Part Two: All the way with N.A.A. As we’ve seen in Part One of this story, the British – and Rolls-Royce specifically – hold pride of place on the Merlin Mustang’s birth certificate. But the reality is that while Rolls-Royce had built a brilliant engine, their experiments with the Mustang were something of a dead end. The P-51’s future would be made in the USA. … Continue reading The Merlin Mustang (continued)
Part One: The British breakthrough that didn’t There are a lot of ways to end a sentence that begins “If it weren’t for the Rolls-Royce Merlin…” In fact, it would be a fun parlour game next time the avgeeks got together. If it weren’t for the Rolls-Royce Merlin… the Cromwell tank would have been a tin pillbox could be one slightly off-piste option. But I … Continue reading The Merlin Mustang
The story of C-54 Skymaster production at the Douglas Chicago factory is extraordinary in itself. But how they produced their very first aircraft – and how – quickly is simply next-level. Continue reading War comes to Chicago
This article first appeared in one of the few way-back-when iPad issues of airscape. (Which was a real joy, by the way, and which I’d start again tomorrow if your aviation business was prepared to sponsor it…) It remains an incredible story of skill, from the dedicated workers who built B-17s to the men who flew them in combat. Plus, given that the mythical versions … Continue reading Down in one pieces
The Battle of Winslow Sobanski Any war is made up of a series of battles – for each particular country, region, city, hamlet, hill or strongpoint… and World War 2 was no exception. But alongside the thousands of strategic and tactical fights which made it into the history books, there were millions of private battles that didn’t. On land, sea, and in the air, every … Continue reading Private War
The way to fly I’ve been reading aerodynamics books over the last month. I know. So cool, right? I don’t apologise. I find the subject fascinating and the more I learn, the more it makes me want to find out. I have it so bad that I find the engineers at NASA JPL and Langley genuinely cool. Sigh! I guess there are far lesser people … Continue reading Go with the flow
Almost any time you watch, read or listen to interviews with WW2 fighter pilots, they give a huge amount of credit to their ground crews. And yet the media never seems to take the cue. Stories focused solely on those ground crews are rare beyond words.* However, I found the following piece in an old Air Forces Magazine (January 1944). Apart from being incredibly well … Continue reading Lonely From The Off
Turning the corner While I was doing some extra research for last week’s Flying Boats article, I found this particularly historic photo of Boeing’s ‘big fours’ flying together. The unique formation brings together the prototype B-17A, at this stage still the 14th Y1B-17 and the 15th Type 299 (c/n 1987), in formation with the prototype Type 314 Clipper, NX18601 (c/n 1988) – two massive projects that were … Continue reading Boeing’s big moment
Welcome back Following on from Part One, we rejoin Indicator’s tour of the Spitfire family with some handling notes and personal memories, a brief look at the later Griffon-engined stable, and some final thoughts on the long evolution of history’s most iconic fighter… Joy flying By way of relief from the old original pressure-cabin types of the Mark VI and VII, the Mark XI PRU … Continue reading On Spitfires (Part Two)
‘Indicator’ tells all ‘Indicator’ filed a long series of impressions of Allied aircraft for Flight magazine in the years after World War 2. While Flight didn’t give his identity away (most likely because he was still in uniform) he was definitely a test pilot – probably at the RAF’s Aeroplane & Armament Experimental Establishment, Boscombe Down. Mind you, he also seems to have done some … Continue reading On Spitfires (Part One)
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