The jet efflux driving a turbine…

as opposed to the aircraft is, I suspect, the relevant pointt.

I thought it would be something like that (he said, lying in his teeth 🙂 ), well I guessed pressure/altitude must have something to do with it.

My point is, a late Spitfire was capable of around 450 mph. Would the ASI ever read anything near that?

Just to throw a potential spanner in the works…

I’m not a pilot so have no accurate idea of the actual variation, but there appears to be a huge difference between IAS, Indicated Air Speed, and TAS, True Air Speed.

After glancing at the Mosquito tome earlier today, I think most of the IAS figures were only in the high two hundreds.

It appears to me that gauges reading to 480mph were only of use to see if the wings were about to be ripped off, not for general stooging, or even hurtling, around in level flight, except possibly at sea level. 🙂

The Aviation Archive Weekends have been superb. I suspect there are several more I haven’t seen.

I hope they keep repeating them ’til I’ve seen them all.

Channel Dash?

…registered as G-18-185 (for whom?)…

I guess G-18-xxx was Bristol’s Class B marking, applied for aircraft to be exported and not going on the UK register.

Merlin came first – so the Meteor’s mounted backwards. 🙂

Why didn’t they just stick a flywheel on instead of the supercharger drive and put the pulleys on the front?

Camshaft drive doesn’t help. I’ve seen at least one car engine with the camshaft drives at the back, Bugatti I think, and IIRC Alfa Romeo made some with the camshaft drive in the middle of a straight eight.