A silly question from a budding metal shaper (Matt machine guns those in the crowd who snigger):

How do you know what shapes to make them?

If you can’t fix it with a hammer, it’s an electrical problem.

I’ll apologise in advance for hijacking this thread to a certain degree, but the previous mention of ‘Flyboys’ got me thinking about WW1 aviation films. Bluntly: I can’t think of a good one. By this, I mean one that doesn’t feature salutes to the chivalrous foe as he goes down in flames, or the lace-clad Mademoiselle tearfully waving her brave pilote adieu as he sets forth to battle the Boche wearing her silk scarf round his neck.

I’m not sure there’s a box-office market for air-war films anymore.

Thoughts?

Allow me to offer my thoughts on this topic which, I suspect, will rage for many, many pages!

My reply to anyone who tries to take me to task on this (generally folk who ‘know all about the war’ having watched Tom Cruise in Valkyrie) is to quote the leaflets dropped on Cologne during the first 1000 plane raid:

“The offensive of the RAF in its new form has begun”

In other words, they were warned.

The smug thoughts and comments of modern-day historians and ‘revisionists’ continue to leave me flabbergasted.

Go to your Town Hall (City Hall?) and you should find records there with the Historical Society.

Sting? Stick? Could he be saying that he first grabbed the gunsight and stick to brace himself…

Andy beat me to it! All of the previous suggestions are completely feasible, except I’ve never read or heard of anything in a gun turret referred to as a ‘sting’. Maybe this was a piece of slang particular to this squadron or even his gunnery instructor?

If I might quote from “They Hosed Them Out” by John Beede, referring to his first op in a Wellington rear turret:

“I tried the control stick and swung the guns in an arc to check they were working…”

Interesting puzzle!

None of the airplanes in those photos are potential collector’s items, except perhaps for the Twin Beech, but even they are a dime a dozen in the condition shown, at least in the U. S.

There was a time when Mustangs, Corsairs, B17s, B29s, Halifaxes, Stirlings and Lancasters were a dime a dozen, too!

Yeah, that’s if they can squeeze past the crates of WLD Harley Davidsons and the six Chinese Short Stirlings….