Great work Mike!

Very interesting, thanks for posting. I have not seen it before, and cannot identify it myself, but I am sure there are people here who will be able to.

daniel

My sincere condolences to the Panton family.

I meet Fred briefly when I took my late father on a Taxy ride on ‘Just Jane’ a few years ago, and I thought he was a delightful man. He certainly has a legacy that will live on.

daniel

Once the wings were ‘clipped’ all the problems started – there was not enough lift and the engines were not powerful enough….hence the increased wing angle and the heightend undercarriage.

If you look at the profiles of the 3 4-engined heavies, the Lanc and the Halifax appear with to be “all wing” compared to their fuselage length, whereas the Stirling’s fuselage is relatively much longer than her wingspan. Even single engined fighters had a greater relative lift area to fuselage length.

As far as powerplants, there was never a hope of getting Merlins onto the Stirling, they were all going into fighters at that time. The Wright Cyclone-powered Mark II would have had rod and chain throttle controls, but as we knoe, this model never went into production.

daniel

Is it possible to get behind the tour rope’s of the BBMF Hangers?

A few years back there was a special forum photo evening in the BBMF hangar (preceded by a visit to see Just Jane taxying and tea at the Petwood). It was a thoroughly enjoyable day out, kindly organised by the BBMF guys, and I relish the thought that it would one day be repeated, now I have a better camera!

Fluffy……? ;):)

daniel

1 pm on Sunday 9th by the Mustang it is!

Maybe we should have a password. How about:”Burmese Spitfires”?

daniel

Hats-off to the ground crew for their quick reactions ….and kudos to the pilot and passengers in the other Rapide who were waiting to take off as events unfolded in their sister a/c behind them. I must say I would have wanted to have gotten off rather than taken a joyride at that point…..

daniel