Do a search on the warbirds information exchange. It’s all on there somewhere.

Thank you

Bruce perhaps my point was a little lost, I did do a search and all I came up with was people moaning about this and that and taking pot shots at TFC. I just thought if everyone stopped talking in riddles the rather pathetic moaning mini’s of this world would have nothing to lower the tone with. 🙁

I do realise that those of you who give up your time to bring us all this information and wonderful aircraft must get a little feed up with some of the more anal members of the forum, (I much appreciate the efforts of you all) but there needs to be a little care taken not to offend the average enthusiast like myself who none of you know personally but may not be as stupid as is often portrayed. I’m not inferring here I have been offended, just speaking up for those who sometime to my eye get slapped down, for asking a simple question. Feel free to slap me down if I’m talking out of turn.

Er……and there was more to it than that as well!

Not being funny but is there a place where we can read about the true story behind Twilight Tear or is it secret squirrel. Certainly doesn’t appear in the fighter-log, and there is a disturbing amount of adverse comment about the whole episode when enthusiasts like myself try to find out about it. If it is a secret just say so and why please.

Dresden always prompts strong emotions on both sides of the bombing argument but these arguments usually all have one thing in common; they misrepresent the facts of this night.

Bomber Command was ordered to bomb Dresden and all the other eastern cities. It was a political decision from Churchill at the behest of the Russians, who wanted all communication routes destroyed to stop the stream of German reinforcements running east to stop the Russians at the Oder, and allowing the Western Allies to occupy Germany. The weather was very poor during early 1945 and pressure was brought to bear on Harris to Bomb the east without delay. Harris was against the plan for what’s its worth.

As a communications target it was legitimate. And the aiming point was the train station or very near.

Bomber Command sent two waves. 5 Group with its own pathfinders bombed first, the weather that had been so appalling suddenly cleared and all the anti-aircraft guns had been removed to the Russian front. Result accurate bombing from low level, no night fighters, and few petrified crews, a perfect raid.

The main force arrived, maybe a couple of hours later to find the city an inferno and the main aiming point destroyed. They had an alternate to bomb the industrial area. Again the industrial area has been down played but was a centre for much of the hi-tech optic and other related war industry, making it very much a legitimate target.

By the time the last of the main force arrived not much was visible of the city due to smoke and many crews either bombed the centre again or any area they thought untouched so bombing became random. To the crews and all those at Bomber Command this was just another raid, and just another German city. There was nothing remarkable about its choice, or its execution other than it was one of those rare occasions when everything worked as planned.

The key to the large number of deaths, and great destruction are 2 fold.

One there were only 2 air raid shelters in Dresden, one under the Nazi party HQ and one under the Nazi Party leader’s home. Most people were sheltering in their basements, and had been instructed not to move until they heard the all clear sound after the raid. They had not been told of the experience of those living in the western cities about storing buckets of sand in their attics to extinguish the incendiaries, nor that they should do so as soon as the bombs stopped falling, as every second counted in preventing fires taking hold. The all clear never sounded so many people just stayed in their basements and suffocated.

Two the arrival of the second wave added to the confusion and caused more people to abandon the fire fighting. Overall though the death toll has always been exaggerated and this came about first as Goebbels immediately used the raid as a propaganda tool against the Allies to shore up support within what remained of Germany, and then when the Russians arrived they callously exaggerated the damage and death toll to convince East Germans that they not the West were their best friends. As Dresden was full of refugees at the time of the raid no accurate picture is available of casualties or deaths, and miss-representations have be carried forth by some lurid accounts of the raid, and our appalling main stream media who have the collective brainpower of an ant when it comes to this subject..

However if anyone bothers to read Frederick Taylors book they will find an account somewhat nearer the truth of what occurred and why. It is also a remaindered if any were needed of the futility of war. And as a footnote the aftermath of this raid was in my opinion one of Churchill’s most dishonourable moments as he sort to distance himself from a raid that he ordered rather than stand up and support the leaders that he had encouraged. As for the memorial to the brave men of Bomber Command, it’s long overdue and its absence all these years has been a disgrace. I don’t think many of us would have been prepared to do what these young volunteers did.

