This may sound a silly question, but why do Merlins sound so different according to the airframe that they are hung on. The P-51 is much louder and has more of a snarl than a Spitfire, the Mk5 Spit is the quietest and most smooth sounding, especially the Shuttleworth example, the Hurricane is generally quieter than a Spit and I remember watching the last ill-fated flight of the Firefly and thinking how loud it was compared to a Spitfire and as for Griffins, they never sound to be running in sync at all, or is it me.
Incidentally, were there ever plans for a Packard Griffin, now that would have made the P-51 interesting.

As a former local boy I was trying to watch that programme during one of the worst thunderstorms I’ve ever seen and missed the Harrier shot.
Chetwynd Barracks used to be called Chilwell Ordnance Depot, much of which has now gone, however there are reputed to be miles of underground tunnels and rooms on site, does anyone have any info on this.
During WW1 they were producing shells and the place detonated killing 134 workers, were they not buried in a mass grave on the site.
When I was a kid they used to have an annual open day, which was always very exciting as they used to repair tanks and other armoured vehicles there, apart from the fact that it was rail linked and they used to do trips round the rail system using an MOD train. Some of the Centurians parked outside in the 60’s were very mysterious, showing battle damage and wearing desert camouflage.
The last open day I went to, probably about 1965-6 when we were nasty teenagers, my mate and I went out of the public area and into a repair shop where we found an armoured car and a Centurion, I still have the pair of wire cutters I found in the armoured car. We got into the Centurion, which seemed in pretty well mint condition and I clambered into the drivers compartment while my mate tried to rotate the turret.
As I was trying to work out how to start the thing, we were grabbed by a group of soldiers who explained very nicely that the tank was very live and ready to go and I would probably have put it through the side of the building, oops, I think that they thought it was quite amusing that we had dodged security and got in there so we were given a guided tour of some of the off limits sites, so I’m afraid my only experience of racing around in a tank was in a Chieftan near Newmarket, good fun though, I highly reccomend it.

How does one reply, I thought that I was on a downer today.
Starting in reverse order, I last flew 2 years ago on Easyjet from Munich and the landing at Stansted was so appalling, lots of screaming, etc, that it didn’t exactly enhance my love of aviation.
The crippling mortgage has proved my downfall, there’s a twenty quid note in my missus’ underwear drawer that has got to last us for a while, it’s our only hard currency to date, cheques from Forumites would be welcome.
What else floats my boat, we have 2 lovely dogs that I have just taken for a walk past our local A-20 crash site, they know that something happened there and it freaks them out.
My job, yeah, anyone would love it, working from home designing houses, how lonely and a what beurocratic pain that is.
Finally, the weight problem, I get this every day from my missus, fortunately, I can still wear the same size clothes as I did in the 60’s, great isn’t it, I can pinch stuff off my son and it’s too big for me, just because he’s a tall skinny git.
I’m afraid that my display shelf consists of an Airfix Hurricane, Spitfire,(well made though), a Nottingham Trolleybus and a Hornby clockwork train complete with signal.
Ho Hum, isn’t life fun.

Didn’t the RAF intend to phase out the Spitfire in favour of the Typhoon as early as 1941.
I remember reading an account of a speed trial on Salisbury Plain between a Typhoon, captured FW-190 and a Spitfire. From what I recall, Jeffrey Quill was testing a new prototype and on landing was ordered over to the trial, he took the new model of course with the words ‘well, after all, it is a Spitfire’.
During the trial the Typhoons engine blew up and the Spitfire beat the FW by a mile, thus allowing continued production, anyone know whether this is true and which mark it may have been, V111 perhaps?

Very witty indeed. One of Wilde’s?

No, one of Shaws, ‘ Your Majesty is like a stream of bats p###, you sparkle and shine in the evening sunlight’
Sorry, couldn’t resist, hope some of you are Monty Python fans.

Having followed this thread with interest and not much comment, much of it being over my head anyway, I would like to put it back on course.
Glancing at ‘Reach for the Sky’ on it’s continual repeat on Film 4, Baders tail was shown as being removed by the prop of the Bf-109, there then followed the scene of the extracation from the cockpit, which leads me to the question, which I don’t think has been mentioned on here, how were Baders legs attached, did he not have complex straps that were hooked over his shoulders, if so, this would have meant releasing the legs to be very difficult in such circumstances, so did he fly without the legs being attached properly in which case the G forces in combat would have created all sorts of problems I would have thought, or did he have special quick release mechanisms fitted to them.
These artificial limbs would have been pretty heavy I would have thought considering the materials probably used at the time, so I would have expected a pretty complex system of keeping them in place.
The more I think about it, the more remarkable the man must have been to fly any a/c, let alone a high performance a/c in combat, ok, we are being told he was a less than perfect character, but I wonder how much he really changed after he lost his legs in the accident or did this only reinforce his subliminal obtuseness.

Whatever the reasons for the accident, and I don’t intend to speculate on that, some of the images that I have seen on both BBC Look East and Anglia News look horrific especially the photograph of the fireball, the crew must have been incredibly professional to have got away more or less in one piece from that, a fantastic piece of survival, I raise my glass of coke to them, whoever they are.
On another note, which has been raised before following accidents, I wonder how much more coverage in the media and how many additional shock horror images would have been shown had there been fatalities, God forbid, I also presume there would have been more retribution in the press had the a/c been taking off over the M11.
It’s a shame to see, however, the sad end off an a/c that has given us all so much pleasure over the years.

Just out of interest, I’ve just discussed the dog issue with my PC, liberal, student son who thinks that it wouldn’t be historically correct and an insult to those involved if the word Nigger wasn’t used, as he put it, ‘ it was just a reference to a bloody dog, not a person, can’t people see that’.
At this point my Jack Russell growled his disgust at the whole issue.

Webpilot
My brother used to use the gas cooker with which he used to bend and reform the plastic.
The Meteor was quite exceptional, he built a massive aircraft carrier out of Meccano, complete with moving lifts, he built a special shelf for it in the shed, and it was much bigger than me, and produced what he called a Sea Meteor, complete with folding wings, at the time there were no commercial kits available of a Meteor and the Mossie seemed to happily take to much savaging and reworking.
I still have the Stranraer/Walrus up in the loft somewhere, he made a good job of that too, talented bloke, he should pack up his accountancy business and get back to being creative.
A real gem he did was a Finnish Gladiator, complete with skis and hand painted swastikas.
Another clever bit of model making, he put an electric motor into the Airfix Typhoon, somehow, so it could sit there running up the prop, looked amazing, I think it was an idea pinched from an old Airfix mag, does that still exist, anyone want to make me an offer on the issues 1-6 that I still have.
Yep, my brother was an Airfix genius, we spent many happy hours in Nottingham Woolworths trying to find the bits that had fallen out of the 2 shilling plastic bags and helped by the assistants, I think they all fancied him, but he didn’t know it, couldn’t have wished for a better brother at such an informative age, and he was a lot older than me, he was/is the dogs and would be very embarresed by my comments.