I thought he took some elements of “cake” (French colonial troop decapitating air crew etc)

thank you

I suspect both Barnard and Robinson got this grisly device from Paul Richey’s ‘Fighter Pilot’

I enjoyed ‘Blue Man Falling’ and the sequel ‘Band of Eagles’. I’d be afraid that a 2nd TAF novel would end up being ‘The Big Show’ with different names…

Could I have a Convair B-36 ‘Peacemaker’ please?

I got about one word in five, but here’s what I think.

1) Austerity. Churchill as Chancellor of the Exchequer resists further spending and seems to think that because we have Furious, Courageous, Glorious, Eagle, Argus and Hermes we are equal to US and Japan. (First three are compromises and elderley, last three are experimental and too small for modern purposes).

2) RAF control of men and machines. Skua partly result of RN wanting a dive bomber, RAF thought they should have a fighter, they couldn’t have both so they got a two-in-one. RAF thought the turret fighter was the best thing since sliced bread and persuaded the Admiralty that they were a good idea, hence Roc.

3) Even their Lordships didn’t think that dive bombing was as essential as torpedo bombing (Luftwaffe and USN thought otherwise) so neglected dive bombing development and defences against it. But torpedo bombers were slow and could easily be chased down by a multi purpose reconaissance fighters, so Skua was thought to be good enough.

4) In the 30s the RN got to love its multi role aircraft. Limited hangar space, money for airframes and bods to fly them meant combining roles, and the FAA dearly loved its Ospreys and Swordfish so why change?

5) Painful lessons (Norway, Med) were being learned but with the result that specifications were being written and rewritten and aircraft roled and re-roled so we had the saga of the Firebrand (interceptor to torpedo bomber in many, difficult steps), Firefly (turret fleet defence fighter to long range recon-strike aircraft) and Barracuda (torpedo bomber/spotter/reconaissance to massively overloaded torpedo bomber/spotter/reconaissance). By the time they got it right with the Sea Fury and Sea Hornet the war was over and the game had moved on.

6) Swept wings on a carrier? You must be joking. Rubber deck? What a good idea. Prevarication over Sea Vixen and ‘Swept Wing Venom’ meant years lost and the SV, while a fine aircraft was not the world beater in 1958 that it would have been in 1955.

7) Buccaneer – OK, you can go. But can we have a bit more thrust please?

8) What was the question again?

I’ve got quite a few photos from 899 on Eagle, I must go through and find some of these some time soon. Most are colour, but this was a scan of a B&W shot I took back in 1970:

Lovely pic. Is XS577 the Sea Vixen that’s now at Gatwick in target tug colours? If so, great to see her in front line colours.

Sounds like a fine English pedigree….
Those of you who were howling mad about the possibily of “Hollywoodization” (made in the U.S. or heaven forbid, someone other than an ethically pure Englishman, playing the Gibson role) will no doubt still find something to complain about.

Hey, save the Yank-bashing-bashing until we’ve done some!!! 😀

Funny how no-one seemed to mind Damien Lewis leading in Band of Brothers.

Anyone who acts well, looks right and can do the accent is OK with me.

(and I think you mean ‘ethnically pure’…? Anyway, a concept that doesn’t exist for Englishmen)

Does anyone have any more info on the operational use of the Spitfire IB by 19 Squadron during the Battle of Britain? The books don’t say much, and for once Google doesn’t come up with a lot of info, either.

:confused:

IIRC not a lot due to problems getting the cannon to work properly (jams, freezing, asymmetric recoil due to one cannon firing and the other not etc.). 19 sq were re-equipped with standard Mk1a Spits and the 1b aircraft went to an OTU.

I’ll check my sources when I get the chance unless someone gets there first. There’s a little bit in the SAM publications datafile.

The same can be said for almost any newspaper you care to name, they all seem to have some form of political bias as well.

They are worse than most, believe me.

There’s no ‘England is going to the dogs’ angle in this story though so it might not be quite so much fiction. On the other hand, stories mooting potential casting for films are generall just ‘filler’ and based on very little. Look at all the stories where it was ‘revealed’ who the new James Bond was going to be.

All the best mate