DC6 4× Pratt & Whitney R-2800-CB-17 “Double Wasp” radial engine, 2,500 hp with water injection each

DC7 4× Wright R-3350-18EA1 Turbo-Compound radial piston engines, 3,400 hp each

Hi TempestNut,

I would never suggest that you are an “Eco-terrorist” :p

The whole global warming issue, is one of those questions, where you pick your side of scientists. Each side then defame and undermind the other.

There are very valid and scientific papers supporting both sides, as the whole issue about atmospheric chemistry and global warming in general, is rather complex and hard to estimate.

Your own link points to a myth about “Modeling the earth’s climate is nearly an exact science.” Naturally this goes both ways.

There is no consensus on the models used in these predictions, hence the different results and predictions.

“Antarctic ice extent this year will again break all records, Arctic ice last year was nothing unusual despite the hysteria,”

The Arctic ice is schrinking and it has been for a number of years:
http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/detect/ice-seaice.shtml

This year the ice has increased compared to last year, but its has still decreased compared to earlier data, so clearly there is no “record breaking” going on. However, these data do not go back far enough to make a true judgement in a historic context.

This is where the discussion de-rails. Stating that the arctic ice sea-ice is at a historic “high” is clearly false. Likewise its false to claim its at a historic “low”.

Fact is that the arctic sea-ice this year is 10% below the avarage of 1979-2000.
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/NSIDC071708.JPG

Appearently there is too much hysteria to make a fair call from either side. However, this years figures show, that decrease in the arctic sea-ice is not constant trend. We will have to wait to see, if the ice returns to the level of 1979-2000.

Once the sea-ice drops below avarage, there need to be another year above avarage to make the numbers fit,otherwise the avarage drops. This has yet to be seen. From 2000 the ice has been below the avarage between 1979-2000. Granted thats only an 8 year span, compared to 20 years for the last figures. In theory it could be ice free for 19 years, and then have a humdinger of an increase to make the numbers fit 😉

We all know about statistics.

This decrease in arctic sea-ice has an effect on polar bear habitat. Since we don’t know if its permanent, we can’t predict anything about the habitat either, but the subpopulations in the affected areas are currently under threat.

When ICECAP say the decline in polar bears around Hudson bay is to prevent overpopulation:
http://icecap.us/index.php/go/faqs-and-myths#17

The question should be, why are the area suddenly overpopulated?

Perhaps due to the loss of habitat and decline in food. There is no difference between culling a population and letting the population decline naturally. Both are results of of overpopulation. There are no figures to show, that the population suddenly increased by 259 animals, which would have to be culled to make the population sustainable. Ather scenario is more likely, mainly that the area no longer can sustain those 259 animals.

Globally the numbers might look different, but the affected subpopulation around Hudson bay has decreased along with 4 other subpopulations.
http://pbsg.npolar.no/docs/PBSG14proc.pdf

This might not be anything alarming, as habitats change naturally (there were once giraffes, where the sahara is now), however the solution is not to deny the figures, or discredit the science behind them, but to investigate why.

The whole global warming issue, has descended into a “tit for tat” argument, that is not becomming for a scientific community.

As you say; measuring the CO2 ppm is quite difficult.

However, ice core data suggest that for the last 400.000 years it was never above 300 (ending in 1950):
http://carto.eu.org/article2481.html

Here are other data set:
http://powerpoints.wri.org/climate/img001-large.jpg

http://cdiac.esd.ornl.gov/trends/co2/contents.htm

I would like to see the data for 1820 and 1944 (this is not a challange, i truely would like to see them, as I find all information should be used in such a debate and I can’t find them).

I’m not a tree-hugger or anything in that direction, I purely take notice whan i see a trend i don’t like. Fact is that we are polluting the atmosphere, to an extend that is above the natural chemical levels. It does not seem unlikely to me, that one day we will have to pay for that pollution, just as we have paid for pollution on land and in the sea.

The ecological system has evolved to cope with the natural chemistry of earth, once you add to the system it becomes hard to predict the end result.

Hi Mondariz
The “Eco-terrorist” part is a defence mechanism and was aimed generally and not at you. Usually if I am discussing this subject I get interrupted early on and subject to personal rebuke, seldom is the actual science discussed.

