Spieler

Did this professional journalist let a good story get in the way of the truth?[/QUOTE]

Pape seems to me to be one of those ultimately exhausting characters. Great for a night at the bar, will even turn up next morning to do the wood chopping, but will slink away by day 6 of 14 of the woodchopping task. To give him credit his spieling was published at a time when his contemporaries could have easily exposed him as a fraud, which they didn’t. I reckon he went through a terrible experience and found a way to profit from it, which in philosophical terms is a great outcome. Apparently he was a ‘best selling author’ personality in the 1960’s. Good on him if he got a root for it. Boldness Be My Friend was good enough to make me wind my way to his next book, about driving a car from the Arctic Circle to South Africa. Again, a great story, safe to read from a distance. The books that will really last, that were too close and painful for contempraries to read and popularize in the 1960’s, will start to shine now. Pape was great to get you in as a teenager, but some of these will resonate for a more adult understanding of the human condition in war :

As a Kiwi you will forgive the antipodean theme :

‘The Ridge and the River’ by TAG Hungerford – just gold. 1952 Australian jungle warfare
‘The Twenty Thousand Thieves’ by Eric Lambert – 1951 Australian desert warfare

For aviation :
‘War without Glory’
‘Recollections of an Airman’ – 1933 WW1, pg 112, platinum, iridium stuff !

What aircraft are you seeking to represent by it’s pneumatics?

P&P

Inbetween rants, would you have the time to try & find out if any drawings for the following, still exist down your way ? :).

ANEC 1a.
DEHAVILLAND DH53 HUMMINGBIRD.
MANY WW1 AIRCRAFT & ENGINE TYPES.

A set of ANEC 1a drawings are supposed to have accompanied one of the 1a’s that went to Australia.

A set of Hummingbird drawings were supposedly sent to Australia, to aid the rebuild of a damaged example.

The sets of drawings for the WW1 types, are supposed to have been sent to the Australian government, just after WW1.

A number of drawings for such types as the Wapiti, Widgeon & DH9 etc, are supposed to have been sent to Australia, to help with the rebuild of various damaged aircraft.

CHEER’s 😉

Bob T.

Bob,
Wapiti I have seen, I will go back and check and report, aye aye. Widgeon, DH9, DH53, never, but if they are here I will keep an eye out.

I understand that post “the war to end all wars” a number of war trophy German types were sent to Australia but were burnt in a fire in a storage basement soon after. I will look in the basement and let you know.

In respect of Imperial Gift aircraft, DH9 etc, it would be logical that drawings were sent out. They may, in fact, be in a museum closely guarded by a further logic that they must not be shown. I will try and address this logic.

I can report the existence of two metric tonnes of Dassault Mirage, some EE Canberra, various 1960-70’s RAAF related documentation in an accessible, friendly Aust location. Needs sorting and cataloging.

Le rant

This thread used to be interesting, but it seems to have gone off on a rather odd, idiosyncratic tangent of late. I’d much rather read about the laudable endeavours to trace, save and secure irreplaceable manufacturers’ documentation than listen to somewhat egocentric rants about lawyers and litigation.

As a ranting egoist this is what I have done :

1. Save tooling of an entire 1960’s aircraft production line 20 years ago from a scrap yard, put it in a storage, pay for the storage, run out of money to pay for a storage, have the tooling sent to landfill by a real estate agent property manager.
2. Save airframes from 1940’s from a farm yard, place airframes on a business premises rent free, enter into a business dispute related to the property where airframes have been stored rent free, have airframes thrown out of property, desperately sought someone to take airframes, someone has taken airframes and risked marital disintergration by filling their garage with said airframes due to my failure to provide a good home for said items.

So I am a loser fully qualified to make a dissertation on being a loser and hopeless endeavours. Just like France was loser in 1940. On the basis of being a bona fide loser, what have I learnt that I may apply to the question of drawings and aeroplane things ?

a. It is highly likely that your spouse will burn your drawings once you are dead as an act of retribution for all the time you spent copying aeroplane drawings instead of investing in clothes, visits to the Taj Mahal, a new car for the children.
b. It is highly likely that the executor of your Will will place your drawings in a garbage bin as they are not an understood, liquid or loved asset.
c. Digitized drawings fit into your pocket, cost nothing in rent, can be transmitted easily and are a great way to participate in heritage aviation.
d. Unfounded fears exist in relation to the transmission of antique aviation intellectual property, which means (a) or (b) will apply to your drawings.
e. It is predictable that nothing will happen in relation to the question of drawings and access to this drawing list unless you decide to make it happen.

