“It was Flying A that brought the Hellcat to North Weald, it spent the years after Doug passed away stored in America prior to being ferried to the UK.”

Thanks Yak,I should’ve realised that myself.For whatever reason the date Galdri’s pictures were taken didn’t register with me last night-1995/96 was some three or four years after Doug passed away.

I can’t give serials or registrations,but I know it went to Doug Arnold’s Warbirds of Great Britain collection.She hardly ever flew after delivery,and went ‘into hiding’ along with the rest of the fleet when Doug died.She was sold off by Flying A Services and exported a couple of years ago and is now part of Paul Allen’s secretive collection.

Hi Sat,
If you like Spits,then you’ll find Piece of Cake is well worthwhile.The storyline and characters were a bit controversial at the time,but the air-air photography,dogfight scenes etc more than make up for it.It’s up there with Battle of Britain for it’s air-air content.

Ok Geoff,it was a just a shot in the dark anyway (pun pun),but thought it might be worth following up.I’ve checked my references and can’t find a Japanese ‘Typhoon’ either-oh well!

I’m 99.99999% certain that the Hawker Typhoon never operated in the Pacific,however there is a vague bell ringing in the back of my mind which suggests that there may have been a Japanese aircraft called a Typhoon which was used as a nightfighter.The Japanese often named thier aircraft after ceretain weather phenomina or nature in general,eg Kawanishi’s N1K1 Shiden (Lightning).
Just a thought…

Dunno about the Viggens,but the Fork Tailed Devil was the Lockheed P38 Lightning of WWII,who first came up against it over North Africa in 1942 and found it a handful to deal with.
I hope the Viggen does continue flying in some capacity well into the future,it’s a very characteristic machine (even my sister knows what one is!) and one that I’ve yet to see fly.

This is the first time I’ve heard of anyone lower than a Sgt being a pilot,although I know there were all sorts of ranks amongst aircrews in the first few months of the war.For instance,I’ve heard of blokes as low as LAC flying as a Wireless Op or Gunner in something like an Anson or Wellington.The situation was cleared up with official orders being issued which stated that nobody lower than Sgt could be considered for flying duties-some of these lower ranks had become rather good at thier trade in the intervening period and so were promoted to allow them to remain as aircrew.