i havent read many aviation history books heres the list: Rahl (??) Dahl’s book on his time in the desert, First Light, Nine lives, Combat Crew and fighter boys.

Do you mean ‘Combat crew’ by John Comer? If not (apparently there are more books with that title) I can recommend it. Article here by the way.

I’ll second Bach’s ‘A Gift of Wings’, and add ‘Stranger to the Ground’, ‘Biplane’ and ‘Nothing by Chance’. Roland Beaumont has also written some good books (autobiographical). Neville Duke’s ‘Test Pilot’ is also a must-read, as well as ‘Fate is the Hunter’ by Ernest K. Gann. I would also try Alex Henshaw’s ‘Flight of the Mew Gull’ and especially ‘Sigh for a Merlin’. ‘Spitfire’ by Jeffrey Quill is an autobiographical account of the development of this great aircraft, and a last one is ‘Reach for the sky’, the biography of Douglas Bader, written by Paul Brickhill.

That should keep you busy for a while! 😀

Strange – Geoffrey de Havilland’s party trick was upward rolls on one engine and there are numerous reports of returning from ops with an engine out. The Mossie’s one of the few twins that seems to have little trouble flying on one.

Given enough airspeed and altitude, any twin will fly on one engine for a while. The trick is getting the airspeed up to a reasonable figure once you don’t have any altitude to spare.

The problem with high-performance piston twins like the Mossie is that you cannot just push on full power for fear of torque rolling the aircraft, or at least putting it beside the runway, but without full power available you cannot build up the airspeed. The way to counter the rolling tendency caused by the prop is using the rudder, but the rudder effectivity is a function of airspeed again. So there’s the catch: on some aircraft like the Mosquito there is a gap between the lift off speed and the safe single-engine speed where you don’t have many options. The safe thing to do in such a situation is cut both engines and land straight ahead.

Aah, yes, the old ‘look for information before blurting out a reply’ strategy. I knew I had forgotten something! 😀

By the way, is it just me or does the railing that can be seen between the truck and the white van on the right indicate a low bridge up ahead? When I noticed it I did feel as if the ‘after’ shot might be a sorry sight, but I’m sure Andy would have rather posted that photo, if that had happened.

Hello Tyler,

I don’t think I’ve got any pictures of your father. I only met him briefly once or twice when he visited Holland in the early 90’s to fly the DBAF B-25. He did leave a lasting memory, if only from his presence and from the stories I heard about him. Are you in touch with anybody from the DBAF? I’m sure there are plenty of stories and photos around, just not in my collection.

Here are a few I took about a month ago, including the Nord rebuild. I hadn’t seen the F2 replica in its complete form yet, looks great next to the F7.

The latest I picked up about the Connie is that they are planning to move her indoors for the winter to work on the engine there. She is normally kept outside. There are some uncertainties in this plan though!

I hadn’t seen the F27 in NLM colours yet, looks absolutely lovely! I’ll need to dig out some very old photos to compare it with 😉

This photo was taken at Deelen Airbase (The Netherlands) in 1978. It is ex-Hanover Street B-25 “Gorgeous George-Ann” during a display. Photo by P. v/d Horst, scanned from DBAF magazine.