Thank you. chaps!
To fredhjj (#2321)
Yes, there seems to have been a very wide spread of total hours to Wings, depending on where and when you were trained, and by whom. The Arnold Scheme people seem to have worked to a fixed figure of 200 hours.
You're a lucky man to have a full set of Tee Emm. What comes across to me is the unspoken assumption that runs from the very beginning - we were going to win, no matter how long it took. I was there, and it was like that. It reminds me of Queen Victoria: "We are not interested in the possibilities of defeat. They do not exist".
Yes, I remember seeing the little spring flap on the wing strut on some Tiggies.
It was a simple idea (and there was no pitot tube to forget to take the cover off), but I would think they were hard to read in the air.
To Chugalug (#2323)
The links you found are very interesting. But five hangars at Carlstrom? I can't recall any! What use would I have been as a Boy Scout? It's not as if a hangar is hard to see!
The Daniel Collection is useful, until you come to the picture purporting to show a reconstruction of a PT-17 panel. I could write a book!
a) Panel Compass? Possibly, but can't remember one. We certainly never needed one.
b) An ASI redlined at 235mph! We had no ASI. And the wings would have come off at little more than half that speed. This has come off another aircraft.
c) Needle & Ball? Yes.
d) Altimeter? Yes.
e) RPM? Yes - but surely not showing up to 4500! This has come off something else, like b).
f) Clock? Possibly, can't remember. Don't think so.
g) Triple gauge? Certainly not - this has come off something bigger and far more sophisticated. For a start, what use would a fuel pressure gauge be in a gravity fed system? It's a total stranger here.
To summarise: the panel may well have come out of a PT-17, but the contents are a very mixed bag indeed. They may have been sold to Mr Daniel as the instruments which went into a PT-17 panel, and he has captioned his photo as such, but I'm afraid he's been "had".
Thanks again for steering me on to these links.
Might do a bit more of my story soon. But where are all the others? They were trained in the UK, Canada, Rhodesia, and all sorts of little places. Come out from the woodwork - you haven't much time left!
Danny42C
Last edited by Danny42C; 19th Feb 2012 at 17:22.