Gaining An R.A.F Pilots Brevet In WW II
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Ormeside (Your #6585),
Very happy to have you back ! (Now Horatius has a man on each side again - the Bridge is still kept - even the ranks of Tuscany scarce forbore to cheer).
Yes, we do want to hear about your escapades with 120 in furrin' parts ! Be happy and oblige, please (there aren't so many WWII people around that we can afford to lose any of our stories) After Christmas will do nicely.
Meanwhile, all the Compliments of the Season,
Danny.
Very happy to have you back ! (Now Horatius has a man on each side again - the Bridge is still kept - even the ranks of Tuscany scarce forbore to cheer).
Yes, we do want to hear about your escapades with 120 in furrin' parts ! Be happy and oblige, please (there aren't so many WWII people around that we can afford to lose any of our stories) After Christmas will do nicely.
Meanwhile, all the Compliments of the Season,
Danny.
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Gaining An R.A.F. pilots Brevet in WW 11
Thank you Danny. am returning to Wild Wales after New Year. I hope that you will enjoy Christmas and 2015, and will try to send 120 and 205 stories.
The Inscrutable East
I must be simple, but cannot see anything difficult about that that 'Japanese' compass:
Seems a nice & simple wheeze to read off degrees in 100's and just add on up to 100 more off the detailed scale, which gives one's heading.
Makes the usual but unwieldy lumps of 90's into a a familiar transcription - assuming Japanese schools used arabic numerals and denary maths.
Happy Christmas,
mike hallam (West Sussex)
- BTW got the 80 hp Rans S6-116 airborne off the soft grass here today to successfully trial my kid's present to me, a pair of low pressure 'Tundra' tyres, fitted last w/end
Seems a nice & simple wheeze to read off degrees in 100's and just add on up to 100 more off the detailed scale, which gives one's heading.
Makes the usual but unwieldy lumps of 90's into a a familiar transcription - assuming Japanese schools used arabic numerals and denary maths.
Happy Christmas,
mike hallam (West Sussex)
- BTW got the 80 hp Rans S6-116 airborne off the soft grass here today to successfully trial my kid's present to me, a pair of low pressure 'Tundra' tyres, fitted last w/end
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Putting it back where it came from.
harrym,
My only connection with the Dakota was as a grateful passenger (after landing that is; it is notorious that pilots make very nervous pax indeed in the landing phase. Bereft of their parachutes, their noses pressed to the perspex and uttering (none too quietly) anguished cries such as "NOW what's he doing ?" and "FOOL - he'll kill us all !", they generally caused Alarm and Despondency in the cabin.
All the Daks I ever watched landing seem to use the same technique: bring it in low and slow with full flap and a fair amount of power on, wheel it, power off and let the tail drop of its own accord. Having said that, all my trips would be on the "East Mail" (Dum Dum, Chittagong and all points East) or the "West Mail" (Dum Dum - Allahabad - Delhi). It was an airline operation in all but name, all runways long, paved and smooth.
I can imagine how you, on your temporary kutcha strips, which were none of the above, might well come unstuck and go into kangaroo mode if you'd brought it in that way. Short of stalling it in like a Tiger Moth "daisy-cutter", I would suppose that your best bet would be to stuff the nose hard down to "wheelbarrow" it until it could no longer fly. Then it would be a nice balance on the brakes between nuzzling the strip or going off the far end into the bundoo.
Sooner you than me ! My VVs much preferred the ground to the air, only flew reluctantly and were all too happy to stay down when they got back. I have only a few hours on the Meteor, but was told it was unique in that it would break before it would bounce. Didn't try it and don't know if it's true.
I think our Daks were "plated" at 5500 lb max payload. Wiki gives the gross weight as 25,199 lb (DC-3 - which I think is the same thing). I seem to remember someone on this Thread saying that we operated them at 31,000 lb AUW, which (if true) would be an enormous overload. But I can't find the quotation now.
