A Good Aviation Movie

Can I suggest as one of the best aviation movies from the war years (although not released until 1945), “The Way to the Stars”. Not only providing tantalising glimpses of Blenheims and Bostons, it also gave us the wonderful John Pudney poem, “For Johnny”.

Those of you who haven’t seen it, I recommend that you do so.

Chino

I was at Chino on the Saturday and saw all these aircraft and am delighted to see them again in such splendid photographs. I also took photographs and am very pleased with what I got although mine are probably noting like as good as these. But I’m pleased with them ‘cos many of them are aircraft I’ll probably never see again.

Regarding the heat – I was there on the Saturday and agree that it was HOT! I lost count of how many bottles of water I drank and how many times I slathered yet more sun screen on my burning English skin. I still have the tan I got there although I added to it by driving three and a half thousand miles on the wrong side of the road to visit Pima, Pensacola and Dayton museums.

I have no idea about posting photographs on a forum but if anybody wants any of the 1200 odd photographs I took at these various places, I can see about sending you a disc if you PM me.

Price-fixing fine

Would it not be rather more just if, instead of being made to paying millions of pounds and millions of dollars to various government departments on both sides of the Atlantic, BA was forced to trace all the passengers who had paid these inflated prices and repay them their excess fares.

This would surely punish them financially and also by imposing the probably expensive task of paying thousands of much smaller amounts to the affected passengers.

Before you ask, yes, my wife and I probably are two of the affected passengers.

A Canadian built Blenheim (Bolingbroke) serial number 717 was fitted with floats and tested in this configuration, but the engines collected too much spray so it reverted back to a wheeled undercarriage.

Coastal Command Tiger Moths

They certainly were used on anti-submarine duties – or rather bluffing duties. The shortage of aircraft in the early months of the war forced the C-in-C of Coastal Command to use anything he could get his hands on and some Tiger Moths were available so he formed six Coastal Patrol Flights with these aircraft.

According to Wing Commander Hal Roberts DFC (he served with 2 CPF) in his book “Moths to Mosquitos”, the idea was that they patrolled over the sea at dawn and dusk in the hope of finding a U-boat on the surface to re-charge its batteries. If they did it was further hoped that the U-boat crew would mistake the Tiger Moth for a depth-charge laden Swordfish and dive in a hurry, thus cutting short its re-charging time.

As may be imagined, it was something of a makeshift expedient. Hal Roberts mentions, for instance, that they had no means of keeping afloat in the event of coming down in the sea, so carried a motor car inner tube in the small compartment behind the rear cockpit.

The CPFs seem to have been formed in the middle of December 1939 and been disbanded by the end of May 1940, using Tiger Moths and Hornet Moths.

My Earliest Memory

I think my earliest memory is being taken into the Morrison shelter in the dining room when the air raid siren sounded. I can also remember hearing the AA guns while in there.

Me P1091A

Hi Skyraider,

An admirable work of art and something to be proud of. I am intrigued by the aircraft they are chasing and wonder if it is something you made up or is it a Republic Rainbow which, my rusty old memory suggests, looked very much like this aircraft.

Greatly admire your talent.

No. 43 is, I am pretty certain, a Blenheim I.