Not a crash?

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I think he might just make it if he, the pilot is in control!

Nazi steam aero. engines ?

Being an old git I have read and seen the Besler steam powered aircraft before! But I have also read that the Germans looked into the idea but can’t
remember the source, anybody else got any info?
Ray

There have been a number of twin boom cargo aircraft – the Argosy, the C-82, C-119 plus designs that never got off the drawing board.

Why was this arrangement used for these designs over the now usual fuselage mounted tail?

Heres a good answer! Fuselage mounted tails were not developed to leave a rear entrance until the fifties so the above mentioned aircraft were easier to load/unload and parachute cargo and paratroopers from. The high wing mounted engines were out of the way of debris on rough field operations.
Ray

Lockheed Constellation

IIRC it was a novel taken from the scripts, there was another “Ruskins Berlin” which I think was planned for the second series and how our man Jack started to make his fortune in the Berlin airlift.

A Lockheed Constellation was purchased for the second series, which was cancelled by a technicians strike at ITV! I think the aircraft is in the IWM collection.

FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF RAF

We had a whopping RAF celebration at Abingdon in 1968 – both HM the Queen and myself (a humble Sergeant Technician) were there – and I have photos to prove it! At least one other Forum member was there too, and his pictures are much better than mine!

Hi Papa Lima, I found this thread when trying to find certain info. about the North American Savage and on reading my way through it found this entry. I too was in the RAF in 1968 in the lowly rank of Junior Technician (airframes) and was part of the team keeping the Ruskies at bay with the **** Lightning.
As part of the celebration we and other Lightning users gathered many Lightnings together at Wattisham for, I think, the Queens do at Abingdon and it was a noisy send off.. Photo taking at this camp was frowned on, so no visual memories . Have you any shots of the Lightnings at Abingdon that day?
If so could you PLEASE show them on the site or send a personal message.
Ray:D

Ercoupe or not Ercoupe?

😀

Lovely looking machine. I’ve also seen both Aircoupe and Ercoupe used – that maybe something to do with the different companies that produced the design (how many were there beside Alon?).

I suspect it has a following this side of the pond as it’s looks fought off the resistance to American “spam-cans” (Cessnas and Pipers) that invaded our shore/killed off our light aircraft industry in the 1960s.

Roger Smith.

According to my favourite source ‘THE ILLUSTRATED ENCYCLOPEADIA OF AIRCRAFT’ the aircraft was designed by the Engineering and Research Corporation founded in 1930! First constructed in 1937! All construction of the Ercoupe was stopped by the outbreak of WW2.
After the end of the war a further 6000 were made under the names Aircoupe, Ercoupe and Fornair! All rights were acquired by a new company Alon Inc. on the last day of 1963, their new all metal version was first flown on 24 October 1964 and marketed as the Alon Model A-2 Aircoupe which could use the original two-! Or three – control system. It was in production until Alon merged with Mooney Aircraft Inc. in 1967.
It was around for a long time, in fact as Chris’s photo proves is still going strong. I first knew about the Ercoupe from a KEIL KRAFT balsa and paper flying model in the early fifties.Ray 😀

Having had a good look through my books, the nearest I can get to an answer is a first for aviation, the death of the the first pilot in a flying accident who was Eugne Lebvre on 7th September 1909! He was testing a French-built Wright biplane somewhere in France.
Ray

Potez 75 an aircraft that showed the future of ground attack

One piece of information in an earlier answer stated something that I knew to be wrong i.e that the pilot was in the front. The observer was in that position! My source was ‘Aircraft Annual 1958’ edited by John WR Taylor. An article by Air Marshall Sir Robert Saundby entitled ‘The Future of Airpower’ with the only illustratian being of a Potez 75 which it states as being ideal for ground attack in a local war armed with missiles, rockets and machineguns.
Ray