And I'll be interested to see the Japanese Compass. I suppose that, if they liked using it, that's all that mattered. "De gustibus......!"
All the best for Christmas. Enjoy your trip and come back safe,
Danny.
My only connection with the Dakota was as a grateful passenger (after landing that is; it is notorious that pilots make very nervous pax indeed in the landing phase. Bereft of their parachutes, their noses pressed to the perspex and uttering (none too quietly) anguished cries such as "NOW what's he doing ?" and "FOOL - he'll kill us all !", they generally caused Alarm and Despondency in the cabin.
All the Daks I ever watched landing seem to use the same technique: bring it in low and slow with full flap and a fair amount of power on, wheel it, power off and let the tail drop of its own accord. Having said that, all my trips would be on the "East Mail" (Dum Dum, Chittagong and all points East) or the "West Mail" (Dum Dum - Allahabad - Delhi). It was an airline operation in all but name, all runways long, paved and smooth.
I can imagine how you, on your temporary kutcha strips, which were none of the above, might well come unstuck and go into kangaroo mode if you'd brought it in that way. Short of stalling it in like a Tiger Moth "daisy-cutter", I would suppose that your best bet would be to stuff the nose hard down to "wheelbarrow" it until it could no longer fly. Then it would be a nice balance on the brakes between nuzzling the strip or going off the far end into the bundoo.
Sooner you than me ! My VVs much preferred the ground to the air, only flew reluctantly and were all too happy to stay down when they got back. I have only a few hours on the Meteor, but was told it was unique in that it would break before it would bounce. Didn't try it and don't know if it's true.
I think our Daks were "plated" at 5500 lb max payload. Wiki gives the gross weight as 25,199 lb (DC-3 - which I think is the same thing). I seem to remember someone on this Thread saying that we operated them at 31,000 lb AUW, which (if true) would be an enormous overload. But I can't find the quotation now.
And I'll be interested to see the Japanese Compass. I suppose that, if they liked using it, that's all that mattered. "De gustibus......!"
All the best for Christmas. Enjoy your trip and come back safe,
Danny.
The Fabulous DC-3 (C-47)
Seasons Greetings to all the esteemed contributors (and also to the silent majority who follow all that is revealed) on this - the doyen of threads.
Danny, your last:
I think our Daks were "plated" at 5500 lb max payload. Wiki gives the gross weight as 25,199 lb (DC-3 - which I think is the same thing). I seem to remember someone on this Thread saying that we operated them at 31,000 lb AUW, which (if true) would be an enormous overload. But I can't find the quotation now.
One of my great Pilot/Writer heroes is the late, great, Captain Len Morgan who many readers will remember for his "Famous Aircraft Series". In his Douglas DC-3 Book Len tells us that when he flew the C-47 in wartime it was a case of:
"If it would fit through a C-47's cargo doors and didn't bring the gross weight to more than 27,500 pounds, we hauled it. If it ran the weight up an extra 500 or 1000 or so pounds, we falsified the load sheets and went anyway".
Post-war when he was flying the DC-3 for Brannif he was to find that the gross load was limited to 25,200 pounds which he says was "hardly half a load".
I have before me a reprint of the WW2 Army Air Force (Foreword by General H.A.P. Arnold) 'Pilot Training Manual for the C-47' (95 pages). On page 11 (Weights) I read the following:
Empty
C-47......17,087 lbs
C-47A....17,257 lbs
Recommended takeoff, maximum gross
29,300 lbs
Restricted takeoff, maximum gross
31,000 lbs
Recommended landing, maximum gross
26,000 lbs
So the USAAF would let you land one at a higher weight than the Airlines would let you takeoff with!
Truly one of the greatest flying machines ever made.
Mother reminds me that my first airline trip (aged 3) was by Aer Lingus Dakota (C-47) from Ringway (Manchester) to the Isle of Man, and thus I was hooked for life!
Now, lovely aromas are floating my way from the kitchen, so Gents. (and Ladies, of course) I raise my glass to you - Peace and goodwill to all.
