I should probably have posted this on the "a good military read" thread, but I'm not inclined to list any books. I've spent quite a while recently reading books based during or after WW2. My current one relates to a chap who is flying from Khormakser in Hunters in the 60s. One common thread across everything I have read seems to be the willingness of people to do their bit for our country when there is a real threat. I'm damn sure that here are still many who join the RAF for such reasons, I suspect it is becoming a career step primarily in modern times. However, my musing led me to think mainly of the era 40 - 90s and the "frailty" or otherwise of aircraft through the ages. Having followed this thread from inception, I would suggest that many a contributor has suggested the weaknesses of our aircraft, but few have seen many advantages. I suppose the Lancaster may have been an exception, but then, after the Manchester I reckon a big sigh of relief came along with its introduction. For my own part I was lucky enough to actually do some structural work on both the Spitfire and the Lancaster, and was surprised at the delicacy of structures, driven I suppose by wartime shortages of material, as compared to the C130 which I am mainly familiar with, which was certainly more robustly engineered, but threw up many structural challenges.
Perhaps there are people, either aircrew or maintenance people, who can give us some insight into "confidence" in structures and engineering aircraft that crew such as Danny may well have flown since the early forties. As I said, maybe a divergence from the "Gaining a Brevet" theme, but could surely provide some interesting anecdotal engineering input that would support why the guys who did gain that Brevet had our respect then and now.
Smudge
