having read ‘last of the torpedo flyers’ on hols in which ted strever was mentioned i am now reading his book’ on laughter silvered wings’ in which he and his crew carry out the first skyjacking to get back to malta.

BBMF lanc at 1830-ish low over weymouth heading east right over my garden,proper hairs on the back of my neck moment just from the sound!

I have just finished reading ‘The Last Torpedo Flyers’ by Arthur Aldridge, excellent book. Well worth looking out for, I found it heavily discounted in one of the clearance book shops, which seems a shame in some ways, as it is presumably the sign of slow mainstream sales? Perhaps he should have had a picture of a Spitfire on the cover, instead of a Beaufort? 😀
I am just about to start reading ‘Spying for Hitler, the Welsh Double-Cross’ by John Humphries.

thanks for flagging this book up,have read a couple of books about blenheim/beaufort shipbusters and i am amazed that anyone could do this and not go mad,have ordered it and really look forward to it. have just finished ‘piece of cake’ (for the 10th time) and about to start ‘finding the fallen’.

the puma is still there tho its been picked clean, used as a small arms target by the resident infantry unit and had thousands of names scratched into it and also had a big fire that destroyed most of the lower fuselage, i imagine the 2 wessies are still there under a lot of ice.

847nas used the gazelle in a pair with a lynx during telic1,the gaz did get armoured seats and a laser sighting aid and was used to id targets and then lase them for other air assets to kill, they were shot at many times and how we didnt lose 1 i dont know, i do remember a cab landing,shutting down and then the crew just sat there, we opened the doors to ensure they were ok and they were, they just couldnt walk yet as they had spent a good portion of the sortie avoiding ground fire and direct fire from d30’s, it took 5 or so mins before they felt stong enough to get out and walk back to ops,great cab to work on as a mech,terrible fighting platform.

i dont know what effect it would have had on a scout, however the change from cabin mounted 7.62 gpmg to 0.50″ browning on the external carier has lead to a LOT of cracking to the airframe, any shoot is followed now by a good look at various points of the structure including tailcone attachment stations due to the lateral loading when firing.

mods are abit of a minefield even on modern mil a/c, let alone what the pace of experience and technology was back then to a ‘standard’ a/c,mod classes do depend on how fast they should be embodied with regard to safety or operational requirement, a lot of mods could be manufacturer only or even ‘WOTSAC’ ( when old type stores are consumed). the suffix may relate to fixed fitting, i.e part A is fitted as part of the a/c fit and part B is role or theatre fit.

whilst i was on a flight safety course a few years back the HUD video of the accident was shown,the recording stopped when the aircraft hit a fence before landing in the river,i dont think the video is in the public domain, good luck with the rebuild.