What did people at Avro and Handley-Page think when designing and producing the Lancaster or the Halifax? I guess they considered themselves important contributors to the war effort. Did the consider themselves enemies of humanity after it came out that their bombers didn’t really hit any important target?

This is rather a sweeping statement and I would imagine demonstrably untrue. Bomber Command bombed all sorts of targets, some military, others not, with varying degrees of success, whereas the V2s only hit (and were only aimed at) civilian targets. By contrast the attempts to deal with the problem used precision dive bombing of storage and launch sites in order to minimise casualties in the civilian (Dutch) population and apart from one disastrous raid by 2nd TAF medium bombers, were successful in that.

In any case, in ‘total war’ all bets are generally off. In the same conflict we have bombing of civilians, slave labour for war effort, unrestricted submarine warfare, deliberate attempts to terrorise the civilian population, invasion of neutral countries, pre-emptive attacks on erstwhile allies – all, more or less, on both sides. Singling out one individual seems odd when the whole war was conducted like this.

Sounds like a huge model – do tell more!

Huge? You could say that

http://www.heritageaviationmodelsltd.com/124_kits.htm

They also do a Mossie and a Frightening in that scale 😮

It’ll be impressive when it’s finished. Well, should be, if I ever get round to it. The bag of resin bits weighs a ton, and as for all the white metal…

Ooops, pb beat me to it

Someone tell me I didn’t!

A Russian Hurricane, with a local mod to carry a machine-gun….

BEHIND THE COCKPIT!!!

Something tells me this is genuine, but I’m not convinced as I cannot find a photo of it…. :confused:

I think there were numerous field mods to Russian Hurricanes – fairly certain there was a two seat conversion with a mg in the back (open) cockpit?

Try Mushroom’s Hurricane book, that’s quite good on Russian versions.

Even though I was confident that the Vulcan would interest an audience that is not normally that interested in aviation, I was taken aback by the massive interest and enthusiasm there was in the first flight. Hopefully potential sponsors and corporate partners will have taken note of this too. Two expressions spring to mind – ‘to he that hath shall be given’ and ‘nothing succeeds like success’.

Rather than taking away from other projects, I think the Vulcan has the potential to bring new audiences to aviation projects and increase both support and funding across the board.

Well done again to all those involved and good luck for the (now very bright looking) future. Roll on RIAT!

But hey remember in this country we have the wonderful Human rights act to protect the poor down trodden people who are forced to steal scrap to survive,

I hope people remember that next time they Vote !!!!!

That’s a little quick off the mark considering the perpetrators haven’t been apprehended, interviewed and prosecuted yet. In addition to the Human Rights Act, we have the Theft Act 1968 to deal with offences like this and depending on the circumstances those responsible could be punished with a prison sentence. There are also laws around vandalism and damage to property which could be considered.

There is now more scope for victims to indicate to courts the particular effect on them an offence like this can cause, which means that the very real outrage and distress of the people who set up the memorial, and those whose loved ones are remembered by it, can be taken into consideration. That way a court can see it as more than a certain weight of scrap metal of a certain financial value that was stolen. To those at the museum, I recommend you ask the investigating officer if you can provide a victim impact statement to express these things – which should be taken into consideration when sentencing.

It never flew but it got as far as the prototype being under construction, IIRC the fuselage section still exists somewhere.

A mock-up was built and photographs of this are sometimes claimed to be the prototype – some sources claim the prototype was around 85% complete when the plug was pulled but I can only assume this was as a private venture because the government had shown an utter lack of interest.

A pic of the mock-up here – http://prototypes.free.fr/p1127/p1127-3.htm

http://www.seavixen.org/index.cfm?fa=contentGeneric.home:
“145 Sea Vixens were built. The loss rate was 37.93%. The fatality rate within those losses was 54.54%.”
Deck ops always dodgier than land F(AW), but, surely, worse attrition than Javelin?

IIRC The loss rate for Scimitars was even higher, around 50% – and that was a day fighter. Fast jet ops from carriers always tricky. The Sea Vixen FAW.1’s ‘coal hole’ with non-frangible hatch can’t have helped the loss rate. What is the Observer to Pilot ratio of that 54.4%

Does anyone know what Buccaneer loss rates were like? Phantom?