Seems like I remember reading in a few spots that a command crew often had the normal co-pilot fly in the tail gunner’s spot to watch the formation, while a group commander, squadron commander or some other ranking officer would take the co-pilot seat or bump the pilot to the co-pilot seat.

Think General Savage in “12 O’ Clock High”. He bumps Jesse Bishop out of his pilot seat on his first mission leading the fictional 918th.

Pathfinder crews were different in that the PFF birds had radar in place of the ball turrets. This meant adding a radar navigator and bombardier to the crew. I researched a B24 Pathfinder crew for a long time. They ended up with 6people on the flight deck with the Radar Nav and bombardier shoe horned in behind the pilots along with the engineer helping the pilots. The normal nose gunner went to the top turret. The normal bombardier went to the nose turret. The ball turrey gunner went to a waist gun leaving the radio operator for just that job etc.

They had 12 men in the crew at that point instead of the normal 10.

Don’t forget the “parent factor”.

I came into this because of my old man. My son (if getting one) will most likely go into at least one of my interests too. If I bring him to Duxford at the age of 6-7, it will leave such a huge impact, the boy will be “scarred” for life. 😀

I don’t really have that “doom” feeling. Internet has done so much for ww2 aviation and historic aviation in terms of online flight sims like Warbirds and Aces High it’s pretty amazing. There’s this big sub-culture of those below the age of 30 following this stuff. People mail me from time to time…from Russia, Chile, Britain…and they are all interested in historic aviation. And these people are not *just* old geezers from in the 50s. :D:diablo: They’re young…some even barely 20.

My son got hooked because I was hooked. My daughter’s ‘history day’ project a few years back involved interviewing a WASP pilot and learning about those women pilots. My second son, only 10 months old has Spits on the wall and a Mustang hanging over the crib. Turning the prop when he wakes up is part of the routine.

If you share the passion with your kids, more often then not they take it on too, whether it be aviation, music, sports or whatever.

One ‘artwork’ fits all.:)

Mark

And they both have five bladed props! the 91 Squadron book is a keeper though. Nicely done even if the XII has a 5 bladed prop on it!

Did I mention the XII has a five bladed prop on it? 🙂

From the logbook of a 91 Squadron Spitfire XIV pilot flying on D-Day. It seems an appropriate comment

Dan

This has recently cropped up on e-bay:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/WW2-Photograph-Battle-of-Britain-Pilot_W0QQitemZ270380719321QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUK_Collectables_Militaria_LE?hash=item270380719321&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=72%3A1684|66%3A2|65%3A12|39%3A1|240%3A1318|301%3A0|293%3A3|294%3A50

The photo is of Tim Elkington, Battle of Britain pilot, and member of this forum.

The photo is claimed to be from an amateur snap in the vendors private collection. Not so. In fact, the photo was an official Air Ministry staged photo. An original appears in Mr Elkington’s family album and not, I suspect, in the vendors!

Another e-bay scam? Oooops. Typo. I meant scan, of course! 😉

Can I offer another possibility? And this is as someone who doesn’t do Ebay 🙂

When I was chasing Spit XIIs and tracking down former pilots etc during the 1980s, I found that many of them had prints of the well known series of XII photos taken in April 44. The photos they had were nicely weathered and aged and without any “Crown Copyright” or any other notations on the back. And they were often times smaller images, that appeared in their ‘scrapbook, photo albums”.

Is that a possible explaination?

I think Airfix magazine also put out a composite list from reader inputs. I remember the Kingstanding Mk XII being of particular interest. Nothing has since surfaced on that one over 40 years….unless you know…

I learnt only this week The College of Aeronautical Engineering at Redhill had a Mk V EP509, the Brooklands tie-up.

Keep looking. 🙂

Mark.

Kingstanding Mk XII? Care to elaborate? Never heard that story

I don’t get it, this passion on US aircrafts for über-polishing, making in the end the aircrafts look no more like mean war machines but like funny big toys.

Maybe since it’s not flying combat, they’re thinking along the lines of peacetime maintenance for the 17. These 17s pre-Pearl Harbor, seem to have a nice shine to them too.

The question you might ask is why would someone NOT take care of their million dollar airplane, when they’ve got the time? 🙂

Making them look dirty to try and replicate the look of round the clock bomber ops, seems just as silly to me.