Ian B-B
Danny, your last:
I think our Daks were "plated" at 5500 lb max payload. Wiki gives the gross weight as 25,199 lb (DC-3 - which I think is the same thing). I seem to remember someone on this Thread saying that we operated them at 31,000 lb AUW, which (if true) would be an enormous overload. But I can't find the quotation now.
One of my great Pilot/Writer heroes is the late, great, Captain Len Morgan who many readers will remember for his "Famous Aircraft Series". In his Douglas DC-3 Book Len tells us that when he flew the C-47 in wartime it was a case of:
"If it would fit through a C-47's cargo doors and didn't bring the gross weight to more than 27,500 pounds, we hauled it. If it ran the weight up an extra 500 or 1000 or so pounds, we falsified the load sheets and went anyway".
Post-war when he was flying the DC-3 for Brannif he was to find that the gross load was limited to 25,200 pounds which he says was "hardly half a load".
I have before me a reprint of the WW2 Army Air Force (Foreword by General H.A.P. Arnold) 'Pilot Training Manual for the C-47' (95 pages). On page 11 (Weights) I read the following:
Empty
C-47......17,087 lbs
C-47A....17,257 lbs
Recommended takeoff, maximum gross
29,300 lbs
Restricted takeoff, maximum gross
31,000 lbs
Recommended landing, maximum gross
26,000 lbs
So the USAAF would let you land one at a higher weight than the Airlines would let you takeoff with!
Truly one of the greatest flying machines ever made.
Mother reminds me that my first airline trip (aged 3) was by Aer Lingus Dakota (C-47) from Ringway (Manchester) to the Isle of Man, and thus I was hooked for life!
Now, lovely aromas are floating my way from the kitchen, so Gents. (and Ladies, of course) I raise my glass to you - Peace and goodwill to all.
Ian B-B
Seasons Greetings
A very Merry Christmas and a Happy and Prosperous New Year to all contributers and readers of this most wonderful of threads.
Lang may yer lum reek even in these days of central heating.
Lang may yer lum reek even in these days of central heating.
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General H.A.P. Arnold. U.S. Army Air Corps.
Ian Burgess-Barber,
All my life I've thought that "Hap" was just a nickname ! (he created the "Arnold Scheme"; this took some 7,000 RAF LACS for pilot training in the States: we got about 4,000 pilots back. I was one of them('41/'42).
YLSNED ! All the best for the New Year,
Danny.
All my life I've thought that "Hap" was just a nickname ! (he created the "Arnold Scheme"; this took some 7,000 RAF LACS for pilot training in the States: we got about 4,000 pilots back. I was one of them('41/'42).
YLSNED ! All the best for the New Year,
Danny.
Christmas confusion!
Danny,
apologies - you are right - Hap, short for happy was his nickname, his name was Henry Harly Arnold, although as I look at his signature on the foreword of the training manual, it does look as if he signed it as 'HAP'. The festive pre-prandial refreshments yesterday may have a bearing on my error M'lud!
Ian B-B
apologies - you are right - Hap, short for happy was his nickname, his name was Henry Harly Arnold, although as I look at his signature on the foreword of the training manual, it does look as if he signed it as 'HAP'. The festive pre-prandial refreshments yesterday may have a bearing on my error M'lud!
Ian B-B
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Where did it go ?
Warmtoast (your #6589),
Fine pictures of a faraway Christmas in Rhodesia 63 years ago ! I particularly liked the little girl (far right on #2) on Daddy's shoulders, hanging on to his cap. It's sobering to think that she's a pensioner now.
And your #4 reminds me of that very same duty which I performed in Worli (Bombay) 72 years ago. I put in a Post about it on this Thread, which many of my older readers will remember (do you ?). It was the story about how I had to fight off the Sh***hawks from the dinners I was carrying. Now I can't find it. Some searching led me to my Post #4903 Page 246. Seems I couldn't find it last December either.
