If you want to see what the Storch could do, take a look at YouBend – unsurprisingly, there’s at least one great clip posted by Bomberguy – where does he get the stuff?

Must get to OW… Must get to OW… Must get to OW…

Adrian

Envy is a terrible thing, Mike!

Adrian

I may be imagining it, not even being a twinkle in 1968, but isn’t the small brick building in the middle distance in the third photo the one now standing isolated in a field on the other side of the M11? Which would make the pillbox and air raid shelter behind it just about where the M11 now runs?

If I recall correctly, the scene with the Polish airman (“Good morning my @rse!”) was filmed near Great Sampford – there’s an obvious historical non-sequiter lurking in the background, but it’s so long since I’ve seen it that I really can’t remember what. There’s something there that couldn’t be in 1940, anyway.

What a great thread – thank you for starting it!

Adrian

:D, Mark, big :D! I fear the Czechs got it “light” compared to the Poles…

Did the RAF actually have anything that could have got to Poland and back at the time? From Northern France, perhaps, but (unless we had a presence in France prior to 3/9/39, which I doubt) even with something capable of reaching Poland, I don’t think we could have got the numbers there in time.

Admittedly Germany was nowhere near as fortified as it was at the time of the attempt to supply the Warsaw rising, but look at the success rate of that – something like 1/3 of the sorties that set out actually got as far as Warsaw. That’s in long-range aircraft of a type the RAF didn’t have in 1939 (? – can anyone confirm when the first RAF B24s appeared?), hedge-hopping all the way. It’s huge distances through hostile airspace that did it, I think.

Adrian

Personally, I rather enjoyed the spectacle of the Daily Wail standing up for the Poles – I don’t suppose that happens all that often!:diablo:

Adrian

Thanks for the nostalgia, folks – I just remember the “Reds” with Gnats, still think they are an incredibly pretty aeroplane.

It’s easy to forget how tiny they are – in that landing pic, you almost expect to see the pilots legs instead of the nosewheel, he’s so big in relation to his mount.

Adrian

I’m fairly certain this video has cropped up here recently, and someone also posted a photo of the surviving Pterodactyl in the Science Museum, so searching the forum will probably be a good idea.

I want to know where Bomberguy finds all this stuff – and one day I must sit down with YouBend and see if he’s got film of Operation Riffraff.

Adrian

Adrian – From memory two Spitfires were lost in the last thirty years (CWH and Le Bourget) in fires . A larger number have been what I would term ‘lost’ in flying accidents during the same period. Similarily if you compare the numbers of P-51’s in the same period flying accidents greatly outnumber ground risks .Using a number of other types the numbers lost in flying accidents outnumber hangar fires.
Sad but true.

Sorry, David, but I don’t understand why you cite Spitfires and P51s. Please enlighten me! Or is it simply citing specific types as examples? If so, I’ll take the point.

As far as I can see, Le Bourget did for 43 aircraft and the CWH fire another 5. There was also a fire at Stanhope, I think, more recently that did for a number of historic light aircraft. TIGHAR (no sniggering at the back) cited 10 historics lost in 1990 alone, so I have probably mis-remembered the statistic – in fact, I think it’s aircraft lost at airshows. Nonetheless, the point remains the same – leaving it on the ground is not necessarily safer.

Adrian