Goggles were worn for many of the reasons stated above during the war. However there were other reasons. Although pilots flying at very low level did not – and do not like to wear goggles, if an a/c was hit, at any altitude, the gale blowing through the fuselage would whip-up a load of filth from the floor of the a/c, carried-in on muddy boots.
Factory test pilots made a habit of testing with goggles because of the presence of swarf in the cockpit. Again, however, at very low level goggles were not favoured.
Many years ago, I got a shard of swarf lodged in my eye, and it took a small operation to remove it. More recently, I had an engineer do some work in the cockpit of an aerobatic a/c. I was very specific about not dropping swarf from drilling. Despite this, and despite vacuuming the cockpit out four times, every time I aerobatted it for months afterwards, some more swarf materialised and I was glad I was wearing goggles. One may well imagine the effect of getting a load of much in ones eyes at low-level, at night, under combat conditions. Nasty.

Interesting, as I’d often wondered about this too. Sad to reflect upon the sad demise of so many of the pre-war aviation heroes and heroines. Many met an ignominious end. Unfortunately, since technical improvements at the time were so meteoric, once the war had started, there were thousands of kids meeting and exeeding the exploits of the ‘Greats’. After the war, no one wanted to know about the 1930’s.

…….then all you need is a kite to fit it in…!

Good Stuff.

What an interesting thread. It’s very rare that I can be bothered to read one from beginning to end these days, but this was well worth it. I can claim no specialist knowledge on the content of this thread but would make a few comments.
Mitchells bomber project has always intrigued me. I have yet to see more than a few thumbnails and sketches. It’s hard to draw many conclusions from such poor material. It seems clear that Mitchells death, the bombing of the works and the outdated capacity for only small bombs (Not to mention so many competing platforms.) put paid to what was otherwise an interesting design.
The reason that I’m so skeptical of these thumbnails is that, given the core reason for the Spitfires success and longevity (i.e; The thin wing.) then it follows that Mitchell would have sought to carry this over to the bomber. This can’t really be seen in thumbnails and sketches. This, along with the smaller cross-section of the fuselage and the drag-reducing turrets would probably been at the core of Mitchells thinking. He did, after all, have previous form for making fast machines. For these reasons I doubt that the radial-engines would have been included in his original design. He didn’t make rash claims for the Spitfire’s performance, so there isn’t any reason to think that Mitchell hadn’t got sound facts upon which to base his claims.

The Stirling has been mentioned a few times. There has been a propensity over recent time to ‘rehabilitate’ this machine. One might argue that the lack of a surviving example is a preservational faux-pas, but that does not make it a good a/c, even by the standards of the time. It was, to many, a carbuncle, with a blatantly oversized fuselage on a far too small a wing. The great length of the fuselage necessitated carrying around a vast, heavy, cumbersome undercarriage. Little wonder it was too heavy and underpowered. It looked like it had been designed by a committee. It’s bomb-bay was shallow, and bombed-up it had a poor ceiling and was relegated to use as a target-tug (What year..?). I used to fly with an old lag who had been a pilot on Stirlings in his youth. He wasn’t very complimentary about the Stirling at all…..! I’m sure that the aircraft was good for moral at the time, but as a machine to go to war in…… The Lanc’ wasn’t just a bit better, it was in another league.

It’s interesting to contemplate what might have happened to Mitchells design had the effort that was put into the Stirling been lavished upon it…. It may well have in fact proven to be fast, but it’d never been have been able to carry the outsized ordnance that the Lanc’ did. There was always work for the Lanc’.

In the event, the Mosquito came relatively close to what Mitchell was aiming for. As I have argued many times before, had the powers that be not been wed to outdated dogma, they’d have used most of the effort that went into the four-engined heavies on more Mosquitos – and probably saved material, wastage and the lives of thousands of aircrew…… Mosquito losses were, percentage wise, a mere fraction of the losses on the lumbering heavies, so Mitchell was clearly thinking along the right lines.

Pobjoys.

Stan,
There seem to be a lot of Pobjoys that have survived in Oz. Ex-Scion & such like I expect. There was a guy there a few years ago who had a load of them in the corner of a hangar, but I’ve no idea where they ended-up…. I’m sure some of the Aussies on here will have heard something…:)

S6B.

I don’t know much, but they have an original S6A here;-

http://www.solentskymuseum.org/page_2493568.html

JDM used to produce an r/c model S6B at about 1:5 which flew very well indeed. These still come-up on eBay unmade from time to time.

Mag article here…drngs…?

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/IAN-ALLAN-AIRCRAFT-ILLUSTRATED-EXTRA-4-SUPERMARINE-S6B-SPITFIRE-BRISTOL-BULL-/151020035508?pt=UK_Magazines&hash=item23297eddb4

Profile Publications here…

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Profile-Publications-39-The-Supermarine-S4-S6B-/160995385495?pt=US_Nonfiction_Book&hash=item257c12a097

It’s hard to imagine that there aren’t some decent drawings available….keep looking..! 🙂