Very much so. The Kiwis have taken the Maori customs to their heart, they’re not just going through the motions. In the UK, our response to the returning fallen has been very muted in comparison. That’s our way, – but people losing their lives in the interests of the rest of us is such a big deal, yet it often never even makes the news over the latest scuttlebutt drivel about some total non-entities or political bru-haha.
I’m definitely with the Kiwis on this one.

A lot of people think that the current situation in politics in the UK is very stale. Too many ex-‘Researchers’ partyers, too few people that have had real jobs and real life experience. As a bit of an old git, I’ve seen a lot of the political shenanigans over the years. Will UKIP be forming the next UK Government..? No. Will they be getting into Government in the foreseeable future? No. What they ARE doing however, is forcing the other three very stale groups of navel-gazers to stop and think – and start, very belatedly, listening to what ‘Joe Public’ is thinking and saying.
Do UKIP have available a cadre of very switched-on people to act as candidates? Again – No. Does that matter…? Actually again – no, as they aren’t getting real power. What they are doing – and will continue to do now, is to influence debate and policy. They are manifestly driving debate on certain issues that, factually, have not been properly debated and which the Electorate have not been consulted upon. This is now changing….
Do UKIP have ‘racist’ members..? Yes, in the same way as all the other Party’s do. They represent some sort of cross-section of society. I think the point about Lenny Henry was perfectly valid, – but then of course, since the whole ‘racism’ issue is a completely hypocritical one-way street, the reaction was wholly and tediously predictable. If, as some here have asserted, it was OK/acceptable for Henry to assert one way, what then would have been said if some other TV personality had asserted a similar view of the ‘under representation of ‘white’ people on TV’. Ah yes…of course, they’d have been ‘racist’. I’m not arguing the truth of either assertion, but clearly, there is massive hypocrisy at work, – as usual.
Me – I blame the word, – imported, along with a lot of other loopy ideas, from the USA in the 1960’s. We had a word, ‘racialism’. It was perfectly fine and functional. This new term, however, came with a whole trainload of baggage from a society that recently had slavery – to one that has not.
Last night, on Newsnight, we had a perfect manifestation of all this absurdity. There was a woman on there (I think the Shadow Minister for something or other..) who was co-oordinating a ‘Cross-Party campaign against UKIP’. Whatever happened to democracy and free-speech…? Clearly, – ‘Free-Speech’ should, they think, only be available to their cosy little expense-fiddling club…. Very revealing methinketh.
I don’t give a toss about the shortcomings of UKIP. What I DO care about, is that they are causing the overpaid fat-cats of the Westminster Elite to do something that seems, hithertoo, quite alien to them, the which is to actually LISTEN to the Electorate. Now that HAS to be a ‘Good Thing’…..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAcgUPjb16Q

Lovely sound….and those superchargers whistling is great…..typical Me…. 🙂

…..gives a new meaning to the expression ‘…a bird-magnet…’….:)

I think that was Tony Bianchi’s ‘Blue Max Museum’.

I would argue that the Messerschmitt Me410 could quite happily be sent back to Germany and the Kawasaki Ki100 to Japan and the space freed up used for the likes
of the Cotton Lockheed Electra Junior.

Indeed you could, – but you might be sat in the corner of the bar on your own 🙂

The Eye Of Sauron.

A lot of negative vibes on the Reds. However, as has been pointed-out, the demise of manned a/c has been wrongly forecast before. Drones have their place for sure, especially where you don’t want aircrew falling into the hands of rabid animals.

Not withstanding the above, we will still need Transport a/c. That means Tankers. We’ll need battlefield and transport Heli’s. All those need to be manned, and it all needs protecting. Drones have a limited ability to do this. Drones cannot think, they are just robotic zombies only as good as the data streamed back to the operator eating his lunch. Cut or interrupt that stream, – and they are flying scrap metal. Or plastic. Drones are not, and are unlikely ever, in the foreseeable future, to become sentient, so the need for manned a/c will remain.

Lastly, given to effectively complete absence of military experience across todays breed of career politicians, all the evidence points towards continued pointless foreign pointless ventures. No lessons have been learnt. Irrespective of how one feels about the politics of this, the fact is, that we are now entering out THIRD conflict in Iraq in as many decades. Whilst we are thus distracted by matter which we can do very little to affect, the Eye of Sauron to the East has been watching, and, given the weakened defences in Europe, his dark forces are stirring beyond Mirkwood.

There are some striking parallels between today, and the 1930’s. Appeasement, as we know, only buys time. How we choose to use that time dictates the outcome. In 1939 we were, just barely, ready. Today our politicians look out and see economics first, and military strategic matters somewhere down the list after appeasing the political opposition and E.U. Mr. Putin obviously sees thing in more or less the reverse order. Putin has been just as clear as Hitler was, and just as deluded. The Soviet Union wasn’t defeated militarily. It was defeated because it couldn’t sustain it’s military spending. The West outspent it. A small price to pay for peace.

I have a feeling that in terms of size, our armed forces are at about the low water mark. If Putin carries on the way he has been, then the Government will realise that, as ever, ’tis better to talk quietly, but carry a big stick. In that context, chopping the Reds will look like very small-beer indeed, in an environment where Defence spending may well rise dramatically.

I’m rather baffled as to why this thread should be listed under ‘Historic Aviation’… That aside, the RAF has (Almost.) always maintained some sort of display team. The point is that any airforce needs to keep a core of excellence. After all, they aren’t busdrivers. Keeping a team like the Reds going ensures that there is that core group of pilots with that top-notch skillset. All the other benefits are probably secondary to that.

I’m just old enough to remember the Black Arrows…….the Yellowjacks….and their subsequent rebirth for many years with the Gnats and a repaint. The Black Arrows were by FAR the most impressive. The look, the sound…..exquisite.

http://www.britishpathe.com/video/black-arrows-last-show

Maybe we could build a dozen new Spits and combine the BBMF and the aerobatic team. Seafires perhaps, – then we’d at least have some a/c for the daft carriers since that chimera, the JSF, has inevitably turned into a vastly expensive lemon. They’ll soon be wishing they’d fitted deck-gear to those carriers…..:stupid: