Radial?

So, post WW2 multi-engine, not a jet.

Transport?

It’s all better now, but I’ll never forget how snotty the reply was when I sent in some rare sightings from a regional airport in Colombia. I had to bribe guards and promise to keep all kinds of secrets to get them – Beech 18’s, DC-6’s, a Grumman Amphibian, all privately owned and regularly operated from Cali..

It seems the problem was I was not a regular contributor.

Staff and attitudes have changed since those days (mid 1990’s). Just wanted to vent, after all these years!! Feel better now.

Re. Bullet strikes, is there necessarily a correlation or does it depend on how the guns were aligned, and the relative motion of the target through the field of fire?

Enjoyed it too, especially some of the (new to me) footage, and the presenter’s genuine enjoyment of his trip. I would say that most people probably don’t know that Merlins splutter when inverted.. but also I think this suggestion of pilot error was a little misleading as the AAIB noted a problem with the carburettor float stops that reduced fuel flow – quote ‘ The investigation of the carburettors revealed that neither unit met the specified fuel flow requirements under negative g conditions’.

While the report stops short of attributing this as definite cause, it should have been mentioned by the programme as a differentiating factor, as the AAIB, under recommendation 97-23 in the RR299 report, asks that Rolls Royce communicate to all known Merlin operators (and I can only presume this includes US ones) the importance of checking the settings on these carburettors.

Report here: http://www.aaib.gov.uk/cms_resources.cfm?file=/dft_avsafety_pdf_501355.pdf