffield (04:37)
HMS Ardent or HMS Antelope (05:22)
HMS Plymouth (05:56) – Gun Camera Footage
HMS Sheffield (05:58)
HMS Antelope (06:05)
HMS Coventry (06:28) – One shot of HMS Sheffield here too
RFA Sir Galahad / RFA Sir Tristram (07:02)

Sorry for any mistakes I did this in a bit of a rush.

Interesting letters to ‘The Daily Telegraph’

(Letters – May 5)

The effects of bombing Stanley runway

Sir – I must balance some well-honed RAF myths with facts (“Bombing Argentines with all the lights on ‘just wasn’t cricket’ “, report, April 30).

Bombed or not the Stanley runway was never long enough to accept fast jets. Until the last night of the war Stanley runway was used continually by enemy Hercules aircraft and often by their Pucara ground attack aircraft.

The Argentine Air Force did not move its mainland-based aircraft further north “so they couldn’t take part in the fighting”: further north is closer to Ascension Island, whence the Vulcan bombers operated.

Throughout the war those of us on the ground and at sea continued to suffer the consequences of fast jets operating out of Rio Gallegos, a mere 304 nautical miles from Falkland Sound. I have been to Rio Gallegos: it has a very long runway indeed and would have taken considerably more than a couple of inaccurate Vulcan bombing raids to have closed it.

Immediately after the Argentine surrender, I and a Falkland Islander drove the length and breadth of the Stanley runway looking for signs of damage and repair. There were none and the concrete was in as good condition as when I had been responsible for its security in 1978 and 1979.

My friend and I marvelled, not for the first time, at the inventiveness of the Argentine engineers. Certainly the RAF’s bombing operations against Stanley airport were strategically useful but of little tactical value to us actually in the Falklands.

War is not cricket. Perhaps the RAF of 1982 had not heard Admiral of the Fleet Lord Fisher’s dictum: “The essence of war is violence, and moderation in war is imbecility.”

Lt Col Ewen Southby-Tailyour, Ermington, Devon

(Letters – May 7)

RAF hit the target

Sir – Ewen Southby-Tailyour (Letters, May 5) is wrong in his description of the damage to the Stanley runway.

As Commander, Royal Engineers, I was responsible for its repair immediately after the surrender. There was one large crater caused by a 1,000lb bomb from the RAF Vulcan raid, and four smaller craters resulting from earlier Harrier attacks. (The Argentines had also created dummy craters to confuse our aerial reconnaissance.) Repairing the large crater and the large area of runway took about two weeks and 1,000 square metres of captured Argentine runway matting.

Lt Col Southby-Tailyour is, however, correct in stating that Argentine aircraft were able to continue to use the runway, despite the bombing raids, by temporarily backfilling the craters. This, perhaps, is why his “recce” did not spot the true extent of the damage.

Maj Gen G.W. Field (retd), Sedlescombe, East Sussex

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2007/05/05/nosplit/dt0501.xml

They’ve discovered an abandoned Concorde now!

There is a ‘report’ from Brooklands featuring Concorde and the track banking.

Some of the photography is quite good but the site seems deserted (and dark) and what is not clear is whether access was gained with permission or by ‘other means’!

(Does anybody know? They give a date of 14/03/2007.)

The original post makes no mention that this is a museum and that the whole site is open to the public and that you can pay to get in and that the money raised is used by dedicated people to collect, restore and preserve the things these people find so interesting!

Other members have posted things like:

“where is this place? it [Concorde] looks like its been left on a rally circuit or something with banks and a track like that.”

“top explore guys!”

The original post certainly gives the impression that this Concorde has been abandoned and that some kudos is due to those who ‘discovered’ and ‘gained access’ for the benefit of others.

I suppose it is all part of the sites ‘urban exploration’ theme.

Edit: I’ve just been reading the rest of the thread.

http://www.28dayslater.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=10707&page=4

“Superb photos, no chance of getting onto Concorde??”

“Sadly no access into the plane, I did check the door though just in case someone had forgot to lock it-no chance!”

“I was down there a few weeks ago but got spotted by a bloke in the building by the bottom of the hill climb track and had to bail. F+ck knows what he was doing in there in the middle of the night, I’ve never seen any security in that area before.”

Words fail me! 😡