The Laotian was imprison after he landed rofl

Someone defects to your country (you seem to be a bit more supportive of the North so I’ll just go with that one…) and you laugh because he was put in prison?

Am I missing something here?

I would hope you wouldn’t wish ill upon anyone who wished to defect your country. I certainly wouldn’t wish ill upon anyone who wished to defect to the United States which is my home nation.

Rather depends on why someone defects – if a criminal “defects” to another country to avoid prosecution in their country for say, murder, theft, assault, etc. then imprisonment must be the option followed by judicial repatriation to their home country. I suspect that stealing an aircraft is theft in anyone’s language.

Kindly remember the international agreements on hijackers – most are returned to the country whose aircraft they hijacked. Otherwise we would have more international anarchy than we have now.

As to the other implication – the reality is that the North Vietnamese were the moral winners. If we westerners had done the right thing and supported the Vietnamese rather than the illegal return of the French then Ho Chi Minh would not have been driven into the arms of the Russians. As with Cuba we have never learn the important lesson – stay out of civil wars and national uprisings against colonialist oppressors.

Try:

Thanks James – the exact words had completely escaped me.

My source, the Guinness Book of Records 1985 edition, says the Linke-Hoffman R II flew in 1919 at Wroclaw, Poland as an airliner, with 4 x 260 hp Mercedes piston engines driving 22 ft 7.5 in. dia. propellers at 545 rpm.

Actually those 4 engines were geared to drive only one propellor – no wonder it was so big.

If the photos of this aircraft didn’t have people in them to give the scale – it’d look like a generic WW1 two seater observation aircraft – the thing is huge.

Well although it doesn’t quite meet the question I say the thought of going to war in a Blackburn Botha scares the waste substances out of me.

😉

Building a Chipmunk is easy – start with something larger. A dog and cut away all the bits that don’t look like a chipmunk.

😀

Do we have an advance on the MiG 21 for our jet contender?

That’s a hard one – it’s certainly been seen in more places that Paris Hilton. But let’s not ignore the Hunter. Europe, South America, Middle East, Far East and India/Pakistan with guest appearances anywhere the sales team went.

Mirages IIIs also have been spread far and wide. However these days there aren’t the same real classical theatres of war that we had in WW2.

I’m trying to find the John Houston film ‘Battle for the Aleutians’ which gives the lie to this generalisation.

Damn 😮 sprung as it were with a generalisation. Just for you I’ll concede that the Aleutians are technically North America, 😉

But even your good self must concede that Hurricanes had very little, if nothing, to do with that campaign. It was our gracious, if slightly late, allies the Septics. And they were using their own equivalent of the Hurricane – the P-40.

Now in North America proper as distinct from that curvy bit at the bottom left hand side of Alaska, the only aerial activity was the odd Japanese balloon, and one overflight or two by Japanese seaplanes launched off submarines. So I really believe that my original statement holds true. 🙂

The major fracas was the self induced battle of Los Angeles which saw the forces of all that is right committed against the forces of all that is imaginery.

Now back to my other statement about the Hurricane being a little lacking in the aesthetic sense – well it was :rolleyes: (so there :p ). However you will note that I did not say that this slight lack of classical beauty detracted in any way from its ability. Its a little like the coarse rejoinder about mantle pieces and fire stoking 😀 This is a matter best left for forums of whose existence I know not. 😮

I have conceded its ubiquity but like some celebrities, is being seen almost everywhere a blessing or a curse? 😉

Can’t leave the qualitative alone, can you Malcolm. 😉 Which bit of “…fought on more fronts, in more countries and in more theatres than any other fighter in history.” Let’s try and explore a new arena, rather than rehashing the same old… Hmmm?

Gee James, qualifying is most of the fun of an argument :p What are you trying to do – stick to cold hard logic? The last time I did that on this forum my qualifications, parentage and sexuality were called into question 😀

The noble Hurricane fought about eveywhere it was possible, I agree but (here I go qualifying again) North American service doesn’t count really. Apart from a couple of Japanese balloons, b****r all happened in aerial combat terms in North America. The greatest danger in North America from aircraft was student pilots falling on the hapless populace.

Without raising the, no doubt sensitive and righteously angry, hackles of the Canadians there AFAIK no incidents of aerial combat taking place in Canada or in the immediate coastal waters. Now that will open a barrage of the abovementioned insults (whoops contradictory argument 🙁 ).

Yes I am prepared to conced its ubiquity but as to its strategic effectiveness that is another matter.

Happy now.

Damn but this fun 🙂