The subject of Lightning over wing tanks cropped up at today’s Cold War Thunder event at Elvington during talks by Brian Thornton and John Ward.

As Robert Hliton says the tanks could be jettisoned but had to be empty before this was attempted. The joke on the Lightning force was that if you tried to get rid of the tanks when they were full they stayed where they were and the wings jettisoned!

Peter

Doug

Have sent you a PM

Peter

The Venom NF had a few things going for it such as a better performance than the Meteor NF and side-by-side seating which was popular (if rather cramped) and power ailerons (NF.3).

On the downside it had a single engine which occasionaly flamed out without warning, especially the NF.3 (Dowty fuel system). With no ejection seats most attempted a belly landing rather than try to bale out. Unfortunately the navigator was likely to break both legs below the knee in such a situation when his legs smashed into the AI console. One died in his burning aircraft as a result (the pilot got out but was unable to free him).

Peter

I suspect that the financial difficulties of the Vulcan will have come as a considerable shock to Dr Plemming.

I attended one of his lectures before first flight in which he stated that the really difficult part, financially, was to secure enough funding to get the aircraft back in the air. He certainly downplayed concerns over the economic viability of the Vulcan once it was on the display circuit and gave the impression that there would be no difficulty in it seeing out its days. How wrong he was!

Peter

I really don’t know why historians insist on comparing the Spitfire and 109 in any case as they were totally different aircraft.

They may have been about the same size and a few mph away from each other in top speed, but you only have to look at the differing wing designs to see that the Spitfire preferred to go round and round in circles and that the 109 liked to go up and down in the vertical plane.

Any comparison which sets out to prove that one is better than the other in my view is meaningless, and other than mentioning some of the attributes of ‘the chosen one’, it’s a complete waste of time.

Peter

I meant to query this on the First Light thread as I thought I heard Gannic mentioned when Wellum was lost in cloud.

Have done a lot of research on 92 Sqn, albeit for 1941, but I have never seen reference to ‘Gannic’ in any combat report or intelligence report.

I have a lot of combat reports for 92 for the 1941 period and the call-sign ‘Garrick’ crops up all the time. Jamie Rankin usually began his combat reports with ‘I was Garrick leader’ as did Brian Kingcome for a 109 destroyed on 24/7/41. Others to refer to Garrick in their CR’s are Don Kingaby and Ronnie Fokes.

Peter

Another excellent programme for which the BBC should be applauded.

Just one thing though, how tall is Howard Tuck? He seemed to tower over everyone, including Andy.

Peter