ResmorohNow I know there’s a very serious problem!!!!
HTH
Resmoroh
ResmorohAlan, Hi,
If you Google ‘HB778 + Fortress’ you’ll get what they know. Now just what the Ministry of Supply was doing with an RAF Fortress at RAE Farnbough in 1947 I have no idea! Presumably NPC Duties – where NPC = Nefarious Purposes Committee!!!!!!!!!!!
HTH
Resmoroh
ResmorohAs far as I am aware the Met Research Flight (MRF) never operated a Fortress.
The High Altitude Flight (HAL) operated:
Fortress 2A FK192 from 1943-45 SOC 18 Sep 45
Fortress 1 AN531 from 1944-45 SOC 17 Jan 45
HTH
Resmoroh
ResmorohHindenberg, Hi,
Confirm that William Norman May was a Doctor (Auth: Probate for his mother’s Will – granted 7 May 1920 – describes him as “MD”) living at The White House, Sonning when he died on 12 Jun 44 in Greenlands (the Private Patients Ward) of the Royal Berks Hospital (RBH) in Redlands Road, Reading.
Bader may have been operated on – but was certainly nursed – in the RBH.
Dr May might well have been a Consultant Surgeon in RBH. It is about 3 miles, by road, from Sonning to Woodley. One has to ‘dog-leg’ via the bridge over the railway line at Shepherd’s Hill.
I would have thought that a medically qualified person could have been found nearer to Woodley Airfield than Sonning! We may be looking at the RBH Consultant under who’s care Bader came in RBH rather than the first “medic” at the scene. Remember, no mobile fones in those days – even the land-line fones were not commonly available. Woodley Airfield probably had one, but I have no knowledge of the medical arrangements that might, or might not, have existed when the prang occurred.
Attempts were made, some years ago, to find the RBH archives in connection with another research area but it was like trying to wade through molasses!!!!!!!!!!!!!
HTH
Resmoroh
ResmorohHLF Involvement
I suspect that HLF are just hoping that the whole thing will go away! If – as those of us who look at projects in a logical, hard-hearted, way know only too well – when (not IF, pse note) this project goes Tango Uniform then HLF will keep their heads down well below the parapet! After all, we don’t want a Senior HLF Administrator to be seen to have signed off HLF funds to a project that has failed – do we?!!!! Might hazard his/her Top Gong in some future Honours List?!!!! Sir Humphrey didn’t like his past indiscretions exposed did he? HLF is not infested with aviation buffs!! – neither, for that matter, is the UK at large.
I’ll fall about when HLF finds itself in possession of an airframe that will have cost – in it’s preservation stage – more money than it did when it was operational!
Pots & Pans made from 558 should have that stamped on them. As an ex-558 pot/pan they could have some considerable antique value in 50 yrs time. There is some problem on this thread with real reality as opposed to wished for reality!
Resmoroh
ResmorohT-21,Hi,
Yes, there were a significant number of us who went through RAF Cardington on our induction to RAF National Service. We were not, by and large, concerned with a/c movements at RAF Cardington – I regret if this gives you pain! We were more concerned with where our next haircut was going to come from!!! Or, how long we were going have to do (with our newly issued steel eating knives) chopping cabbage – which was a problem!!
I was better placed than 99.99% of my co-NSA airmen. I had actually spent 1 year (pre-NSA) on an RAF Airfield (Wittering) as a very junior Met Office Scientific Assistant. I knew the RAF rank structure. I knew that a Warrant Officer (particularly the Station Warrant Officer) was more important than Junior Officers.
I do not have many post-nominals. But one I do have -ECMMT (Escaped Court Martials Many Times).
HTH
Resmoroh
ResmorohSqn Ldr Scramble,
Try putting (5023233) into the LG. Yr man was probably Commissioned into the Tech Branch 14 Sep 65 (seniority back to 14 Aug 61). Got his ‘scraper ring’ in the half-yearly of 1972. When (??) he retired from the RAF he presumably went to BAe. His MBE came out with all the other Op CORPORATE gongs after the Falklands war. What he did with BAe don’t know
HTH
Resmoroh
ResmorohDave,
Yr penultimate phrase – Yes!, you are entitled to your opinion.
Yr last phrase is the most worrying of all – it might well happen. And then where would be all be?
Aux les barricades mes amis!
HTH – but it won’t
Resmoroh
ResmorohL&S, Hi
Lots of hits for “Gillman” in the Flight archives.
HTH
Resmoroh
ResmorohPagen01,
Like yr last. Add to my last – and “The Charity Commissioners”!! There is clearly something untoward with this whole project! It needs to be brought out into the open. Many, on this Forum, are looking at it simply as an aircraft problem. Would that it were so! The preservation (either flying, or static) of The Tin Triangle is NOT the point. The flow of money (from whatever source) in/out IS the problem!!
