It’s really no more impressive than any of the other footage or photos from the last 70 or so years – it’s a wake out in the loch, with nothing handy to provide scaling for size or speed. It could be an otter, it could be the water itself moving past a piece of floating wood, or it could be a 70-million-year-old land-locked aquatic reptile with incredibly low nutritional requirements and unknown to science.

Your call.

Here’s a question for you all re Duxford.

I went to the place for the first time (yes its appalling ts taken that long to go) for the BBMF display. I also went within the same week for a second visit as a guest of the DAS to talk Viscounts. So Ive seen the site in short succession on a quiet and busy day.

I dont understand how in the American Museum with all the aircraft bar the P-47 and Huey you are able to walk pretty much completly under the airframes and look in the wheel bays and under the fuselages etc etc. THe B-17 for example I was able to take a load of close up pics for a planned model as I could walk under ALL the airframe.

Why in the AirSpace is this not the case. I know the Vulcan has some strategically placed rope to walk under the bomb bay and Concorde has a smilar set up for certain areas of the airframe but everything else is more roped off.

Certain exhibits in the AirSpace I can understad as they are delicate. I also understand the differance due to space and some aircraft being flyers in other Hangers.

But any ideas why the huge differance between American Museum and AirSpace?

I haven’t yet visited the finished AirSpace, but I think it’s because the exhibits in the AAM are far too vulnerable to damage. It was a bit of an experiment in full (exterior) access to exhibits, and it does this well, but with the above-mentioned trade-off.

I was at an airshow a few years ago, talking to a young AH Cobra pilot. They were allowing people to get in the A/C and fiddle with the shiny things in there. While we were talking, with him saying he was glad HE had not signed the A/C out because of all the trouble and time it would take to readjust all the instruments and everything that were being messed with, his eyes got REAL BIG. He dashed to the cockpit and ushered a child out. He said the child was about two steps away from blowing the rotors off in preparation for ejecting.

I think he was having you on. The Cobra doesn’t have a crew ejection system… in fact, no US or other Western helo does. AFAIK, only the Russian KA-50 has the upward-firing, rotor blade-shedding system you describe.

ATFS Crash was perfectly civil (if slightly abrupt) in his response to this, and has argued his points well. If he’s become a little abrasive it’s probably because of your own indignant and defensive replies, Kernowglyn. I feel you’ve overreacted somewhat, which is understandable when you’ve put yourself out there with something like this. If you were posting in good faith there’s no need to feel like that about it; just accept the criticism with good grace.

Kernowglyn, don’t take it so personally. I appreciate that you received it in good faith, but any criticism of the email shouldn’t be taken as criticism of you or the person you received this from. Urban legend style emails rely on people’s good nature to propagate.

You must have your own suspicions about this; it reads like classic political rhetoric dressed up in language designed to sway opinion in favour of the Iraq and ‘stan conflicts. Hundreds of stories like this, usually “from the troops” have done the rounds since 2003.

Someone claiming to be Gilmore made replies to doubters here.

I still have my doubts about this; even if true it’s still a blatant piece of right-wing propaganda. Why didn’t this guy come forward sooner? His information would assuredly have been of interest to the authorities. If he’d acted on his suspicions he could even have prevented the attacks.

The two patents in question, including diagrams:

http://v3.espacenet.com/textdoc?DB=EPODOC&IDX=GB583257&F=0
http://v3.espacenet.com/textdoc?DB=EPODOC&IDX=GB640520&F=0

The Spitfire-installed “systems” MB refer to could be canopy-jettison related:

http://www.ejectionsite.com/emakers.htm

Martin-Baker provided some subcontractor designs for aftermarket parts which were purchased in bulk (including a retrofit package to jettison the canopy on Spitfire aircraft)

Best guess is that they did some even more cursory Googling than I’ve just done, put 2 and 2 together and got 5. If real though, it must be fairly rare even if it was fitted to a “mere” Defiant. Assuming it got screwed to a seat at some stage, it still may never have been installed in an aircraft.

Public spirited? My afterburners. They’re sensationalist ghouls. Getting the tape released may indeed be a good thing, but you can bet that good intentions were not at the heart of their releasing it.