It was cheap of me to reference the French surrender in 1940. It is cheaper still to say the Dewoitine D 520 was an excellent machine except for the part that sat reading the newspaper and patting its pockets looking for matches. I feel entitled to say that as I did have a grandfather that copped bullets in service of the Free French and remain peturbed by the thinking processes of the Vichy military in Syria and North Africa. And I did visit Vichy when I was twenty to see where the spider spun its silk and due to lack of accomodation arrangements slept in a supermarket loading bay in the rain so I have a very visceral response to Gallic criticism. Anyway, is being polite being on the right side of history ?

It is probably prudent to become silent. I do enjoy a rant and preferably over a pint or five, but understand this in probably not the right place to be so selfish.
You do have great food and very sexy women, however. Alors, je m’en vai.

Loch Ness Monster

Wonderfull rant P&P. There might be one problem with your idea, & that is the possibility of being sued if some one builds an aeroplane from drawings supplied from the archive, & then flies it into a brick wall, passing the blame for this on to the person who supplied the drawings.
Unfortunately we have to live with a compensation culture where people c0ck up & then blame “sue” some one else for it. This used to be some thing that was mainly limited to America, unfortunately this has now spread to Britain & elsewhere thanks to money hungry solicitors, who promiss to get large amounts of compensation for their clients.

Bob T.

Bob the lawyer thing must be addressed. It’s like the Loch Ness monster stopping a swim at the beach. There will always be ambulance chasing lawyers but in the end they must contend with the structure of the law. In business, I have been bullied by folk using the lawyer thing and I have learnt the following :

1. Legal threats work on those fortunate enough not to have previous direct experience of the legal system, the conflict avoiding, the consensus seekers, the shy and the vulnerable. Since that is most folk, the lowest cost option for a bully is to threaten legal armageddon as an opening negotiating tactic. Apart from disliking bullies, I am disappointed that this might send out a greater ripple that discourages folk from trying something that otherwise entails manageable risk, that adds zest to the human condition. A life lived in fear is a life half lived. Want to see an antique aeroplane fly ? Go for it !

2. For any party to initiate a legal action against you they must invest in representation (Ever paid a solicitors bill ? Ever engaged a Counsel ? Ever gone to a legal office toilet to cry or vomit and wonder how soft the triple ply toilet tissue is, that you can only wish to buy ?) In commercial cases the initiator often has to lodge monetary bonds that act to protect you from ambit actions. They really have to be serious about wanting to address an issue with you. The law has inbuilt protections against ambulance chasers. Mind you, if you have acted with gross irresponsibility, perhaps you deserve to be addressed by the law. The transmission of drawings does not seem irresponsible. I can buy a Haynes manual and Haynes does not have to fear. I could have even bought an Air Ministry manual from the government or a nominated government bookseller or ebay and they do not need to fear. If I then use a Haynes manual to build a Lancaster in my garage and it crashes onto a golf course hired out by a lawyers convention, then I have some professional liability, products liability and criminal negligence issues. Aim for the first tee, because most of them will still be hacking at the opening round.

3. The fact that large aeronautical firms are concerned about being sued is a big part of the Loch Ness thing, Lochies Big Fat Ass. I have some wartime Japanese currency issued by the wartime Japanese occupation forces of several South East Asian countries. When I have had too much beer I sometimes think I will write to the current Japanese government and ask them to honour this currency, to remit to me in gold bullion the inflation adjusted amount stipulated on this good paper. I reckon the current Japanese government will send an earnest refusal explaining that the current Japanese government is not the same government that bombed Nanking or printed that currency, and please **** off. No doubt a treaty in 1956 had a paragraph extinguishing any such liabilities of the ‘old government’. Institutions have a wonderful way of avoiding liability. Ask the Catholic church. I understand Hawker bought Gloster 70 odd years ago, then Hawker merged with Avro, Siddley etc then Hawker Siddley became nationalised and reformatted as British Aerospace then purchased by General Electric to form BAE systems PLC. So when my Avro Lancaster crashes into the lawyers convention on the golf course, who is Avro ? Where is Avro ? Hello Avro ? Hello ?

4. For you to be sued you need to have assets worth taking, that cuts out 99% of aviation enthusiasts swapping old drawings around. As a subculture, aviation enthusiasts of the world could be herded into one, sticky carpet, cheap pub room. Compared to adolescents downloading pirated songs and films over the internet, which is every teenager in the world, I do not believe the FBI has the swapping of old aeroplane drawings higher on its priorities than Hollywood copyright issues. We are too poor and too uninteresting to be attacked. So enjoy life !

Really we should just get on with it and stop worrying ourselves. Most of the scary noises are coming from inside the room, not outside.

PLEASE NOTE. The opinions expressed above should not be relied on as advice and are the private mutterings of an individual. Any person considering swapping of antique aeroplane drawings should do so only while wearing a nappy with a disclaimer and oxy acetylene glasses in a dark room.

