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Old 5th Feb 2020, 18:35
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NutLoose
 
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Originally Posted by Fortissimo
Eons ago at RAF Stanley we had a very impressive book classified 'SECRET UK EYES A' and 'AIRCREW EYES ONLY'. It contained - amongst other things which were indeed properly classified - a recce guide to Argentinian air assets that still bore the page references of its source. (Date) Flight International (page) along with the suitably exotic red over-stamp top and bottom. I politely asked the owner of the book what was classified about something published in Flight. His reply? "The fact that we are using it!"
i remember a similar tale when the F-4 Phantom came out, flight sent a couple of guys to look around the factory, one was the cutaway artist, afterwards the cutaway artist and the guy sat down and working from their visit and what the knew off its components produced a reasonable cutaway drawing which was published in flight, they were then visited by men in dark suits and glasses asking who had provided them with the secret drawings to produce the drawing, they told them it was all a guestimate based on panel lines etc..... Following on many moons later the artist revisited McDonnell and was pleased to see a blown up picture of his drawing being used in the spares department as reference. Such was the guestimates accuracy.

Last edited by NutLoose; 5th Feb 2020 at 18:49.
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