He is , as they say ”well up for it” and has eaten nothing but raw beef and Red Bull since Wednesday!

Well, on that kind of diet, I would not be surprised if there was a brown underwear accident on the day:D:D

In Tony Jonsson´s book, Dances in the Skyes, he is quite clear about the bear runs. He was with 65 squadrons on Mustangs from early spring 1944 and did the more or less the complete European Campaign. He said they cleaned out a couple of drop tanks and made “bear runs” to Manston (IIRC). The “bear runs” were once a week and were alternated between the pilots of the squadron. He hated the “bear runs” as the whole squadron would be out watching the landing, and if you made a bad one, and the tanks dropped off the wing, you were the most hated man in the squadron for a week!!

He was also with 111 squadron in North Africa, one of the first Spitfire squadrons to land at Masion Blance. He saw the North African Campaign to more or less it´s conclusion. On the subject of alcohol, he said the squadron had a couple of “sourcers”, men good at getting something from the land. He said they never ran out of red wine from local people. He call it, in Icelandic, Grugg, which is not a very flattering word!!!

Gentilmen,
We have to bear one fact in mind.

Mr. Malcom is here to do as much damage as possible. He has a personal vandetta (of some sort) against people who fly (or fast – taxi) historical aeroplanes. His posting on this site so far have served to illuminate the fact. He shall always be the first to hang the one sitting in the driver´s seat, without even knowing the full facts. His postings on the “flying” Victor thread a couple of weeks ago illustrate that fact. This person is out here to do as much damage as possible, in the shortest time possible, to people wanting to OPERATE AND PRESERVE old airframes. I do not know what he wants, but it looks like he wants all airframes over 25 years of age, locked away in a museum. Good for him but the rest of us, I hope, do not share his believe!!

Now for some, maybe, personal questions Malcom.
1. In relation to the particular subject of this thread. How many hours do you have in the driver´s seat of a Bf-109?

2. Have you actually sat in the driver´s seat of a Bf-109? What was the view like? What do you actually see during the take off when sat in the driver´s seat of said aeroplane?

3. If you are sat in the driver´s seat of a multi million dollar aircraft, would you just fly it into a pole, endangering the aircraft AND your own live, just to prove a point?

Malcom, can you honestly answer all three of the questions with solid answers that make sence? If you can cudos to you. If you can not, please do not give me the “it is not relevant” bu*l ****e. In that case you are an armchair aviator who never got a change. And in that case, you need not give the rest of us a lecture, we can perfectly take care of ourself´s.

Sigurjon

Of course it is possible to have a carrier change. All it takes is the will, and a lot of money:eek:

To begin with, I would suggest an aptitude test organized by GAPAN. It could safe you a lot of money to know before hand if you have what it takes. Further information can be found on this website:
http://www.gapan.org/career-matters/careers-information/aptitude-tests/

If you decide to go for it, you would be looking at something like 60-70.000 pounds in costs for a licence with basic ratings on it. And there will be no guarantee of a job afterwards. Some airlines have been offering sponsorship of the training. I know Flybe and Air Atlantique have been offering these kind of sponsorships up until recently, don´t know the situation know. I would check these if I were you.

Salary wise, it is very difficult to say with any certainty. A flight instructor would be very badly paid, a first officer on a regional turbo prop would probably be earning about 20-25.000 pa.

Hispano Suiza 12X

This is a pretty interesting item. An Hispano Suiza 12X
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=300318108244

Looks in pretty good nick too.

Here are some basics from Wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hispano-Suiza_12X

Ahem….anyone fancy a Dewoitine D500? I can´t wait for it to happen. Such class, Such elegance:cool:

I´d love to see this happen.

But I´ll have to admit that this is a very ambitious. Even to the point of being similar to the fullsize HP42 that was going to be built a few years ago, apparently with full sponsorship before even the non-existing drawings could be replicated.

Of course everything can be built if enough money (bottomless pit) is there waiting.

I wish the team all the best with the project.

I´ve not replayed to this thread so far, but in light of resent postings, particulary from Proctor, I think I must!

Fire bombing of cities, and when there was nothing left to burn, bombing them to the stone age, is not something we accept today. BUT we must remember that, at the time, it was accepted by all players on the field. No matter if the guys delivering the goods were English, German, American or Japanize. Just think for a moment, do you think for one moment that the germans would have hesitated bombing London to ruble if they had had the means to do so? The answear is NO! Do you think the Japs would not have bombed LA, if they would have had the means to do so, on moral grounds? The answers is NO. This can go on for ever and ever. We must accept, that at the TIME, it was considered the normal way to wage a war. Nothing we say 70 years later is going to change the way people looked upon war years past.

With Bomber Harris we must remember that he was only doing the job. His POLITICAL masters decided how to do the job, and he did it with ruthless efficency. It is no good quoting Churchill after the Dresden raid. Churchill was the man that signalled the go ahead as planned in the Yalta conference. It was only AFTER the full extend of the destruction was apparent that he got cold feet and made that (in-)famous remark. It must also be remembered that Churchill was not a military leader, but a polititian (and all things considered a good one), that was thinking about the post war years. As Harris said in autobio, he was left holding the baby!! He was left to take the full responsibility of the bomber campaign from 1942 onwards, even if the campaign was directed from the #10!!

What ever can be said about the bomber campaign by todays morals, consider the following: About 1.5 million men were engaged on air defence duties, thousunds of artillery pieces were used as air defence weapons, after ´43 the biggest share of the Luftwaffe was used for homeland defence! All development of bombers was stopped to increase the output of fighters and it goes on and on.
On top of that, Germany had to provide some means of survival for the bombed out residence of it´s cities, clear rubble etc. etc. Massive problems with fugitives from bombed out cities. After Hamburg tens of thousunds of Hamburgers fled causing massive caous in the german transportation system. Speer is said to have reported to Hitler that they only needed about seven raids of this magnitude to collapse!

A normally used line of defence by the anti-bombing people, is that during ´43 -44 the industrial output of Germany rose by a significant amount. Think about what would have happened with out the bombing! Then they would not have had to go to all the extra trouble of dispearsing all their factories with all the logistic problems that involved. How much would their industrial out put have increased without the bombing?

It is in humain, but in war it is usually better to wound the adversary. Not kill him outright. I think that is pretty much what Bomber Command was doing during the war.
No matter what anyone tells me about “inhumain slaughter of civilian” etc. etc. These men were out there to do a job, and they did it! That´s why we are even having this discussion right now.

Bottom line is, we can not judge something with the political correctness of today. Today area bombing is out by political correctness, but it was not 70 years ago.