What has happened to it ? PPRuNe Pop, can you help to unravel the mystery ? It must have been on or close to Page 127. If we can't recover it, I'll Post it again from memory.
Happy New Year to all,
Danny.
Fine pictures of a faraway Christmas in Rhodesia 63 years ago ! I particularly liked the little girl (far right on #2) on Daddy's shoulders, hanging on to his cap. It's sobering to think that she's a pensioner now.
And your #4 reminds me of that very same duty which I performed in Worli (Bombay) 72 years ago. I put in a Post about it on this Thread, which many of my older readers will remember (do you ?). It was the story about how I had to fight off the Sh***hawks from the dinners I was carrying. Now I can't find it. Some searching led me to my Post #4903 Page 246. Seems I couldn't find it last December either.
What has happened to it ? PPRuNe Pop, can you help to unravel the mystery ? It must have been on or close to Page 127. If we can't recover it, I'll Post it again from memory.
Happy New Year to all,
Danny.
Last edited by Danny42C; 26th Dec 2014 at 19:18. Reason: typo
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Dakota operating weight limits
Much obliged Ian B-B for the data re Dak operating weight limits - good to have proof that my memory was not at fault, and there is no question in my mind that 31,000 lb was used as the 'normal' AUW limit by the RAF at that time, in the SE Asia theatre at any rate.
As I have mentioned before, our usual practice of departing base with full tanks often resulted in the aircraft being much heavier than it need have been. It made life simple - no pre-planning of fuel load required, while at the more outlying airfields supplies of 100 octane could be limited or non-existent, but it certainly resulted in our aircraft often being much heavier than they need have been. The 2000 yard runways at Akyab or Mingaladon did sometimes seem barely adequate for takeoff, and of course we were well aware that EFTO would have only one result!
Danny - yes, the 'wheelie' was certainly the preferred method of putting a Dak back on the ground; not very professional perhaps, but it made life easier on most occasions. But of course there were exceptions, as previously described!
Your reference to poor surfaces minds me to ask - you must have encountered the dreaded bithess (bitumised hessian) often used to make a temporary surface for roads or aircraft parking areas? Never runways to my knowledge, just as well as once water got beneath the stuff it was like moving on a giant water bed!
As I have mentioned before, our usual practice of departing base with full tanks often resulted in the aircraft being much heavier than it need have been. It made life simple - no pre-planning of fuel load required, while at the more outlying airfields supplies of 100 octane could be limited or non-existent, but it certainly resulted in our aircraft often being much heavier than they need have been. The 2000 yard runways at Akyab or Mingaladon did sometimes seem barely adequate for takeoff, and of course we were well aware that EFTO would have only one result!
Danny - yes, the 'wheelie' was certainly the preferred method of putting a Dak back on the ground; not very professional perhaps, but it made life easier on most occasions. But of course there were exceptions, as previously described!
Your reference to poor surfaces minds me to ask - you must have encountered the dreaded bithess (bitumised hessian) often used to make a temporary surface for roads or aircraft parking areas? Never runways to my knowledge, just as well as once water got beneath the stuff it was like moving on a giant water bed!
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Pennies from Hell.
harrym,
Don't remember bitumenised hessian in my day; if we'd had any it would be more useful for basha roofs (palm leaf thatch could harbour all sorts of insects of huge size and horrendous aspect which dropped on you from time to time). PSP was bad enough for Aircraft Movement Areas.
Somewhere have told the story of tarred sand
being used by a local contractor at Cochin (Willingdon Island) as a cost-cuuting exercise when laying a parking line. I don't know what the AUW of a B-24 is, but there's one 
('44) probably there yet.
Happy New Year !
Danny.
Don't remember bitumenised hessian in my day; if we'd had any it would be more useful for basha roofs (palm leaf thatch could harbour all sorts of insects of huge size and horrendous aspect which dropped on you from time to time). PSP was bad enough for Aircraft Movement Areas.
Somewhere have told the story of tarred sand
being used by a local contractor at Cochin (Willingdon Island) as a cost-cuuting exercise when laying a parking line. I don't know what the AUW of a B-24 is, but there's one ('44) probably there yet.Happy New Year !
