Snoopy7422Why..?
Sounds pretty pointless to me, given one can just look on Wiki-balls. Having tried on many occasions to correct some of the utter rubbish on Wikipedia – and having had it vandalised by so-called ‘editors’ (Read ‘anoraks’), I regard Wiki as a sort of vague starting point. Trustworthy it is not…:rolleyes:
Snoopy7422‘Doom’
I am told that there is a local Cornish beer called ‘Doom’. This would seem to be appropriate under these conditions.
Nooo, that’s ‘Doom Bar’, and a very fine way to lubricate the tonsils it is….:diablo:
Snoopy7422Judgement Day.
I’m sure that these crates were excellent and fit for purpose. At the time, – and used as intended. There seems to be some underlying suggestion however, that they’d have faired well, buried. This is very doubtful, but we can live in hope – and Judgement Day is approaching rapidly now….
As I’ve said before, I had a great many of these cases – they were actually for Merlins, but very similar, perhaps even more robustly constructed – they were 100% softwood, with some Iron/Mild Steel elements. These had been stored above ground, yet were pretty rotten by the 1980’s, despite having roofing material applied to the tops. Whilst they were well-made, they were neither waterproof nor even airtight. The sides and top were covered with a bitumen-paper lining, stapled in place. No help underground, when all these crates, if they are there – will have certainly filled with water, or even been filled with water since burial, especially as we are now told that they were buried ‘in a creek’…..in a Monsoon climate.
If extra wood was put over the crates, as the crates failed, one would reasonably expect them to be just added weight, unless there were vertical load-bearing members, which seems unlikely, unless we are dealing with aviations ‘Oak Island Money Pit’….! :diablo:
Snoopy7422Ace.
Excellent documentary. Great that the dear old Vulcan went-out on a high note….! 🙂
Hard to believe it’s been so long. Let’s hope that sense has prevailed and that sufficient gear is now kept available locally to defend the islands….
Snoopy7422Fingers Crossed.
Well, there are some interesting ideas here…..! Clay can certainly keep out oxygen, but items from clay are usually filled with – clay, so it’s not as impervious as some think. The ground at SLIII was deep sand, and very free-draining, and of course, pretty cold.
The conditions in the tropics are as different as can be imagined. I’m not making any predictions, but I’d be pretty surprised if the cases haven’t been at least crushed. Then again, recently, there have been some interesting digs from the Great War that have unearthed wooden-lined tunnels still in amazing condition… I think there are a deceptively large number of variables.
I wish them the best of luck with this. Like most people, I’ve been pretty sceptical, but I actually enjoy being proved wrong, as it lifts some of my inate pessimism….:)
Snoopy7422From one flightless bird to another…
Here’s some close up photos of one of the “ten” model Lancasters produced for the new Dambusters film-
http://dambustersblog.com/category/peter-jackson/?blogsub=confirming#subscribe-blog
…this Link in there had me in stitches…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9T1vfsHYiKY
:p
Snoopy7422Really?
@DaveR;- It wasn’t my proposition that ‘the Sabre was more reliable than the Merlin by the end of the war’…it was yours…where is the evidence? 🙂
“(I am not saying that it doesn’t deserve every accolade it has, just not at the expense of the Sabre)”
Illogical.The Merlins reputation has never, ever, been at the expense of the Sabre…I think that’d be a new concept for most folks to start the New Year with. There were many, many other aero-engines that flew in the 1940’s. Few had the poor reputation of the Sabre…why single out the Merlin??? You can hardly blame the Merlin for the Sabres poor reputation.
I think the Sabre had it’s moment, it just didn’t last very long.:)
______________________
Anyway, we digress. My original question was to ask if any of the Typhoons shortcomings were transferred-across to the Tempest…
Snoopy7422Wishful Thinking.
I’m not a statistician, but I’d be more than a little surprised if any figures can be found to support the idea that the Sabre was more reliable than the Merlin…. I’m very sceptical…:) but I’ll be wonderfully amused if wrong.
That the Sabre was clever, novel and unusual is well known. It was also capable of a very high power-output, it also had undeveloped capacity to develop much, much more power. (Doubtless it’d have been eve less reliable then….). However, the Sabre didn’t get it’s poor reputation for nothing. Nor is it’s mixed reputation something dreamt-up by latter-day ‘experts’, it is entirely contemporary with it’s service career. These opinions were formed by people very much at the sharp, or oily end. I suspect that admiration for the beast today may be a tad rose-tinted…..:)
Talking to Typhoon pilots years ago, they related that to get a/c started reliably for early ops, meant that the hard-pressed ground-crews used to run the a/c-up late at night to get them hot, then cover the cowlings with blankets & sheets to try and keep some heat in them so they’d start on the morrow. I think a cocked-up start at any time meant a long delay before another attempt could be made…. Pilots would not only have to use Oxygen from start-up, but they’d normally have to taxy-out and run up the Sabre without strapping-in, just so that they could reach to wipe-off the copious amounts of oil from the windscreen… Never a huge problem with Merlins unless they were getting very clapped. I seem to also recall mention that the cockpit used to get very hot.
There is no argument whatever that the Sabre was introduced to service before it was sufficiently developed.
There is also no dispute that some of the early issues were ameliorated – by dint of huge efford at every level from government right down to the erks on the flightline. Was it ever ‘sorted’..? I doubt it.
