I have seen AWACS going around P’Boro many times before, but admittedly not for 6 hours 😮

Perhaps the Pilot was hit and fell onto the gear down control?

Hmmm, Unlikely I would say!
It’s location requires a bit of a forward ‘stretch’ to reach the toggle switch IIRC.

Is it possible that repeated strikes from bullets/cannon shells could inflict damage to the hydraulics in such a way as to ‘blow’ one or both mainwheels down. In such a scenario, it would appear to the attacking fighter that the crew were surrending..whereas inside the bomber crew were doing nothing of the sort!

I sort of understand the logic of where you are coming from, except that most main legs etc are actually held in with locking mechanisms that have to be released before the hydraulics then lower the undercarriage.

However

The B-17 does not have hydraulically operated landing gear, or very much else for that matter, as they are all exclusively operated by electrically driven screw jacks.
The only hrdraulics on a Fort are the brakes and the engine cooling cowl flaps/gills.
Even the turrets are electrically operated with an electric motor driving 2 little self contained hydraulic (hydrostatic strictly speaking) power cubes.

Hope this helps answer any curiosity.

Bomberboy

That story is as mentioned generally connected to the 100th Bomb Group and why they got slaughtered at Munster with only one plane returning.

They also got badly hit on the 6th March 44 to Berlin, the first full on attack to the city that everyone got to, as opposed to the 4th March which was intended to be, but mostly due to weather I believe, meant it did not happen in that way.
That said, I don’t believe that the 100th suffered more heavily, relatively speaking, over the course of the war than any other group.

I don’t know that any particular crew and plane were ever connected to the lowering the wheels and then shooting bit.

Neither do I.

That it’s now connected to a B-24 Group speaks loudly to it being just a story that was created to explain a particular rough mission or set of missions.

Sounds perfectly plausible.

On the flip side, there is is a very famous piece of german gun camera footage, (ME 110 I believe), which is also used in the 1990 movie Memphis Belle, clearly shows the wheels being lowered on the Fort, but the german fighter just keeps on shooting. By the time he is now too close and peels off to the left, it is easy to see the wheels of the Fort are well on their way down.

Comments welcome

Bomberboy

Supporters can even pledge their support for an engine-swap, which will see two of the current engines swapped with two in storage to increase available engine hours..

Please tell me if I have missed something here, but how does just swapping engines for two in storage “increase available engine hours”?
What exactly is the context of the statement?
I understood that the Olympus was lifed by the number of engine ‘power cycles’ they are put through, not the number of hours and that RR told TVOC that although they gave them all a clean bill of health at the start, they would not overhaul any in the future?
I was under the impression that of the eight olympuses they had, two were ‘pulled’ for some kind of failure leaving them with six serviceable?
Once any three of these, (no further failures occurring) reach past their ‘service life’, that’s the end of flying for the vulcan anyway?

I’m not a jet person, so i’m looking for those with a better knowledge than mine, to fill me in on the details on this one.

“The airframe has limited time before it will no longer be possible to renew its permit to fly. After that we hope to develop a museum and educational centre around the plane at Robin Hood Airport, funded by conference, leisure and other commercial activities.”

I think this is the first reference I have personally seen, relating to the days once the vulcan stops flying and as the title post seems to question, with the money shortfalls that there seem to be, it maybe sooner rather than later.

What ye all think?

This sounds like press hype to me.

As per usual.

a very capable helicopter and assault ship in the shape of HMS Ocean, which can deploy Apache gunships, all things that we didn’t posess before.
HMS Albion & Bulwark are held in readiness

Actually Ocean has only just returned 2 weeks ago, from a 7 1/2 month deployment so I doubt she’ll be going anywhere soon.
Albion has now entered a period of no deployments and including in this will I believe be a refit.
Bulwark though is now currently the fleet flagship, a role she assumed recently and so she is ready to go at a moments notice.
She has been conducting many excercises of late.
The fleet flagship role is for four years as I recall.

the biggest problem for the RN is the lack of some kind of fleet air defence other than ship borne missiles and a lack of proper carrier strike capability.
I’m not quite sure how an Apache Gunship would fair in what would be a naval operation away from land because of a blockade.
If it’s close enough to the Falklands, then as you have indicated, the land based assets we have stationed there, will likely more than cover these roles.

Should all war bird owners be prepping their aircraft ?.

Today it was announced that Argentina and two other neighboring countries are

stirring up for a fight over the Falkland islands. Very convenient now we dont have a lot to send out there and nothing to send it on.We are stealing their oil resources etc and they are going to blockade shipping.

I am sure a quick census around the museums and collectors and we could rustle up at least.

2 x Nimrod maritime recon aircraft
2 Victor tankers for in flight refueling
1 x Vulcan to bomb Stanley runway again.
1 x Shackleton to back up the Nimrods
at least 3 lightnings
some assorted strike masters and JP’s

At least 2 squadrons of spitfires
some P51 Mustangs.
1 x Lancaster
3 DC 3 transports
3 Soko Kraguj Ground attack aircraft.

We might even have a few helicopters around somewhere.

As we don’t have any carriers we will have to string a load of barges together for the spits to operate off and tow them with a couple of fishing boats (plenty stuck in port due to EU policy).

I reckon pretty sorted then don’t you ???

Don’t forget there’s a B-17, oh and a Catalina or two (conversion for anti sub duties).
Wasn’t there still a Canberra or two somewhere?

The star of Legends 2012!!!

I’ll second that!!! 😀