Winter Aviation Viewing...

Started by RogMason, November 30, 2018, 11:29:55 AM

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RogMason

Gentlemen, 
As the flying season winds down - except for mad snow bunnies, owls such as Andy H and Bruce W, it might be a time to swop interesting aviation video links that we can watch as we huddle by the fireside with our slippers on, smoking our pipes and sipping our whiskey?

Here's one for starters -  An aeroplane that could break the sound barrier in a vertical climb.  E.E. Lightning fans, hold on to your seats.  It covers the design and development of a very special and impressive aircraft, through to it's eventual stand-down from defense duties in the late 1980's.  Still an impressive aircraft with a blistering performance that is hard to match to this day. 

Enjoy...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_w34PMS4QtM
'Roger That...'

Andy Hoffer

Superb piece of work.  What a delight to listen to the guys who actually flew these incredible machines, especially their views on the often subsonic government decisions.  Some things never change!  Thanks for posting this Roger.

Andy

RogMason

Too true Andy. A class system in aviation management kept upper class twit managers disconnected from the reality of designing and building aeroplanes, combined with Government blundering and union unrest fueled by Trotsky sympathizers, was just too much for the industry to bear.
For those who haven't already done so, a great read that uncovers the brilliance in design and blunders in management, is the following book:

Empire of the Clouds: When Britain's Aircraft Ruled the World
by James Hamilton-Paterson

In 1945 Britain was the world's leading designer and builder of aircraft - a world-class achievement that was not mere rhetoric. And what aircraft they were. The sleek Comet, the first jet airliner. The awesome delta-winged Vulcan, an intercontinental bomber that could be thrown about the sky like a fighter. The Hawker Hunter, the most beautiful fighter-jet ever built and the Lightning, which could zoom ten miles above the clouds in a couple of minutes and whose pilots rated flying it as better than sex.

How did Britain so lose the plot that today there is not a single aircraft manufacturer of any significance in the country? What became of the great industry of de Havilland or Handley Page? And what was it like to be alive in that marvellous post-war moment when innovative new British aircraft made their debut, and pilots were the rock stars of the age?

James Hamilton-Paterson captures that season of glory in a compelling book that fuses his own memories of being a schoolboy plane spotter with a ruefully realistic history of British decline - its loss of self confidence and power. It is the story of great and charismatic machines and the men who flew them: heroes such as Bill Waterton, Neville Duke, John Derry and Bill Beaumont who took inconceivable risks, so that we could fly without a second thought
'Roger That...'