Here’s an alleged photo of an F-86 in Soviet hands. I’d imagine that the technology that the Soviets were most interested at the time wasn’t the ranging radar or the powerplant – but the rolls of film in the gun cameras – judging by the quality of this picture.:D

Yefm Gordon, in one of his books, mentions that at one point the Sukhoi design team were tasked with reverse-engineering a F-86. I would have thought that by the time this had been done the Soviets would have had better home-grown aircraft in service.

Best wishes
Steve P

Thanks Steve, I don’t know how I missed that. 😮

I bought JDK’s Lysander book a couple of weeks ago – it’s a superb work.

Best wishes
Steve P

Nearest Dakota III belongs to 267 Squadron and the location is Bari according to the Air Britain KA100-KZ999 serial register.

Best wishes
Steve P

I don’t think the photo is faked. I work as a photo tech and in my opinion it’s not photoshopped. Take look at the way the horizontal stab and fin are on each aircraft. All are slightly different. Not a cut and paste job. The greying of the image from the top down also suggests a fogged negative. Just my two cents worth.
Neil

Err, faking photographs is practically as old as photography itself. I think that JDK is suggesting that the same single image of the aircraft has been printed several times onto one sheet of paper. Dead simple if you have a wet darkroom…

Best wishes
Steve P

The Pilots Notes for the Westland Whirlwind shows an ASI that goes up to 480 mph. Looks very much like the gauge above.

The Tiffie ASI went up to 550 mph.

Best wishes
Steve P

Avro produced a few vehicles, one of which still exists in the Science Museum collection I believe.

Best wishes
Steve P

Alexander,

According to the Pilot’s Notes for the Blenheim IV, the switches in the first pic are the flare and practice bomb selector switches. Unfortunately the cockpit illustration that I have is no better than the one that you have already so I cannot comment on the second one.

Best wishes
Steve P