Danny.
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Danny has some General Observations on Value Added Tax
====================================
(You were threatend with this some time ago)
"The art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to obtain the largest amount of feathers with the least possible amount of hissing." (Colbert - Finance Minister to Louis XIV of France).
Did they really do this to a living goose in those times - take a regular "crop" of feathers as you shear a sheep for its wool ? (sounds painful for the goose, but then the making of paté de fois gras wasn't much fun for the bird, either). Didn't know feathers re-grew, but I suppose they must do.
On Colbert's principle, Value Added Tax was the best idea since sliced bread. As it has such an enormous tax "base" (in my time with C&E, we said that it was levied on everything unless you could eat it, live in it, or burn it to keep warm), you could start it at a low rate without provoking too much outcry (although the lumpenproletariat did jib at paying 2½d * for a Mars Bar which plainly had "2d" * on the wrapper). And as retail prices didn't have to specify the tax included in the bill, and inflation was really getting into its stride and masking it, the "Hard Working People of Britain" (of whom our politicians daily express themselves so fond) soon ceased to notice. It became invisible in their daily shopping bills.
Note * Ask your Dad.
It was easy from then on to screw the rates upward until now it brings in around half as much as Income Tax without the HWPOB feeling as much (or any) pain. It is the third largest contributor to the Exchequer after National Insurance. Point One to Colbert.
Then came a stroke of genius of which even a Colbert would be proud. Why not make every man his own unpaid Tax Collector ? (Or at least every person in our charmed circle, ie those "Registered for VAT"). Granted, Inland Revenue much preferred dealing with more or less honest Accountants (the devils they knew), whose mouths watered at the prospect at all the extra work (and cash) that (they thought) the new legislation would bring their way, than with individuals.
But the retail "Traders" (C&E speak: Mr.Singh on his market stall is a "Trader"; M & S is a "Trader" [and indeed started on a stall on Leeds market]; they're all the same in our eyes), felt they were paying their friendly local Accountant quite enough already for telling their black lies to the Revenue. So it was that, when we told them that VAT was simple (which was not exactly true): that it had been designed so that anyone who could count on his fingers and toes could keep a VAT Account and operate it him/herself, and that really, it wasn't costing them (as Traders) a penny, they were just the collectors of the tax on our behalf , they were on our side: it was win-win. (so who actually pays VAT - do you really need to ask ?)
All they had to do was keep a simple account book of the Input Tax that they paid for the purposes of their business, and the Output Tax charged on their sales, and every quarter tot-up and pay us the difference with a Return. Not rocket science, now, was it ? And we didn't even have to recruit (and pay) a vast army of clerks to do the sums - our Traders would DIY. Brilliant ! (Game set and match to H.M. C&E)
Accordingly, in the Year of Our Lord 1972, and in the premiership of the late Sir Edward Heath of blessed memory (though there was/is some dissent about that, particularly among fishermen), it was enacted by Parliament, in the Finance Act of that year, that this wholly admirable Tax should be enshrined in Law, to bite in 1973 (I think).
But four hundred or so years of experience since Charles II set up his "Rightful and Honourable Customs" had convinced his noble band of Crown servants that not all his subjects were strictly honest; not all gladly paid the King his lawful dues and some actually took active steps to avoid doing so. And this reprehensible behaviour has continued to this very day. In short, we would be robbed blind if we didn't go out from time to time to see how our "Traders" were getting on. So was born (as a sub-species of the Officer of Customs and Excise, but of the same rank and pay), the new trade of Vatman.
Pre-War, "Officer of C&E" had been an enviable appointment. His salary went up to £600 (four times the average male wage then - in our money £100,000 pa). As one old one reflected: "You could then buy a new small house and a new small car, and still have change out of a year's salary". But not now: Civil Service salaries have lagged woefully behind inflation since the war; as successive Governments, pleading poverty, have hit on their own people first. Once an Executive Officer was paid as much as an M.P. - now you'd need to be an Assistant Secretary (five grades higher, and only two below Sir Humphrey) to say the same.
