Thanks for starting this thread Stormbird, they are good little books.
I too have the Flying Boat volume and some others in the series. Can forum dwellers confirm that all that were listed were ever published as I have never seen examples of some of them.

In the War Planes Of the Second World War series listed are:-

Vol 1/2/3/4 Fighters (I have these)

Vol 5 Flying Boats (and this)

Vol 6 Float Planes (never seen)

Vol 7/8/9/10 Bombers and recon (Never seen)

They also published Warplanes of WW1

Vol 1/2/3 Fighters ( I have seen these)

Richard

I think that the cockpit shot is a Hendon.
John

Yes I thought Hendon except it looks like two seats one behind the other, were Hendons like that?

Richard

Just watched the beginning, its the best bit of the whole film, Hurricanes in France, fantastic.

Richard

I know the RR Eagle was a stop gap engine fitted to the Wyvern while the Python was developed.
I have always wondered if it would have been better aircraft, reaching operational use earlier, saving on development, being simpler to maintain, more reliable and possible being produced in larger numbers, if they had stayed with the Eagle for the whole production run.

Richard

Repcobrat
Since you first made your original post on this subject I have been looking for more detailed or breakdown figures, so far without any success.
It would be interesting to see for example the losses at initial training establishments and OTU’s. And how were training accidents at operational squadron counted, are these in the total?
I have known many wartime engineers over the years and have never heard any of them talk of different standards within RAF. What has been said though is that the pressure was on to produce serviceable aircraft, and this sometimes led to aircraft being released with defects that under normal circumstances would have been fixed.
The point I am making is that the pressures were there in all aspects of aircraft operation, lack of spares, ground time, hangar space, specialist tooling, technical support etc. The OTU’s may have just been worse in that they usually had the battle weary, hand me down fleet.

Richard

The Hawker Henley, I believe…

Thanks BEERMAT for your explanation, its obviously more of a progression from the steel spar design used in the Hart series and Hurricane tailplanes. The later metal wing is far more modern in design style.
Incidentaly many years ago while working on Hurricane outer wings the drawings we were using were marked ‘Hurricane and Henley’ so I assume Henleys were also fabric or metal winged.

Richard

Yes I have been trolling through some of this footage, unfortunately the titles and headings are a bit obscure so finding specific things using the search facility is difficult. There is some fantastic stuff though. For example film of the Lympne light aircraft trials if you search under Lympne.

Richard

P.S And did the whole population chain smoke ln the 20’s and 30’s.

Just stopped for a quick look at whats happening at Lasham, not a lot really.
The SWWAPS site was padlocked shut with no one around.
The two Meteors, Hunter and Wessex are still complete. The Sea Hawk has the Stbd wing missing but is otherwise complete. The drover is in bits and just the wings of the Prentice are lying in the grass.

Richard