Got to admit, Fighters and Bombers do seem off-putting as words to the modern ear.

Being a member of the Cambridge Bomber and Fighter Society, I still haven’t had the nerve to put the sticker in the back of my car – what if the counter-terrorism people saw it?

I’m going to adopt my own suggestion. From now on, I’m an ‘Archaerologist’.

“No, dear, I’m NOT on a pub-crawl, I’m researching aviati ..avria… avish.. plane related pubs!”

Going to get positive intel on the beer status at the Mitre this afternoon, Moggy. The sacrifices that I make…

What a masterstroke, putting Nathan’s excellent work on display in such an eyecatching context (ie with Spitfire) such that the powerful people present might read it and think.

Spitfireman Baz, hats off to you.

National intent as expressed through the actions of statesmen and politicians, personal intent and international business are three different things..

As a nation, it is a matter of political record that the US were happy to stay out of things at this time. This was a pragmatic and understandable choice, made somewhat inglorious by the moral argument especially as applied with hindsight.

Some young men, however, were happy to join up for altrusistic and/or thrill seeking reasons of their own.

And neither of these had any bearing on the provision of technology or facilities at a suitable price – as witness the contemporary Swiss approach. It is to the credit of the US decision-makers of the time that this wasn’t their model as well.

At the last BAPC Meeting at Snibston it was advised that BAPC are seeking funding to try and allow the scheme to continue in some format – hopefully they can get something sorted out!

I really do hope so. As a ‘best practice’ guide for volunteers, it can only become increasingly valuable.

I’m interested to know – has anyone used their BAPC ‘National Aviation Heritage Skills Initiative’ qualification to help get a job in historic aviation?

In theory it is the ultimate vocational course for those who want to ‘break in’ professionally – I’m doing it at the mo, and it’s jolly useful and informative – but I wouldn’t recommend it solely as a step towards the career Spitfire PRXIX is after unless there was compelling evidence that it worked in one’s favour. Similarly, would any professionals out there in a position to actually employ people be swayed by this?

Edit – I am doing my course at Duxford. I mentioned this when being interviewed for an admin job with the IWM there – and I felt the level of interest in the room drop through the floor!

not necessarily made up , there were a lot of pilots ( even women ferry pilots ) we mostly only hear of the top few of the few who were the outstanding ones

there were also a lot more english names than bader , tuck , et al but the others were in the shaddows of names like those ( even english )

such was the time and job you had to stand out to be a personality such as “sailor ” known for wearing a sowester ( nuts ?? ) most deffinateley as it certainly isn’t flying gear but he was remembered !!

I think you misunderstand – I wasn’t suggesting that because he was ‘unknown’ it meant he wasn’t a fighter pilot! I meant that the next generation of the family never learned the ‘gentleman’s name..

Sensitive area, please don’t ask for clarification, I’m sure you can understand – wish I hadn’t said it!

The assumption of line-shooting was more to do with him claiming to be a fighter pilot actually during the Battle of Britain (and I’m sure blokes in uniform tried that one on a lot), which – as this chap was Polish – seemed further-fetched to my friend (though his Grandma was insistent) before the documentary than it did after. Bear in mind, he knew nothing about the Battle of Britain, or even much about the war generally – which is standard for the vast majority of of the UK population.

It’s easy for those of us ‘in here’ to forget the general level of knowledge out there. It can easily seem unlikely that there would be Poles with the RAF at the time, as it did to my friend. This was the original point of my post – it was aimed at ‘them’, not ‘us’, and probably served its purpose very well.

‘Sailor’ – Do you mean Adolf Malan? I hadn’t heard about the sowester before! I thought the name came from a previous stint in the Merchant Navy.