For some reason this profession has attracted some of a literary bent: inter alia "Robbie" Burns, Thomas Paine and Adam Smith (thanks, Wiki). (Perhaps they had a lot of free time on their hands, and their "Parson's Freehold" # was useful, too).
So we Vatmen were on the road: Many errors came to light - the only curious thing was that for every twenty "errors" discovered, nineteen were in favour of the Trader and only one in our favour. Funny, that.
Note # detail later, this is too long already.
Happy New Year to y'all.
Danny the
Vatman
====================================
(You were threatend with this some time ago)
"The art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to obtain the largest amount of feathers with the least possible amount of hissing." (Colbert - Finance Minister to Louis XIV of France).
Did they really do this to a living goose in those times - take a regular "crop" of feathers as you shear a sheep for its wool ? (sounds painful for the goose, but then the making of paté de fois gras wasn't much fun for the bird, either). Didn't know feathers re-grew, but I suppose they must do.
On Colbert's principle, Value Added Tax was the best idea since sliced bread. As it has such an enormous tax "base" (in my time with C&E, we said that it was levied on everything unless you could eat it, live in it, or burn it to keep warm), you could start it at a low rate without provoking too much outcry (although the lumpenproletariat did jib at paying 2½d * for a Mars Bar which plainly had "2d" * on the wrapper). And as retail prices didn't have to specify the tax included in the bill, and inflation was really getting into its stride and masking it, the "Hard Working People of Britain" (of whom our politicians daily express themselves so fond) soon ceased to notice. It became invisible in their daily shopping bills.
Note * Ask your Dad.
It was easy from then on to screw the rates upward until now it brings in around half as much as Income Tax without the HWPOB feeling as much (or any) pain. It is the third largest contributor to the Exchequer after National Insurance. Point One to Colbert.
Then came a stroke of genius of which even a Colbert would be proud. Why not make every man his own unpaid Tax Collector ? (Or at least every person in our charmed circle, ie those "Registered for VAT"). Granted, Inland Revenue much preferred dealing with more or less honest Accountants (the devils they knew), whose mouths watered at the prospect at all the extra work (and cash) that (they thought) the new legislation would bring their way, than with individuals.
But the retail "Traders" (C&E speak: Mr.Singh on his market stall is a "Trader"; M & S is a "Trader" [and indeed started on a stall on Leeds market]; they're all the same in our eyes), felt they were paying their friendly local Accountant quite enough already for telling their black lies to the Revenue. So it was that, when we told them that VAT was simple (which was not exactly true): that it had been designed so that anyone who could count on his fingers and toes could keep a VAT Account and operate it him/herself, and that really, it wasn't costing them (as Traders) a penny, they were just the collectors of the tax on our behalf , they were on our side: it was win-win. (so who actually pays VAT - do you really need to ask ?)
All they had to do was keep a simple account book of the Input Tax that they paid for the purposes of their business, and the Output Tax charged on their sales, and every quarter tot-up and pay us the difference with a Return. Not rocket science, now, was it ? And we didn't even have to recruit (and pay) a vast army of clerks to do the sums - our Traders would DIY. Brilliant ! (Game set and match to H.M. C&E)
Accordingly, in the Year of Our Lord 1972, and in the premiership of the late Sir Edward Heath of blessed memory (though there was/is some dissent about that, particularly among fishermen), it was enacted by Parliament, in the Finance Act of that year, that this wholly admirable Tax should be enshrined in Law, to bite in 1973 (I think).
But four hundred or so years of experience since Charles II set up his "Rightful and Honourable Customs" had convinced his noble band of Crown servants that not all his subjects were strictly honest; not all gladly paid the King his lawful dues and some actually took active steps to avoid doing so. And this reprehensible behaviour has continued to this very day. In short, we would be robbed blind if we didn't go out from time to time to see how our "Traders" were getting on. So was born (as a sub-species of the Officer of Customs and Excise, but of the same rank and pay), the new trade of Vatman.
