Fascinating discussion… and one fraught with devils in the detail. Whether a ship is listed in service or not, as we have seen, does not necessarily mean it is in any kind of service in reality. As I understand it, HMS Victory is both the name of a ship and a shore establishment. Indeed, HMS Audacious was on the books as being part of (I think) the 2nd Battle Squadron of the Grand Fleet throughout the First World War despite having been sunk by a mine in 1915 (it was kept on the lists for, ironically, intelligence reasons hoping to keep the fact of the sinking from the public and the enemy, despite the fact that the sinking had been witnessed by the liner RMS Olympic which was in the vicinity). So ‘in service’? technically, yes – even when sitting on the bottom of the Irish Sea, or concreted to a dock in Portsmouth, or even preserved floating on her own bottom in Baltimore. – you might as well expect the aircraft of the BBMF to be posted to Iraq.

(I’d be interested to know just how original both Victory and Constitution are in any case – I read recently that the protected cruiser ‘Aurora’ preserved at St. Petersburg got a completely new hull below the waterline in the 1960s – and she is 100-150 years newer than Constitution/Victory. I saw a stall in a shopping centre recently selling pieces of wood from Victory removed during renovation. True Cross anyone?)

The question of which is the oldest vessel still performing some kind of useful service is an interesting one though. Presumably this excludes parts of ships – the mast of HMS Ganges still stands at Shotley after all!

Sorry if I’ve missed something, but why does your glider seem to have a propeller?

Why was the Avro ‘SAM fodder’ alertken? Just curious.

While the White Paper undoubtedly set the UK aircraft industry back a few years it may have also saved us from some dinosaurs. Many of the creations that were flattened by Mr. Sandys look, to modern eyes, pretty impractical. The Fairey looks like an Avro Arrow only bigger, whilst all the other weird and wonderful designs floating around proposing to use several DH Gyrons or hybrid rocket propulsion would have surely started an oil crisis all by themselves. Only the Hawker P.1121 looks remotely practical, and as I understand it, that diverged from the specifications it was built for in a number of ways that wouldn’t have endeared it to the purchasers anyway.

That said, the thought of the skies being filled with enormous, Mach 2 canards and deltas is salt to the palate and I am rather sad that all we got out of that era was the estimable Lightning.

The other PRXIX is PS915. Not sure whether both were at Coningsby at the same time but the PRXIXs were the first aircraft on the strength of the BBMF, I think being passed on from the Meteorological Flight when this wound up.

Alertken:

no quarrel with anything you said, but I think I should point out that everything I’ve said has been in response to a plethora of “Everything was invented in the USA & we’re doing a you a favour even allowing you to work on the plane” posts. I think you know who I mean. Credit where credit’s due: the USA is paying for most of the JSF, & doing most of the design & development (& some fine work too), including (as I’ve pointed out several times) part of the vertical lift system. But I get really pissed off by the attitude of some people here, who don’t quite seem to understand the meaning of trust or reciprocity, & clearly think a friend is someone who hasn’t yet realised you’ve conned him. Sadly, they don’t share that WW2 spirit you allude to.

Thanks to alertken for talking sense. It’s always difficult to argue with alertken’s assertions, this one suggests there’s no point arguing over who gave who what and when, we will never sort it out here. The Brits say ‘we invented VTOL’, the Yanks say ‘not this VTOL you didn’t’ and so it goes on. As the saying goes, ‘with friends like these…’

Interesting the arguments have switched from ‘the US did x, y or z’ to ‘the US could have done x,y or z if it wanted to’.

Oh well if you insist.

Anybody who has anything to do with Harvards and other T6s is a big girl’s blouse. And if a squadron of T6 met a squadron of Miles Masters in combat then the kill ratio would be 110% – 0% in favour of the British aircraft ‘cos they are the best.

Will that do?

Moggy

Personally I’d rather discuss it over a pint.

Are you serious?? 😮 😮 😮

T6s have JFHG668 wired up with FJD91s and a chimney full of XX££££s against the Masters’ puny GARMMM3s and FLIX. If you think they could do anything against that you must be even more of a ******** than you look.

You’re just yank bashing and can’t take it that your country can’t build aircraft. Anyway, anything that was good about the Master came from the US and you wanted to sell secret T6 tech to the Nazis.

(Oops, gave myself away, I used an apostrophe correctly)

Awful admission. I’ve never read The Big Show. I’ve always known I would at some point.

Now sounds like the time I should do it.

RIP

Moggy

Do, you won’t regret it. I read it as a schoolboy and re-read it last year, it has lost none of its power.

The man was a hero, more than that he was entirely human. He will be missed.