spit and camel

[flybob]

My sopwith mutt

My SOPWITH MUTT 13 inch span 14 grams

 

[Eleven]

No no noooooooooo!! The SE5a remained in service until the end of the war,
I stand corrected, I was under the mistaken impression that the Se5 was the workhorse prior to the Camel, not a contemporary. What was the Air Corp flyng before that? Avro's Bristols?

 

[Nickodell]

There were a succession of Sopwiths prior to the Camel - e.g. the Pup and the Strutter (full name One and a Half Strutter, from its unique wing strut arrangement), plus the RE8 (affectionately known as the Harry Tate [Cockney rhyming slang] after a well-known vaudeville comedian of that name), the BE2C and several others.

German designs were always just ahead of their British and French counterparts until the Camel and SE5a. Ironically, Anthony Fokker originally offered to design fighters for the British, but was turned down. The Germans welcomed him. Trivia: The Fokker Triplane was essentially cribbed from the earlier Sopwith Triplane (known as the "Tripe.")

Two-seater observation and bombing planes were fairly easy meat for a well-handled single-seat fighter. There was one famous exception, the Bristol Fighter ("Brisfit") which had such good performance, handling and defensive armament that it could often hold its own, and like the SE5A continued in service until 1932. By 1918 it had been regarded as the best fighter on either side, a unique achievement for a 2-seater. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bristol_F.2_Fighter

Interestingly, there is a supercar of the same name:

http://www.autozine.org/html/Bristol/Fighter.html

 

[skywords]

My SOPWITH MUTT 13 inch span 14 grams

Hey Flybob
That's a nice model, I bet it flys great. Do you fly it indoors or out?

 

[skywords]

There were a succession of Sopwiths prior to the Camel - e.g. the Pup and the Strutter (full name One and a Half Strutter, from its unique wing strut arrangement), plus the RE8 (affectionately known as the Harry Tate [Cockney rhyming slang] after a well-known vaudeville comedian of that name), the BE2C and several others.

German designs were always just ahead of their British and French counterparts until the Camel and SE5a. Ironically, Anthony Fokker originally offered to design fighters for the British, but was turned down. The Germans welcomed him. Trivia: The Fokker Triplane was essentially cribbed from the earlier Sopwith Triplane (known as the "Tripe.")

Two-seater observation and bombing planes were fairly easy meat for a well-handled single-seat fighter. There was one famous exception, the Bristol Fighter ("Brisfit") which had such good performance, handling and defensive armament that it could often hold its own, and like the SE5A continued in service until 1932. By 1918 it had been regarded as the best fighter on either side, a unique achievement for a 2-seater. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bristol_F.2_Fighter

Interestingly, there is a supercar of the same name:

http://www.autozine.org/html/Bristol/Fighter.html

Nick I believe I stood next to one at The RAF museum at Duxford. That was a hundred years ago. BP (before Plavix)

 

[Nickodell]

I took my son over to Europe in 1992 for my parents' Diamond Wedding (60 years) anniversary, and also to several WWI (e.g. Verdun) and WWII (e.g. Normandy, Omaha Beach, St. Mere Eglise) and finally to Duxford. One unique museum.

Did you see the 12,000lb Tallboy, 22,000lb Grand Slam and Dams bombs when you were there? I will have an article "The Dams and Beyond" next year in Aviation History magazine, featuring the dams and such later feats of 617 Squadron as sinking the Tirpitz. (I have an earlier one, due in 8 months, called "The Race for the Jet"). My faithful readers will be offered copies, as usual.

 

[skywords]

I took my son over to Europe in 1992 for my parents' Diamond Wedding (60 years) anniversary, and also to several WWI (e.g. Verdun) and WWII (e.g. Normandy, Omaha Beach, St. Mere Eglise) and finally to Duxford. One unique museum.

Did you see the 12,000lb Tallboy, 22,000lb Grand Slam and Dams bombs when you were there? I will have an article "The Dams and Beyond" next year in Aviation History magazine, featuring the dams and such later feats of 617 Squadron as sinking the Tirpitz. (I have an earlier one, due in 8 months, called "The Race for the Jet"). My faithful readers will be offered copies, as usual.

I remmeber a cylindrical shaped bomb sitting under a Lancaster was that it? I remember the movie Dam Busters. I look forward to your articles

 

[Nickodell]

I remmeber a cylindrical shaped bomb sitting under a Lancaster was that it? I remember the movie Dam Busters. I look forward to your articles

Yes, that was it. In the original movie they had to change the shape of the bomb as it was still on the Secret List. An Australian guy is in the process of making a new Dam Busters movie. I just hope that they don't succumb to the usual pressure, in order to appeal more to the financially-essential US market, to include an American actor as one of the key characters, or even invent fake ones, (as in The Great Escape, 633 Squadron, The Man Who Never Was, Bridge on the River Kwai, Mutiny on the Bounty and many others). I cringe at the thought of Tom Cuise as Guy Gibson.

This is not an anti-American rant, just a plea for historical accuracy. There was only one American in 617 Squadron, Bill McCarthy from Brooklyn. There were no Americans in the escape from Stalag Luft III; they were very much involved in digging the three tunnels, Tom, Dick and Harry, but were all transferred out before the excape.

It could have been worse. The studio wanted Marlon Brando to play Laurence of Arabia, but he was under contract to another studio. Can you imagine him mumbling (a la Godfather) to Omar Shariff: "Prince Ali, we're goin' to take Akaba"?

Trivia: Some 35 years ago they drained the Mohne lake for maintenance, and found an unexploded Dam's bomb (more accurately, mine) resting at the base, as it had for 32 years. An RAF EOD team was dispatched to disarm it (luckily, the specifications had been kept). This finally solved the mystery of one more bomb having been dropped than the explosions counted.

 

[Series6]

Nick,

So I take it you were less than impressed with Kevin Costner playing Robin Hood? Geez....

I always get a grin when all the Romans in a movie have British accents. The commanders talk like Richard Burton and the grunt troopers sound like Michael Caine. "Right! Now load them bloody catapults and and lets be done with them barbarians." "Ryght you are Sgt Major!"

 

[Nickodell]

Nick,

So I take it you were less than impressed with Kevin Costner playing Robin Hood? Geez....

I always get a grin when all the Romans in a movie have British accents. The commanders talk like Richard Burton and the grunt troopers sound like Michael Caine. "Right! Now load them bloody catapults and and lets be done with them barbarians." "Ryght you are Sgt Major!"

Funnily enough, many linguists hold that the modern American (say MidWest) accent is quite likely nearer to the English one spoken in the Middle Ages (around the time of R. Hood, whether myth or reality). And even centuries later. Some years ago I heard a BBC program on the subject, and they played a scratchy wax-cylinder recording of British Prime Minister William Gladstone, made around 1870, and he has a distinct "Yank" twang.

So it is not beyond reason that the British English accent has changed more in the last 200 years than the American one.

Since we're merrily wandering from the original subject, I'll add one more. Nobody, of course, has the slightest idea what Latin pronunciation would have been in its ancient Rome original. When I was taking it in high school, the master we had for two years favored the familiar one - i.e. Julius Caesar would be pronounced JEWLYUS SEEZR. Then we had a staff change, and for the next three years the class was taught by one who favored a different pronunciation system. It was explained that the letter "J" is a quite recent adaptation of "I" and the "C" a variation of "K," so old Julius was now to be known as HWELIUS KYESAR (ergo, Jesus is YEYSU, and so on. In many languages today the J has been recast as I or Y. For example, John in Welsh is pronounced YAYAN, in Irish SHAWN, in Scottish IAN, and in many Central and Eastern European languages YAN.)