The fact is, as soon as the war ended, virtually all Sabre-engined machines were disposed-of out of hand, even many, many brand-new a/c (Very telling.). This was not the case with the Merlin (Or Griffon.) which continued into the Jet-Age. (In the case of the Shack’ until relatively recently.)
As for correlating the RPM at which the Sabre produced it’s power – it’s totally irrelevant, except in so far as the monster wore-out more quickly…..! (Most Napiers revved their balls-off.) The Sabre did everything at higher RPM. Tempest-Nut is under the misconception that the Sabres RPM equates to it’s performance, when speed’s merely a function of the engines power-output versus drag.
In the annals of piston aero-engines, it’s something of a truism to say that lower-revving, long-legged engines have been better suited – and much more reliable. Even over recent decades, there have been many high-revving geared aero engines that have fallen by the wayside. No names, no pack drill….;)
Despite all their novel features, Napiers aero-engines all seem to have been viewed with justified caution. All of which, quite reasonably, does nothing to lessen the interest they generate.
Snoopy7422Now.
On BBC 1 6pm News now.
Snoopy7422Typhoon DNA….
Slight Thread -Drift, but;-
Given that the Typhoon suffered from so many problems, I’ve often wondered if any of them, DNA-like, were carried over onto the Napier-powered Tempest…?
-Certainly the new wing cured the problems with the limiting mach number.
-What about the fumes?
-The tail-end?
-As for the Sabre, although it was better in later versions, I can’t imagine it was ever really viewed as acceptable. The radial-engined Tempest must have been so much easier to live with. Quieter, less oil all over the windscreen, and it’d actually start….!
The u/c was different on the Tempest too. I always wondered why Hawkers went to the trouble of re-designing it…..?
Snoopy7422Love Them – now.
Yes, – Excellent. I made comment on some of these films in another thread. As a young man, I thought them rather corny, and horribly B&W. Now I see them quite differently. They were made relatively soon after the events, so the ‘feel’ is very good. The ‘attitude’, voices and accents are right too of course, as is, generally, the equipment, – more or less. Todays films can do better for colour, SFX etc. Modern stuff tends to struggle to depict the actual generation represented correctly.
It’s very gratifying when they do get things right though. 🙂
Snoopy7422..or…
Would you let this bloke fly your million dollar aircraft?, the camera man is either as stupid as the pilot or isn’t aware of the danger he is in.
…..or…..it could be that he’s a zillion-houred pilot who actually knows exactly what he’s doing. 🙂
Snoopy7422There was a lot….
Watching this film, I was reminded of a pals tales of the scrapping of Mosquitos in Palestine at the end of the war. A large number of brand-new Mossies had been flown-out there. Unfortunately, they had been left in direct sunlight for a long time, and the skins had warped/deteriorated badly, so they had been condemned. An RAF team was sent to the strip with a bulldozer to destroy them, with specific orders to take sledgehammers to smash the blocks of the engines. Directly I’d watched the film, he happened to ring me…spooky.
I’m also reminded of other stories of long lines of RAF a/c left in Egypt and Palestine at the end of the war, their crews having long been sent home. There were many many Wellingtons & Warwicks just left to rot.
Separately, I knew a chap that had been heavily involved in the clean-up in the desert conflict areas. a/c, tanks, MT etc. He always maintained that they’d been very thorough, but in any case, Arabs being Arabs, anything left usually got used/collected for scrap/salvage. Anything not guarded, up to and including MT, got pilferred.
It all seems a crying shame to us now, but in truth, they had a/c coming out of their ears after the war. There really was an awful lot…!
Snoopy7422Odds.
I think that it’s blatantly obvious that a good track record matters. It certainly ups the odds of a successful outcome. Ritchie and Tarantino are great at what they do best… Speilberg has a proven adaptability, one can’t say that about Ritchie.
One must try and keep an open mind, but I’m always in trepidation at any new aviation titles. Memhis Belle was pretty good even if it diverged from the facts rather. Dark Blue World was almost good, but skimping on the locations spoilt it rather.
As an earlier poster mentioned, the aircrews were a pretty decent bunch of guys. The trouble is, that authors try and pad-out the weaknesses in their writing by sprinkling-in a bunch of flawed characters, ala ‘Bomber’. This then creates a very distorted impression, that is as lasting as it is accessable.
Like I said before, the truth makes for ripping yarns, without any need for frivolous embellishment. The key is thorough research. 🙂
Snoopy7422Narrow.
I agree wholeheartedly with Max’. No one can take anything away from the folks involved with the Battle of France, BoB etc, but there is a disproportionate emphasis, that even those involved at the time were uncomfortable with. That of course, is only the war. The vast majority of what is now over one-hundred years of ‘Aviation History’ did not occur during the last war. Sure, a lot happened – and it was a crucial period, but, it’s rather like TV coverage of a cup-final only showing the cam’ focussed on the goalkeeper…. or like footie fans talking about ‘when we won the world cup’.
Not that any of this will deter those behind this I’m sure.
The article in the Sun makes reference to ‘Band of Brothers’ – actually, a good example of getting things right, – just to show that it can be done well. Speilberg was of course also behind ‘Finding Private Ryan’. I cannot, on the face of it, see anything it Ritchies back-catalogue that would suggest him for this project, other than that he might like flying. Well, it’s a start. 🙂
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