Having just seen the original black & white photo in “The Years Flew Past”, I’m impressed.

Web Pilot’s post was interesting in that it shows how cumbersome radio and recording gear was back in 1944 – it needed two people to operate it and the crew had to take on less fuel to accomodate the extra weight.

No “Ipod” nonsense in those days.

I’ve seen on board film of Mike Hawthorn taking a D-Type Jaguar around Le Mans on a practice session in 1957. The microphone he is using looks like someting from His Master’s Voice ( a plastic horn arrangement) which is bolted to a wooden box which in turn is strapped to his chest by means of a harness. The sound quality is actually quite good, and the film is a hoot, especially as the road is still open to the public and numerous French cyclists are seen taking avoiding action as Mike barrels towards them at 150 mph plus.

Recording techniques were quite crude back then. Studio recordings were made direct to wax master discs. Recordings in the field were made on wire recorders. The Germans (BASF) had already invented magnetic tape by then but I don’t think they were in a position to supply any to the BBC in the 1939-1945 period – for obvious reasons.

Wouldn’t it have been great if the BBC had been able to make a video recording of Chamberlain’s return from Munich in 1938. If you look carefully at the newsreel film footage, you’ll see a BBC TV camera in place at the foot of the steps of the aircraft. His return was obviously broadcast live on TV.

BBC did not obtain any magnetic video taping facilities until 1957.

Although Viz did get some aviation fame during Gulf War .

There I was thinking that the top execs at Rolls Royce were avid comic readers. To be honest, I always wondered why the Rolls Royce Bunty and Judy were never proceeded with.

Blenheims were used to bomb German invasion barges during the B of B. I’ve heard that Bomber Command lost a similar number of aircrew to Fighter Command in this period of the war.

Spitfire Mk IX
P-51D
Fw-190D

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Blimey – I was standing under that Vulcan last week. If only I’d known!

The difference in the pre-war groupings is that they came about organically through the expansion of the various companies and commercial mergers. The Government forced mergers of 1962 were purely political. Some of the companies who were already in “groups” had to leave those groups and join up with new government appointed partners. A good example of this is the case of the De Havilland DH121 Trident airliner. De Havilland revived an old name (Airco) to stand as the group name for the companies who were going to collaborate in the building of the plane. One of the companies in the Airco group was the Bristol Aeroplane Company. However, Bristol became part of the British Aircraft Corporation whereas De Havilland became part of the Hawker Siddeley Group. As a result, the Airco group had to be disbanded and Bristol had no further involvement in the project (a lucky escape for them – perhaps, as it turned out).