Ralph, Hi,
If the document was published by ‘Her Majesty’s Stationery Office’ (HMSO in them days!) then it was available to both the military and civilians. The military (mainly the RAF) got their copies “free” from No 1 AIDU (Air Information Documentation Unit?) at RAF Northolt. Civilian operators could buy such volumes as they might need on the open market from one of the HMSO commercial outlets. If it had been an ‘RAF only’ document then the likelihood is that it would have been an Air Ministry (or MoD) document.
Whilst I understand the physics behind astro-nav, I regret to have to admit that the maths are beyond me (or were, before computers!!)
HTH
Resmoroh

Never mind Resmoroh. We were taught all this at nav school and told it was spherical trigonometry. It was all absolutely and totally beyond my General School Cert maths. I could however fumble through the fancy tables, I think we had to carry the Air Almanac and the sight reduction tables, and even produce a position line in roughly the right place. We were allowed 20 mins to do a 3 star fix.
I always remember the ribbing one of my colleagues got. We did triangular tracks about 100 miles each leg. His 3 star fix with his tracks on the chart were a very good imitation of the Star of David.

Thanks for your answer … I mean the range beyond which you aren’t really aiming or expecting to hit anything with any degree of force. That would be a lesser distance than the maximum potential range.

Your data support what I was thinking about any attempt to “douse searchlights”. :rolleyes:

The old Lee Enfield 303 fired the same round as the RAF Browning. It was supposed to be able to kill at one mile.
We fired them on the range at 1000 yards and, with a well aimed shot, could hit the target. Hosepiping 2 Brownings stood a good chance I guess.

As an aside ISTR there was a proposal to strip the turrets from Lancs, fly them at max cruise, 2650 revs, and get something close to a four engine Mossie. The criminal thing was the pilots were instructed to stooge along on quite low revs, possibly 2250, for the sake of fuel economy, we had bean counters even then. I realise there is a tradeoff between bomb load and fuel load. What was the Lancastrian capable of ?
I believe Mossies were flown at higher revs, I can remember talking to a nav who claimed Berlin and back in 4 hrs 15 mins.

Speaking as a nav/rad, who extremely fortunatly for me, served after the war, I’ll add my twopennorth.
We were taught on AI Mk 10 as used in the later stages of the war, and were taught head on interceptions. however this entailed turning through about 210 degrees at a range of about 5 miles, hoping to fall in just behind the target at about half a mile range. A very hit and miss procedure as too early a turn would bring you ahead of the target, and in any event the target was lost from the tubes until the final stages of the turn, if then.
So a front gunner would never see us, but in a busy bomber stream this would be a most unsafe procedure.
Interceptions were generally practised at 90 degree crossing, which was what the GCI attempted to set up. Properly carried out one approached in roughly a curve of pursuit but generally ending up about 1000 feet behind the target.

Many thanks Tim for these very evocative photos. It is wonderful to hear direct from the horses mouth, and even better through his eyes.

And I wonder how many have bothered to read the actual truth behind the myths. How the headline grabbers overshadowed the skilled .And it was not just Sir Keith Park who was sidelined for many years.Such as Auchinleck who was replaced by Montgomery, because he dared to stand up to Churchill.

Ah, bull**** baffles brains!
Interesting to see that a significant proportion of todays yoof thought that Adolf Hitler was the coach of the German football team.

BEST
Difficult, but I’ll put three together.
On 39 in Egypt, the powers that be were concerned that the W—Sorry Egyptian Air Force would try sneak low levels attck on us. So some extra ground radar sets were installed and we had the job of flying low level set routes to calibrate them. The squadron was short of navs, as usual, and I was a confident low level nav (some would say over confident). The joy was we were allowed to fly as low as we liked and I did three, totalling 2.05 in one morning, each with a different pilot.
An instance springs to mind, one route crossed the Suez Cairo road and then straight over the Jebel Ataqa. We saw a big road tanker going along this road and I was sure I was looking straight into his windscreen. We then had to climb like mad to clear the Jebel, all the way up I could still see the ridge above the pilots head, but we just made it, to drop down a gulley on the other side.

WORST
Again difficult
On 152 at Whatashame the squadron took part in a BoB display. the task was simple, 12 aircraft formation take off in pairs, and “stream” landing. The object of a stream landing was to finish with all 12 aircraft, still in motion, on the runway at once.
I was flying with one of the keen young Fg Offs at No.2 to the CO, and he was determined to do his bit. Luckily this was only the rehearsal, on the day before the big event. Mr Keen kept too close turning finals when the boss was going as slow as he could to allow everyone to bunch up. Result we hit the slipstream whilst almost at touchdown. I watched the grass hurtling past the wingtip so close I couldn’t see it and really thought we’d had it. However a big handful of power and a jerk on the stick and we were bang on the runway. However that had put our speed up and we went sailing past the boss — BIG NO NO
Still he got it right next day and it all went well.