I have to fly the full 9 hours ive done flights longer like the 12 hour trek from EGLL to RJAA and the 15 hour from EGLL to VHHH have to do it at 1x due to ACARS otherwise it wont be valid on my flight reports.:D

Do you get out much ?

Great advert for this forum, sadly a number of people have died in various flying accidents over the past 24 hours, however Flypast forum feels its more import to decend into a round of slagging off. You should all be ashamed of yourselves.

The why and wherefores will no doubt be established by the professionally qualified in the not too distant future.

My sympathies are for those who have lost their lives and those they leave behind.

This is great news for me, I was only saying the other day how I would like to get over for RIAT, except that it would mean two trips to the UK in one month. This way I can take in Legends and RIAT in one weekend.

Didn’t the Germans use HE111’s to launch a wire guided weapons against shipping?

Fritz X was basically a development of the SD 1400 high-explosive bomb, fitted with an aerodynamic nose cone, 4 x wing stubs giving a 5ft wing span and a box section tail unit. It was steered by radio operator situated in, predominately, a HE111, HE177 or Do215 aircraft.

Some of the weapons most notable targets were, HMS Warspite off of Salerno which suffered 3 hits and was put out of commission for 9 months as a result. Other seabourne targets included the American cruisers Philadelphia and Savannah, British cruiser HMS Uganda damaged off of Salerno and HMS Spartan which was sunk off of Anzio as a result of a strike from a Fritz X. The destroyer HMS Janus which was also sunk off of Anzio and hospital ship HMHS Newfoundland sunk off of Salerno.

There are a few claims that the Norwegian destroyer Svenner was sunk by a Fritz X off of Normandy on the morning of 6 June 1944. Also HMS Lawford on 8 June 1944, which the Channel 4 programme Wreck Detectives featured and concluded that it had been sunk by a guided missle of sorts.

I may be interested in the can of paint, but it depends on how many other forum members have actually owned it?;)

Before anyone invests in the can of paint, I think you should get it checked out to make sure it’s the right shade. I believe there are a number of people on this forum who could help, one in particular regularly advises Corgi on their paint jobs and should be the man for this job.

Ok spill the beans, have I gone and put my foot in it yet again? 😀

No, just a long running story. Do a forum search on Bader & Enigma you’ll see why !!!!

I’m sure it has been mentioned previously, but weren’t some WWII, near end of life, bombers packed full of explosives and remotely guided to their targets, with varying success, by the RAF and the US airforce?

Surely they would qualify as guided weapons?

As they were used as weapons, surely they were “operational” too, even though they were experimental.

The project was code named Aphrodite and in all IRCC 13 attempts were made, none of them were successful.

The first attempted flight was on 4 August 1944 and was a disaster when the aircraft lost control and crashed neat Orford in Suffolk. The first attempted operational sortie was on the 12 August 1944 resulted in the death of Joseph Patrick Kennedy Jr the elder brother of JFK. His aircraft a PBY4-1 32271 ex USAAF B-24J 42-110007 detonated prematurely killing Kennedy and his Co Pilot before they could bail out. The aircraft had departed RAF Fersfield in Norfolk at 18.05.

Doing a Google I Found this :-

ATTEMPTED FIRST APHRODITE ATTACK TWELVE AUGUST WITH ROBOT TAKING OFF FROM FERSFIELD AT ONE EIGHT ZERO FIVE HOURS PD ROBOT EXPLODED IN THE AIR AT APPROXIMATELY TWO THOUSAND FEET EIGHT MILES SOUTHEAST OF HALESWORTH AT ONE EIGHT TWO ZERO HOURS PD WILFORD J. WILLY CMA SR GRADE LIEUTENANT AND JOSEPH P. KENNEDY SR GRADE LIEUTENANT CMA BOTH USNR CMA WERE KILLED PD COMMANDER SMITH CMA IN COMMAND OF THIS UNIT CMA IS MAKING FULL REPORT TO US NAVAL OPERATIONS PD A MORE DETAILED REPORT WILL BE FORWARDED TO YOU WHEN INTERROGATION IS COMPLETED

– Top Secret telegram to General Carl Andrew Spaatz, from General Jimmy Doolittle, August, 1944