More from that source … the MG 151 fired at around 800 rounds per minute so at 200 rounds each cannon had approx 15 seconds of ammunition. Typical aiming was between the inner and outer engines on a four engined heavy (into the fuel tanks) and to quote again … “The Schrage Musik cannon fired a mixture of armour peircing, explosive and incendiary ammunition, and a split second burst, a single pressure of the thumb on the firing-button, was usually sufficient to set the wing ablaze and damage the [aircraft] beyond hope of recovery.”

Hinchcliffe goes on to discuss why the fuselage of the bomber was rarely targeted (a) because of the vulnerability of the wing, (b) because of the danger of exploding bombs if aiming into the fuselage and (c) because (so say a number of his sources) many of the Nachtjagd fliers wanted to give the crews a chance (albeit slim) to get out alive. Problem with that as we know is that aircraft with one wing ablaze don’t fly very well and the crew literally had only seconds to react and get out. Damn near impossible, particularly from the Lancaster.

He also notes that Schrage Musik was not known about, or even suspected, by the Allies until well into 1944. Aircraft targeted rarely survived, and the phenomenon of a sudden unexplained fire and explosion in the sky was put down by RAF crews to be “scarecrows”, deliberate explosive flares fired by the Germans to scare them.

SHARK ATTACK !!!

The language we use has some bearing on all this. We refer to being bitten by a shark as being a victim of a “shark attack”. Attack is a pre-meditated concept (unlike self defence or eating lunch). But as a number of you are observing; sharks are predators, they feed. They don’t lie around in hides waiting to attack. Of course some creatures do :rolleyes:

A woman in NZ was leapt (or perhaps fallen) upon by a Dolphin this summer (there’s a thread here somewhere about that too). That was presented to us by the media as an unfortunate error of judgement on the part of both parties.

Isn’t that what we have here too?

learning every day as always

Thanks for that … good question and answers. I was vaguely under the impression Messerschmitt made Bf’s and never stopped to wonder why.

Some quick searches on this forum

Airliner64, I did a quick “lancastrian” in the title search on this forum, don’t know if you’d already done that. It revealed a number of other threads on these aircraft, but more importantly some posters who clearly know a lot about the Lancastrian. You might pm some of them and maybe find your answers. cheers D

http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/showthread.php?t=35877&highlight=lancastrian
http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/showthread.php?t=52566&highlight=lancastrian
http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/showthread.php?t=21254&highlight=lancastrian

It may be nothing but it’s very nice

[QUOTE=barrythemod;1064650]

Riders On The Storm by The Doors

There’s a killer on the road
His brain is squirmin’ like a toad
Take a long holiday
Let your children play
If you give this man a ride
Sweet memory will die
Killer on the road,yeah.

This was the last track on the LP L.A.Woman.If you can,try to hear this track on the recently released DVD Audio disc remixed in 5.1 😀

Barrythemod … if you read the book “no one here gets out alive” you’ll be treated to the story behind that song. Superb album BTW.

As a child/youth (sorry, I can’t remember the age) Jim was travelling in his parents car as the family went away on holiday. There was a bad storm and a car crash in which some guy had killed someone else on the road. The Morrison’s car crawled through the carnage with the young Jim in the back seat fixated on the scene and it got seared into his memory. I’m sure we’ve all got some sort of childhood experience burnt in there somewhere. And ultimately it came out in this atmospheric song.

I think it tells a very clear story … not at all obscure.

cheers Don

The book http://www.amazon.com/One-Here-Gets-Out-Alive/dp/B000LP670G/sr=1-1/qid=1168205230/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-1165875-1768056?ie=UTF8&s=books

US culture

Interesting this.

I very much admire the capacity of the US to tolerate internal debate and dissension … to allow all sorts of liberal and alternative dialogs and ways of life … in general to be an open and enquiring place. Whenever I’ve been in the states (on business travels, some for few weeks, but Ive never lived there) I’ve found this intriguing and admirable. To some degree I find it schizophrenic! The classic being surfing the late night TV when I can’t sleep courtesy the time zone and being alternately bombarded with soft-porn and preachers. All very odd.

Of course the current admistration would have liked to change all this .. but hey, now the Democrats have the upper hand?

So I guess I’m a “phile” of sorts for the US way of open debate. For it’s intelligence and questing.

But not for the Top 40 and Maccas in your face consumerism. But that’s not culture.

So I would say, yes the US deserves a “phile” moniker.

BTW I’m saying US, not America. The Continent of America, North and South, is many many countries all with their own cultures.

easy as?

Call me a rank amateur; I’ve never even picked up a restorers tea pot – but wasn’t the HE162 the volkswagen of the skies … the essence of simplicity and ease of build? Would that suggest a “relatively” feasible restoration project?