The record ice is in reference to the Antarctic and not the Arctic. Not sure of the exact numbers but I believe 95% of the worlds ice is in the Antarctic with maybe 3 % in Greenland. Doesn’t take much Maths to get matters in proportion does it.

Here is a great site, http://igloo.atmos.uiuc.edu/cgi-bin/test/print.sh?fm=07&fd=18&fy=1988&sm=07&sd=18&sy=2008

It allows you to compare any 2 years for any day of the year. Yes last year was a year of high late melt, but was they think caused by an unusual weather system, but in the greater scheme of things it has no effect on anything and is just a way for the media to hype matters up amongst the general Public who for the most part don’t have access to all the data. Well that has all changed now and that is why more and more people are challenging their politicians to justify the utter nonsense that issues forth from their mouths

For the information and reference material on CO2 try this paper
http://suesam.files.wordpress.com/2008/01/climate-change-re-examined.pdf

From this site http://www.climatescienceinternational.org/ the links at the left hand side are where the real information is to be found. Steve McIntyre of the Climate Audit has done as much as anyone to sort out fact from fiction. The famous hockey stick is now no longer referred to anywhere other than Politicians’ who haven’t done their homework and environmental activists who are trying to push an agenda that in the main is damaging the environment (think bio fuels something I dismissed 10 years ago as being a waste of energy to produce and of limited to no use in reducing engine emissions) Ice cap is a great new site that is updated each day, and the 2 New Zealand sites Climate debate daily and the science site NZCSC that has a great archive. Gives a sense of how long people have been banging away at this nonsense without the media taking a jot of notice

As little as 12 months ago it was a small number of individuals plugging away on the internet but now there are hundreds of sites. But what has changed is the sites I have outlined above are all run or assisted by IPCC reviewers and other top scientists. Their views have to be taken into account as in the main they have changed their minds, or are unhappy how their research has been misrepresented.

Rest easy every one, the CO2 gravy train has come to an end. After 10 years of cooling the alarmists have run out of ideas as the world cools and changes under the influence of the same natural phenomenon that caused the warming in the first place. Don’t believe me just read it all here. http://icecap.us/index.php

Billions of dollars has been spent on looking for the man made signature in the environment and it not been found and finally the scientists have summoned the courage to hop off the gravy train and publicly admit this. Many have as individuals have been saying so for years, and now we just have to get our Politician’s to wake up before they ruin our economy for good. This whole sorry saga has contributed in no small measure to the terrific rise in fuel prices. When the US and Canada have reserves equal to 12 Saudi Arabia’s there is something very wrong. But our Politicians just blame China and India. When will they look at their own false policies?

What is now coming out is how all the vested interests have covered up the truth to maintain the fear. CO2 concentration has a minute effect on our climate and doubling the concentration would have little effect. It would however as has already been demonstrated contribute to markedly increased plant growth and resistance to drought of many trees.

Read more here
http://www.middlebury.net/op-ed/global-warming-01.html

http://www.climatescienceinternational.org/

For the sake of argument, if Ford (UK) built a Merlin and some (or all) of the Ford tolerances were ‘tighter’ than the Rolls-Royce tolerances, then the Ford Merlin would fit together and run perfectly without the need to modify anything else on the drawings…

…also any part of the Ford Merlin could be used as a spare part on a Rolls-Royce built Merlin. The Rolls-Royce parts could not be guaranteed to fit the Ford Merlin however.

But if Rolls-Royce were ‘hand-building’ the Merlin and selectively fitting parts together (or modifying parts out of tolerance) then this would not necessarily be the case.

I suspect what we have here is not an issue of tolerances alone but a rather more complex situation regarding the differing working practices, drawing standards and workforces employed by Rolls-Royce, Ford and Packard.

All aero engines everywhere were more or less hand-built prior to the late 30’s when manufacturers geared up for mass production. In order to get the volumes necessary to meet demand, and to be able to use a less skilled workforce meant producing drawings that allowed less deviation from the nominal dimension, which for many components on the Merlin did not alter from first to last. Perhaps today we read too much into the tolerances between RR and the shadow manufacturers. It certainly adds intrigue if nothing else.