Sorting through 3 boxes of Hawker Demon/Hind/Hartbee dwgs – Australia

Hi P&P

Please could you let me have a list of the drawings once you have sorted through them ?.
Are these Jack M’s “Demon” copies ?
Any news on the Bulldog front ?.

Cheer’s.
Bob T.[/QUOTE]

Sorting through 3 boxes of Hawker Demon/Hind/Hartbee dwgs – Australia

Hi P&P

Please could you let me have a list of the drawings once you have sorted through them ?.
Are these Jack M’s “Demon” copies ?
Any news on the Bulldog front ?.

Cheer’s.
Bob T.[/QUOTE]

Happy to index dwgs and put index online, pref in conjunction with other forumites with complementary info.
Dwgs did originate from Jack M, a few have been there before me, leaving a mixture of feelings and dwgs.
Original paper size format does not lend itself to straightforward copying or digitization, so expensive process to capture all info digitally, maybe 3K being spent digitizing. Don’t tell the wife. After spending 3K digitizing, do I want to share this with anyone else? Yes I do, and I will sprinkle this with the magic fairy dust of sharing that I hope will get more historical aviation aviating.

I understand RAFM and Shuttleworth have Bulldog, from this post and other kindly souls who have confirmed it. Again, copying fees and access is the issue. It would be practical to digitize these collections and amortize the sunk cost of hand scanning across perhaps 10 requests over 10 years for dwgs to support projects. I would be willing to subscribe 6K to this over 12 months just to make this happen, as it would turn a vision to see a Bulldog flying into a realisable engineering task.

Apart from digitizing paper based information modern engineering would require the information output as a CAD file, say a .dxf file on autocad. As artists capable of bending metal by sight are a scarce commodity, and by virtue of this limit the historical aircraft movement to dreamers (me), landscapes of unfulfilled projects and the playthings of billionaires, CAD driven production tools offer a democratizing factor. The more I get into early aviation the more attracted I am to the energy and spirit of days when a plain mechanic could start an aviation concern. Things are developing to a point where a digitized paper image, in the same way as typeface, can be recognized by software and converted from an image file, (useless to interface with a CAD driven milling machine) to the basis of a drawing file (useful). I wonder if there is any custodian of drawings, formal institution or passionate collector, who is open to this digitizing thing ? A more traditional approach is to sub contract the conversion of drawings to the subcontinent, where there are innumerable CAD literate individuals happy to create CAD files for a modest fee. The sponsor of this could realistically subcontract 100 drawings to 10 individuals to complete in one month, meaning that it is not impossible to treat 3,500 drawings in 35 months, or three years. This, in fact, would be the modern equivalent of the traditional drawing office, but faster and cheaper. I actually think that if such channels were created they could attract young people into historical, flying aviation, and feed them back into the maligned manufacturing sector inspired to make useful things, electric cars with controls based on 1940’s gun turrets, hyper efficient aerofoils for wind generation adapted from 1930’s wind tunnel tests. Museums and custodians exist to foster the future, so open the damn doors !

Separately I am building a database on 1920’s – 30’s ferrous metallurgy, to support 1925 – 1935 British aircraft restoration, and in between war engine restoration. Happy to share this with anyone, hopefully build up more information. In truth the best of 80 year old metallurgy equals the average modern metallurgy in your roof guttering, except when it is sourced from China, when it equals a lottery. The more this metallurgical information is shared, the more chance of seeing flying historical aviation. There really exists a need to challenge, from an informed basis, the idea that original metallurgy must be used in historical aviation, because this does not serve safety or longevity.The other thing that needs to be desperately assimilated is that metallurgy is dynamic, striving to return to its oxidised form, and much of what we love was never designed to last even 100 years and is, and must, turn into oxide. Many old aircraft are made from pieces that are electro chemically eating each other out.

It costs 400 quid for an annual subscription to world metals index, which holds all the data on the magnificent British metals industry of Sheffield, now just a Tesco carpark. I would love to group 10 folk (grumpy old engineers, furrow browed metallurgists, keen 20 year olds, really anybody) together to pay 40 quid per annum for a group subscription, to become an informal clearing house for historical aviation metallurgical questions, a senatorial chamber available via this or any other forum to answer what sort of metal is used on a Gypsy Six rocker arm, what an exhaust valve on a Jupiter is made out of and whether a Hurricane fish plate is weldable. The internet can let this happen. My understanding is that most aviation development post WW1 was really the development of metallurgy allowing faster and more powerful iterations of concepts substantially theorized by 1890. Very little is coordinated in this critical area of metallurgy in historical aviation.

Geez, I just wanted to do a one liner and I have ended up ranting.

Righto

Count me in, happy to help where I can. Good at drinking beer too.