Pre-War, "Officer of C&E" had been an enviable appointment. His salary went up to £600 (four times the average male wage then - in our money £100,000 pa). As one old one reflected: "You could then buy a new small house and a new small car, and still have change out of a year's salary". But not now: Civil Service salaries have lagged woefully behind inflation since the war; as successive Governments, pleading poverty, have hit on their own people first. Once an Executive Officer was paid as much as an M.P. - now you'd need to be an Assistant Secretary (five grades higher, and only two below Sir Humphrey) to say the same.
For some reason this profession has attracted some of a literary bent: inter alia "Robbie" Burns, Thomas Paine and Adam Smith (thanks, Wiki). (Perhaps they had a lot of free time on their hands, and their "Parson's Freehold" # was useful, too).
So we Vatmen were on the road: Many errors came to light - the only curious thing was that for every twenty "errors" discovered, nineteen were in favour of the Trader and only one in our favour. Funny, that.
Note # detail later, this is too long already.
Happy New Year to y'all.
Danny the
Vatman
VAT Rates
Hi Danny
Compliments of the season to you too - and the others who visit this forum.
Thanks for your piece on how VAT originated - very enlightening!
However, since we joined the EU things have not greatly improved - see some of the different rates of EU VAT below - the poor residents of Denmark seem to suffer most of all.
Fully list here for those interested: http://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs...t_rates_en.pdf
Compliments of the season to you too - and the others who visit this forum.
Thanks for your piece on how VAT originated - very enlightening!
However, since we joined the EU things have not greatly improved - see some of the different rates of EU VAT below - the poor residents of Denmark seem to suffer most of all.
Fully list here for those interested: http://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs...t_rates_en.pdf
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PSP (& another matter)
Yes Danny, PSP had its imperfections but as a temporary airfield surfacing medium it was brilliant - hard wearing, relatively easy to lay and drained well (important in monsoon-prone areas). For sure, it lingered on too long in some places (Changi up to 1950, i.e.), while its loud clanging at each impact would signal a poorly executed landing to all within earshot!
Re VAT: you make a convincing case for it, but to the ordinary citizen it has one gross iniquity - the manner in which it contrives to levy an additional tax on top of another already applied. Take petrol & diesel, already loaded with a heavy impost in the form of excise but then has VAT levied on the sum of basic price + duty - talk about two bites at the same cherry!
Re VAT: you make a convincing case for it, but to the ordinary citizen it has one gross iniquity - the manner in which it contrives to levy an additional tax on top of another already applied. Take petrol & diesel, already loaded with a heavy impost in the form of excise but then has VAT levied on the sum of basic price + duty - talk about two bites at the same cherry!
... that this wholly admirable Tax should be enshrined in Law, to bite in 1973 (I think).
It turned out it was for more than that, as Kidlington regretfully announced that they were required to charge an extra 10% VAT on all their course fees, but hoped that their application to be registered as an Educational Establishment would soon enable them to refund me the impost. They hoped in vain, and the manic taxi meter that I imagined as sitting atop the instrument coaming of their Piper Twin Comanches spun at an even greater rate than originally envisaged. How I laughed at this splendid April jest!
The final word, as ever, from Wiki:-
On 1 January 1973 the UK joined the European Economic Community and as a consequence Purchase Tax was replaced by Value Added Tax on 1 April 1973.[3][6][7] The then Conservative Chancellor Lord Barber set a single VAT rate (10%) on most goods and services
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There's no Justice !
harrym,
The tax-on-tax "scam" predated VAT - it applied in the earlier Purchase Tax days, too. I must have bought my Renault 16 in tne first quarter of '73, for I remember that I paid Import Duty of 11% (I think) and then a hefty Purchase Tax on the sum of the import price plus Import duty. Daylight Robbery !
