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Stepwilk

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December 21, 2018 at 8:48 pm in reply to: Rarest restorations currently underway? #829595

Stepwilk
Participant

“Having set this one running, I wonder if Mr Wilkinson will return to share his thoughts.”

My thoughts? I have no “thoughts” on the matter. I am simply collecting information. I see from subsequent posters that some people resent my doing this. They should avoid responding to my requests, then.

Oh, and Sabrejet, it’s a matter of simple economics. If I get paid $1,500 to write an article, I’m not spending $1,000 of it on a trip to Washington. I’m not a historian or an archivist, I’m simply a writer. My job is to communicate what information I can gather in as interesting a fashion as I can. Apparently, I’m pretty good at it, since the magazines for which I write pretty much give me a blank check to write as much and as often as I can. And I’ve been doing it for over 60 years.

For those who require a thank-you for their postings, I indeed do appreciate your participation.

November 17, 2018 at 10:45 pm in reply to: World speed record rules? #767175

Stepwilk
Participant

What was the rule changed to?

August 26, 2018 at 2:19 am in reply to: Bf 110s "needed their own escorts" a canard? #783225

Stepwilk
Participant

Who actually said the 110 needed escorts? Is stating this was said also an old canard?

I find that many casual WWII enthusiasts, if that’s the proper term, respond to a mention of the 110 by saying, “Oh, yeah, that’s the Messerschmitt that was so ineffectual as a bomber escort that it needed an escort itself.”

If you insist on a citation, my friend Bob said it. Or was it Zeke? Can’t remember…

August 24, 2018 at 8:39 pm in reply to: Bf 110s "needed their own escorts" a canard? #783527

Stepwilk
Participant

Yes, I know, but that wasn’t my question.

July 18, 2018 at 6:35 pm in reply to: Spitfire incident at Goodwood (July 18 2018) #802928

Stepwilk
Participant

That’s funny! The guy who posts that it was a “crosswind landing mishap” goes on to snipe at the media for not getting their stories “factually correct.” And then it turns out that the incident involved taxiing rather than landing. Let’s hope the media doesn’t need him as an expert witness. “Taxiing, landing, parking, short final…it’s all the same thing, innit?”

June 12, 2018 at 6:48 pm in reply to: Best French and Italian fighters? #784256

Stepwilk
Participant

“Best” as of when?

. Jeez, how specific do you need to be? I don’t need to know which fighters were “best” for a few days in 1940. If a fighter was that limited, forget it.

September 17, 2017 at 4:44 am in reply to: Piper PA-33 prototype information. #832801

Stepwilk
Participant

John Boyle, I’m flattered that you should think I’m any kind of expert here, even though I owned a Comanche 250 and appreciate the Frati reference in the above post, since I built a Falco. But I don’t remember ever hearing anything about a pressurized Comanche when I was at Flying. My only excuse is that this airplane apparently flew a year or two before I went to Flying, when I was still a baby pilot and barely knew what a Comanche was.

However my pal Dick Collins, with whom I’m still in occasional touch, would know everything about this airplane and then some, and probably flew it.

September 8, 2017 at 7:48 pm in reply to: Elsan (toilet) stands for what? #836546

Stepwilk
Participant

Thanks, all. I went to that site originally but missed the history part.

September 5, 2017 at 5:11 pm in reply to: Lancaster tail-turret ammo load? #837624

Stepwilk
Participant

Far too many lazy writers about.

It depends whether you’re writing for a relatively casual, popular audience or for a more scholarly crowd. There are writers who, for example, will provide day, date, time, squadron number, aircraft call sign and everything else they can think of to slow up the narrative, plus footnotes and obscure references. I, for one, try not to do that, since I am not writing for a scholarly audience.

Far too many non-writer critics about.

September 3, 2017 at 3:01 pm in reply to: Lancaster tail-turret ammo load? #838473

Stepwilk
Participant

From the photos I’ve seen, it was not armor directly in front of the gunner but a sheet of Perspex. That is what was stripped out to give the tail gunner a “clear vision panel.” (Armor may well have been stripped out as well, I don’t know.) It was initially done by gunners acting on their own and then became standard. So the clear vision “panel” is in fact the absence of a panel. It didn’t help that the Lanc had an abysmal heating system and that the tail gunner was most neglected of all; removing this Perspex made the turret all the colder. I’ve read of gunners finding themselves with hands literally too cold to operate the triggers.

August 29, 2017 at 8:03 pm in reply to: Glen Miller Wasn't Killed By RAF Lancasters? #839974

Stepwilk
Participant

Dennis Spragg may be a historian but he’s obviously a nonpilot and not particularly knowledgeable about aviation. If you’re on the ground looking up at a Norseman cruising at 5,000 feet, does it look like “an indistinct flyspeck”? Hardly. But that’s what Spragg claims a Norseman seen from 5,000 feet above would appear to be. Also, the primary danger from icing is not that “it makes the engine stop working properly.” That would be carburetor ice.

July 11, 2017 at 3:07 pm in reply to: Amelia in the news again..bit more interesting this time #797060

Stepwilk
Participant

The infamous Amelia-and-Fred-on-the-dock photo appears in a Japanese travel book that was published in 1935, two years before Amelia’s flight. So much for that theory.

May 20, 2017 at 10:39 pm in reply to: Was a DH Hornet prepared for Air Racing? #824041

Stepwilk
Participant

No, we never talked about it. I only knew that in his earlier years–I knew him in the 1970s, when he owned a large bush/airline operation based in Resolute–he’d flown a Hornet doing aerial mapping. So if this was the only Hornet operating in Canada, it had to be the one Weldy flew.

If you’re interested, you can read a lengthy Flying Magazine article that I wrote about Weldy here:

https://books.google.com/books?id=AMAfhgODz60C&pg=PA63&lpg=PA63&dq=weldy+phipps&source=bl&ots=0dVMhBZ5NU&sig=2SopHpDWcU4lpBswOCKf18PitAo&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjhmu7-tv_TAhVHSyYKHebACNQ4ChDoAQgqMAI#v=onepage&q=weldy%20phipps&f=false

May 20, 2017 at 3:48 am in reply to: Was a DH Hornet prepared for Air Racing? #824229

Stepwilk
Participant

There was one Sea Hornet TT193/CF-GUO being operated in Canada, initially for cold weather trials, and latterly as a privately owned aerial mapping aircraft.

My late friend Weldy Phipps used to fly that Hornet.

March 25, 2017 at 2:34 am in reply to: More proof that it wasn't the Whirlwind's engines, and a question. #780278

Stepwilk
Participant

I’m a Contributing Editor of Aviation History Magazine, in the U. S. How about doing an article for us on the matter? Talk to me: [email]stephwilkinson@verizon.net[/email]
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