“playing at war ” ?? What a bunch of….

A remarkable man, May he and his wife Rest in Peace.

Well, they were bankers :rolleyes: (‘b’ and ‘w’ are interchangeable, as per the only known spelling mistake in the FT)

This month marks the 60th anniv of my arrival on 39 sqdn on the Mosquito NF36 at Kabrit, Egypt.

And in 4 months time, my 80th birthday.

Absolutely incredible. How lucky can you get ?

Re the NF36, I think the navrad had a good chance of bailing out, but the driver really stood little chance. The thought of an aircraft out of control at night just doesn’t bear thinking about. My pilot had been on the FBVI during the war and I think he reckoned to jettison the top hatch and go that way. The book said the starboard engine had to be cut and the prop feathered first!!

Re the Meteor NF, the 11 did not have the air scoops down the side, they only appeared on the 12/14.

We did briefly discuss bailing out of an NF14 one day, but I am a complete wimp and did not want my hair blown about:o:rolleyes:, so persuaded him to find the nice aerodrome at Duxford while feeling for the deck at about 500 feet and not a lot of visibility. It was all good fun in those days, we had been instructed in a big panic, to divert to Uxbridge. As we both knew there was no aerodrome there we knew we were on our own.

Incidentally, talking of hair blown about, when I first met my pilot at Leeming he had a Lagonda Rapier, a four seater ragtop. This he insisted on driving with the hood down, regardless of the weather:cool::cool:
When we got to Whatashame and found the NF14 with the slide back canopy he was over the moon. We entered the circuit at about 170 knots and he calmly rolled the hood full back :eek::eek: He was fine hiding behind that big raking windscreen, but I was buffeted to bits with the airflow round the radar set, and let him know all about it in no uncertain fashion:D:D

Cannot recall offhand anyone bailing out from the Mossie NF36, but people certainly bailed out of Meteor NFs. The best story is the crew from Linton? in late 1951 or early 52, who ran short of fuel at night, and bailed out. The story goes that the navrad landed on a cow, don’t know who was more surprised.:eek:
I remember on the OCU at Leeming practising bailing out from the NF36 onto a couple of inflated dinghies. One had to kneel on the floor facing the door and roll out head first. Then very smartly scramble off the dinghies before his pilot landed on top of him.
When we got to Wattisham with the Meteor NF12/14, the briefing was to get out over the port side because there were two damn great air scoops on the starboard side, looking like hooks, feeding cooling air to gadgets in the rear fuselage. This was to stop parachute harness getting snagged on said scoops, to get straight out meant one would get clobbered by the tail.
It wasn’t long of course before another vital:rolleyes: piece of gear was installed requiring yet another air inlet, this time on the port side.

I guess then we were meant to burrow our way out through the ventral tank :D:D

Add my vote of confidence. The photography never fails to impress me.

A better question is why did it take so long for the UK to adopt swept wings?

Because, like most things our public servants (sic) meddle in, the old saw applies “A camel is a horse, designed by a committee”. There is a fuss again re how costs of MOD projects are still escalating, Nimrod, dare I say it, was mentioned :eek::eek:

Thankyou for that very reasoned piece Snoopy, it conveys my feelings far better than I could put them.
I still feel very strongly about this, the people doing the handwringing are judging by todays standards with the 20/20 vision of hindsight, not in the heat of a very bitter life or death struggle.
I mentioned the doodlebug, I still remember lying in my bed as the dust settled thinking “Will this bloody war never end”. Don’t forget at that time, March 1945, it had been going for 5½years.