It was this that meant that the Peugeot I bought in France when I was posted to RAF(G) in '60 cost me only a basic £520, while in UK the same car was £1050 !
VAT replaced Purchase Tax on 1st April '73, but we only did "Educational Visits" to firms for the rest of the year (luring them into a sense of false security ?) before showing our teeth in '74.
I hadn't much experience of PSP (the noise terrified me - sounded as if the a/c was falling apart), because we could only operate in cloudless skies (the dog must see the rabbit !), so we were happy on our kutcha strips in the dry season and didn't need it. When the pre-monsoon clouds built up, we decamped to paved strips in W.Bengal, and it would be then that the Daks, Beaus and Hurricanes needed PSP in the Monsoon.
When the clouds had cleared and the mud strips had dried out, we went back to them......D.
Warmtoast,
Your Table gives the reduced VAT rates for certain categories of goods. All other goods (and all services) were taxable at the Standard Rate (except that some goods were taxable, but at the Zero Rate. And some services were Exempt. (It starts to get a bit complicated after that, but that was the state of play when I started in '73 (IIRC). From there it just built up.
There was a tiny sweetener. If you'd bought goods from another EU member, and paid VAT at Standard rate (which might be less than the Uk Standard rate), you didn't have to pay any difference when you got home (we're all Heart !). .....D.
Chugalug,
Your: "The then Conservative Chancellor Lord Barber". You may recall that, having organised gainful employment to earn a modest crust after leaving the RAF, I was debarred from picking up a £1000 "Disturbance Allowance" granted to those on the Unemployed Register who'd found a job in another area off their own bat, simply because I'd found mine before I'd "signed on" !
I appealed this monstrous decision to the said Lord Anthony Barber, but got no joy. You seem to have been in a similar case. There's always a snag in the Fine Print !......D.
All the best to you all in the New Year !
Danny.
The tax-on-tax "scam" predated VAT - it applied in the earlier Purchase Tax days, too. I must have bought my Renault 16 in tne first quarter of '73, for I remember that I paid Import Duty of 11% (I think) and then a hefty Purchase Tax on the sum of the import price plus Import duty. Daylight Robbery !
It was this that meant that the Peugeot I bought in France when I was posted to RAF(G) in '60 cost me only a basic £520, while in UK the same car was £1050 !
VAT replaced Purchase Tax on 1st April '73, but we only did "Educational Visits" to firms for the rest of the year (luring them into a sense of false security ?) before showing our teeth in '74.
I hadn't much experience of PSP (the noise terrified me - sounded as if the a/c was falling apart), because we could only operate in cloudless skies (the dog must see the rabbit !), so we were happy on our kutcha strips in the dry season and didn't need it. When the pre-monsoon clouds built up, we decamped to paved strips in W.Bengal, and it would be then that the Daks, Beaus and Hurricanes needed PSP in the Monsoon.
When the clouds had cleared and the mud strips had dried out, we went back to them......D.
Warmtoast,
Your Table gives the reduced VAT rates for certain categories of goods. All other goods (and all services) were taxable at the Standard Rate (except that some goods were taxable, but at the Zero Rate. And some services were Exempt. (It starts to get a bit complicated after that, but that was the state of play when I started in '73 (IIRC). From there it just built up.
There was a tiny sweetener. If you'd bought goods from another EU member, and paid VAT at Standard rate (which might be less than the Uk Standard rate), you didn't have to pay any difference when you got home (we're all Heart !). .....D.
Chugalug,
Your: "The then Conservative Chancellor Lord Barber". You may recall that, having organised gainful employment to earn a modest crust after leaving the RAF, I was debarred from picking up a £1000 "Disturbance Allowance" granted to those on the Unemployed Register who'd found a job in another area off their own bat, simply because I'd found mine before I'd "signed on" !
I appealed this monstrous decision to the said Lord Anthony Barber, but got no joy. You seem to have been in a similar case. There's always a snag in the Fine Print !......D.
All the best to you all in the New Year !
Danny.
