mauld,
Six more gorgeous You Tubes to look over ! Thank you, and thank
DaveReidUK,
India Four Two and
treadigraph (and
megan,
Terry McCassey , and
GQ2) for their 'gen', interest and comment.
The tale of my Spitfire OTU is told on the Thread mentioned in my #2 (Pages 123-125). Then I never flew a Spitfire again until a refresher on them on my return to tne RAF in '49. The following year, after conversion to Meteors, I was posted to 20 Sqdn, Valley, which flew a mixed bag of Spit XVIs and (inevitably !) Vampire IIIs and Vs until it disbanded in Sept '51.
Having watched your six UTs, I can cavil no more, must just say "Thanks"
again. How old are these pics ? But how beautifully the spotless, dent-less aircraft have been presented. They almost look polished ! (or was it a rub with an oily rag !?)
And congratulations to the pilots for their mostly impeccable 3-pointers (and one or two smooth rollers). For I well know that the Spit was as "floaty" and as skittish as any Tiger Moth - it's not easy and you have to be patient with them. Indeed, the feasability of a conversion TM direct to Spitfire has often been discussed: I think it is by no means out of the question, although
AFAIK it has never been tried.
And nice to see the Hurricane appear again. Far rarer now than the Spit, the last pic shows clearly one difference: you sat
on a Hurricane; you sat
in a Spit (or, more exactly, you put it on like a glove). Only had a handful of hours in the Hurricane, so can't comment.
Will now leave this Thread to return to my home territory. Cheers,
Danny42C
EDIT
mauld,
Your Pic 5 raises a whole host of questions. Were the opening scenes intended as a parody of "Dad's Army" (Get yer 'air cut !), and I liked the chap on guard (?) with a fag in his mouth. What were the rifles ? Not SMLEs, more like the Canadian "Ross" rifle, one of which I had as a member of a TA Rifle Club just after the war. Or were they stage "props" ?
And the "Armoured Car" - (prewar Austin Ten "Cambridge" saloon in lovely nick - I learned to drive in one just like that in '38). They were £185 new then, and in 1952 one of our Auxiliary officers at Thornaby paid £450 for a good s/h one.
D.
EDIT II,
Channel 4 (1930-2100 Sat 24th) showed "Guy Martin's Spitfire". Showed start-up procedure (cockpit picture) and the pilot manfully pumping the u/c down. I'd quite forgotten that the earliest Mk.Is had no hydraulic pump, you selected 'UP' or 'DOWN' yourself, but then had to "man the pumps" to get a result. There was at least one of these on my Flight at Hawarden as late as '42. (Flaps were driven by compressed air, which also operated wheel brakes and gun firing).
D.