Is nobody listening to me? Are they all Vulcanomaniacs? Or, if they are, will they please signify, and then I can gracefully withdraw from what is becoming a nonsensical debate (if one can give the vast majority of the exchanges on this thread the title of ‘debate’)?
It’s NOT about aeroplanes – it’s about MONEY – and who took what, from where, and when, and into which bank account? When we know that, we’ll see what can be done for The Tin Triangle.
And don’t forget that I’ve both ridden on the footplate of “Mallard”, and done the Met for the Black Buck missions – so I’ve got a foot in both camps!
Resmoroh
ResmorohMegalith – 100% absolutely right!! (and I grew up in a railway town so I know what Tornado means to the steam buffs!).
I have no argument with the Spanner Bashers on the hangar floor – as brilliant a bunch of technical experts as you could wish to find.
BUT – there were(are) clearly some pillocks at the top who were/are on an ego trip. Money does NOT buy high quality management – as can clearly be seen by the sorry state of the world’s banking systems!
There is too much detail being hidden behind clouds of pseudo-technical legal verbiage and niff-naff & trivia.
As I suggested earlier, all these vitriolic exchanges (on this Forum) of so-called ‘truths’ and/or so-called ‘half truths’ where the correspondent is not prepared to declare the source of his/her information leads us nowhere.
A full Parliamentary Inquiry is the only solution to this problem! Many will be against it because it will inevitably expose some, connected with this project, possibly as inept charlatans – to put it politely – and we can’t have that can we?. But without an Inquiry we will never know. If there’s Public money involved then there’s no reason why the Financial Services Agency and the Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee should not investigate. We need incontrovertible, proveable, FACTS. Then, after they have been delivered, we can allow ourselves (as non-experts) the priviledge of commenting on them. Until that time the exchanges referred to above are totally and utterly nugatory!
Je reste ma valise!
Resmoroh
PS Pleming has, I believe, a PhD. Let us therefore refer to him by his correct title – Dr! We demean ourselves by not doing so.
ResmorohIt would have been nice to see Snoopy preserved, just because of the outstanding and long service it has provided in UK weather research.
Pagen01,
Not just to UK weather research. It was a world renowned asset. The RAF aircrews who flew it (through some appalling “stuff”) and the civilian Met Office flying scientists who accumulated the data were known in the met aviation world as being of the very highest order.
Another victim of salami slicing cuts!!
Resmoroh
ResmorohYvonne,
To carry on from Jim. Whenever you come on-line at BBMF there ought to be an auto-page showing what each of the BBMF airframes was doing on that date for every year of its existence.
Now I’m not suggesting that you collect, correlate, or produce these ‘pages’, but I’ll bet there are a number of the local ATC Sqn computer geeks who will be only too pleased to show you how to do it!!! Issue instructions from BBMF and It Shall Be So!!
Yrs Aye, a VERY ancient military meteorologist,
Resmoroh
ResmorohHi, All,
Be aware that our Feline Moderator has expressed himself as being (moderately!!) in favour of a minor amount of Thread Creep. He is (and who am I to argue!) of the opinion that a moderate amount of Thread Creep (under controlled circumstances) can lead to some considerable extensions to the sum of human knowledge. I tried this, when in Her Majesty’s employ, claiming that I was merely pushing back the frontiers of science. My Superior(s) had other ideas!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
HTH
Resmoroh
ResmorohPagen01 is fighting a losing battle in trying to drag – kicking and screaming – the majority on this Forum into the real world. They just don’t want to confront reality. We would all like to see RAF Little Slopton-on-the-Wold preserved (in aspic?!!) for posterity. But real life ain’t like that. Otherwise we would all still be using swords and spears. Things change.
It would be nice if we could use the weapons in our democratic armoury to change things. But how many really dedicated aviation buffs, or specialists, or historians, are there? 1000?, 10,000? spread around the country – not enough to change the outcome of an Election (be it Local Council, Bye, or General). And, as has been pointed out in this thread countless times, Money talks. If you ain’t got the money then forget it. The various fanciful schemes for co-locating aviation museums, historic flights, operational Units, etc, etc, on the same airfield may make the aviation buffs drool, but it ain’t going to happen except in someone’s dreams!!! Politicians, and/or Local Councillors, and/or Developers, don’t dream!
Whilst I would like to be more up-beat, I would simply remind you of the time, in 1981, when my Reserve Unit was short of this, and that, and everything. I wrote a paper, through the Chain Of Command, saying – in effect – if you don’t give us the kit and the training then you should put us down, like an old and faithful dog. In Jan 1982 I enquired whether their Airships had come to a decision. Then the Argies got a bit stroppy with The Falklands. I was told that my letter had been “lost” – and would we please just go to the S Atlantic and do our job!!
I doubt if the same set of circumstances is likely to affect Scampton. However, the Barclay Brothers have just been stuffed over Sark. They’ve got a few bob. How about trying to get them involved? If you do then please ensure that the spelling, grammar, and syntax of your communications are of the very highest order.
HTH
Resmoroh
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