Russethouse Posted May 16, 2008 Share Posted May 16, 2008 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7404052.stm65th Anniversary today. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alex H Posted May 16, 2008 Share Posted May 16, 2008 Someone must have fixed it ! [:D][IMG]http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/aa288/alexhudghton/52-MohneDam-1.jpg[/IMG] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
powerdesal Posted May 16, 2008 Share Posted May 16, 2008 Beautiful sight and gorgeous sound - 4 x synchronised merlins. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
just john Posted May 16, 2008 Share Posted May 16, 2008 A couple of Spits are based at Filton, Bristol, I believe and certainly one was flying around yesterday for about 10 minutes, I wonder if it was a warm up for this. You could hear it right through the house and even better outside but not see it above the cloud, fantastic primeval sound! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
woolybananasbrother Posted May 16, 2008 Share Posted May 16, 2008 Guess I'll have to look at the movie tonight and that great music. They were great those guys who flew into the night with four Merlins, some very dodgy explosive technology and coat hangers to aim with.Mine didn't quite make it past Abbeville on a hedgehopping run. Funny though, at 25 he was the old man of the crew, most being 18. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clarkkent Posted May 16, 2008 Share Posted May 16, 2008 My second job after leaving school was with the Air Ministry Works Directorate, and I was based at St Vincents, a large house on the edge of Grantham. This had been the control centre for the Dam Busters raid. The operations room for raid was used as a drawing office. There is a moment in the film when the planes have all taken off and Wallis and the others leave for Grantham.Eric Coates was asked to write the score for the film but refused, and Leighton Lucas took over. Coates, however, had recently written a march and offered it to the film company. Lucas used it extensively in his score. Despite not having been written specifically for the film, the march fits the film like a silk glove. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alane Posted May 16, 2008 Share Posted May 16, 2008 We live near an RAF base and last Friday evening a Spitfire came over to give a display and looped the loop for about 10 minutes - what a wonderful sound. My wife and I stood watching spellbound for the entire free display. What a sound that engine made. I managed to get a few pictures, sadly only one was any good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RicandJo Posted May 17, 2008 Share Posted May 17, 2008 A couple of years ago I was standing outside the Brymon hangar at Bristol and heard that spine tingling sound - turned to look down the taxiway and there was a Spitfire going full bore 30ft above the taxiway, right past me. just past the hangar she went near vertical and did a victory roll.Fantastic sight, and sound. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
powerdesal Posted May 17, 2008 Share Posted May 17, 2008 How true, a Merlin at full chat and close range is an indescribable sound, spine tingling is probably the closest. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gluestick Posted May 17, 2008 Share Posted May 17, 2008 Back in the 70s, a chum, who was also a car and engineering nut, was Engineering Officer of our local ATC unit.On the provincial airport where they are still based, was a sort of aircraft scrapyard. Which had a few dozen Packard licence Merlins, brand new still in their original wooden crates.My chum managed to scrounge one - for instructional purposes - on loan and he mounted it on wooden stretchers in the engineering instruction hutment, where he kindly gave me a guided tour. Most interesting to see the engine "bare" and thus able to look all around it and prod and poke.Apparently, some time later (of course!) he started it and it gobbled ten gallons of aviation spirit in a very short time..................A couple of years ago I read the autobiography of Sir Stanley Hooker, "Not Much of an Engineer".A must read. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raindog Posted May 17, 2008 Share Posted May 17, 2008 Just posted this on 2 other sites.Great video of the Lancaster flypast to celebrate the 65th anniversary of the dambuster's mission. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7404554.stm Film from inside the cockpit with superb views of my beloved Derbyshire countryside. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7405514.stm Powered by the most magnificent internal combustion engine ever made, the V12 Rolls Royce Merlin, which was built in Derby, not far from where this was filmed. Brings a lump to me throat so it does. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trees 2 Posted May 19, 2008 Share Posted May 19, 2008 My dad would have loved to have seen it, he was ground crew for 83 Squadron, (Pathfinders) during the war, and occasionally flew in Lancs to try and trace, then rectify strange electrical faults, that would only happen when flying. He was based at Scampton and Wyton, and knew Guy Gibson.He HATED flying though, the aircrew alweays laughed at him as it made him physically sick.He died at the end of 2006 aged 92, STILL talking endlessly about the war.To bring home what the lads did for us, think of the inscription on one of the war graves in Scampton churchyard. Sergeant Pilot Frederick Norman Colin CATLEY.It reads: "He flew into the night. We, who remain, await the dawn".He was 21. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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