siznaudin

Yes - bad spelling really effects me - makes me quite rapable. FOUR YORE ICE ONLY Eye have a spelling chequer it came with my pea sea, it plainly marques four my revue miss steaks eye cannot sea. Wen eye strike a quay ore rite a word eye weight four it two say weather eye am wrong ore write. It show me strait a weigh as soon as a mist ache is maid: it nose bee fore two late and eye can putT the error rite its rarely rarely grate. I’ve run this poem threw it I’m shore yorE pleased two no its letter perfect in it's weigh - Me chequer tolled me sew.

I wonder what the current definition is of "close range" these days - 20kms? With fighters weighing in at 30+ tonnes*, it's all very far from WW1 & WW2 dog fighting I reckon! *Su30 Max takeoff weight: 34,500 kg

And not only in the air...? [ATTACH=full]1307[/ATTACH]

What a superb blog: well posted. His accompanying text is just wonderful, and I won't try to emulate it but I wonder what would he say of this particular "Hoskins" situation? [ATTACH=full]1304[/ATTACH]

Marseilles : now that's interesting, 'cause here's what's in the Le Bourget aviation museum. (or it was in 2007, anyway...) I wonder which one is the replica![ATTACH=full]1302[/ATTACH][ATTACH=full]1303[/ATTACH] [ATTACH]18240[/ATTACH]

Un b****y believable: well, you did say "micro" ... god I'm really starting to feel like a VERY old f**t.

Nice link: thanks Willie ...

"...I use DVDs and the post office..." A man after my own heart...

Pretty technical stuff with the picture-in-picture Sixties ... I think you've been hiding your computer talents beneath a digital bushel! Lovely sound editing too, as in the fade out for the landing (or did it just happen that way?). And where was the strip, BTW...?

Hang in there Sixties ... as a near contemporary, I know the pain you're going through !:confused:

Best wishes & congrats from here, too ... this sort of happy news is always welcome.

Thanks Pete ... so that means there are two Spits representing the Gibbes aircraft? ... Interesting!

Hoo BOY! I bet Frank is the Frank who took us up in his Tiger quite some years ago - our first visit to Luskintyre and it was after meeting the Luskintigers at the AAAA fly-in at Cowra and being invited to "...drop in, since you're travelling to Sydney". Loops, barrel rolls ... what an introduction that was! Simply unforgettable. They're a great bunch of very friendly folk there.

I second Dex's comments and add that it has been a rare privilege to have experienced, even if from the current day comfort and security of cyberspace, the anguish and sense of the unresolved which so many people endured for so long in 1942. Thank you for sharing it Sixties - a really fascinating account, and it was indeed - "one which I'd not heard of". *late edit: isn't the Spitfire - in the Darwin museum shot - the one which is normally at Temora?

The La-5 is just the sort of fighter I used to draw when I was a freckle faced sub-teenager. Sadly,no examples of that art work have been preserved for posterity.

Thanks for picking up & sharing the link: great stuff. Don'tcha just love the exposed rockers and the state-of-the-art airspeed indicator (the thing with the buckets on the starboard wing...) And if Kermit reckons it sounds like an airborne tractor, I'm wondering if he hasn't yet heard the sound of a 5 cylinder Kinner! BTW - are the wings flexing, or is it just some sort of optical/camera thing?:confused:

Not the rigs I was on - and that wasn't so very long ago. So I can only assume you're offering your services as a cook on the rigs...?

I did 23 + years of 2 on/2 off (helping find the hydrocarbons all of us use each day) - and within that period I did about 2 years of 2 on/1 off. It's not all beer & skittles I can assure you: there was a fair bit of marital strife and for the young single blokes it was hard to retain relationships as the girlfriend needed to be very comitted to the bloke if he was away for 2 out of three. I'd question the "...weekly what the rest of us get yearly in wages..." bit though: the money I made was good, but nowhere near that good! (crikey, wish it had been!)

FL above 20,000? I somehow had the idea it was difficult to be granted this in light aircraft. Please correct me if needed. And yes, some really do it tough.:rolleyes:

Wonderful account: you're a lucky man, Sixties... Here's -UTI at Cowra, for the AAAA fly-in. [ATTACH]1279[/ATTACH] [ATTACH]1280[/ATTACH] [ATTACH]18234[/ATTACH]

Noonan & Earhart. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Noonan#Earhart_world_flight

Good account: very comprehensive - well spotted. At the first AAAA fly in we went to ... Cowra? - around '91 I think it was - there was a straight tail 170 trike with the so-caled "solid" back (rather than a plexiglass window). I seem to recall that there was a feeling held by some that it wasn't a "classic" as it wasn't a tail dragger, but I'm sure that sentiment no longer holds.

...to call this thread "You know you're old when..." or "My, how times have changed". I heard this morning on my cat's whisker & crystal wireless device an interview given a couple of years ago by a very clear & sharp minded gentleman who from early '44 flew Halifaxes, then Lancasters (in the Pathfinders, do you mind), and at age 20 (twenty!) was a Squadron leader. He was awarded the DFC and bar, BTW... I can recall getting hot under my poitical collar at a time when 18 year olds were able to have their number entered in the VietNam lottery barrel yet were not able to vote until they were 21. Twenty! Squadron Leader! Just try to imagine the responsibilities involved in that...we salute them.

Here's where I got my image from... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PZL.44_Wicher

Whale oil beef hooked ... it looks as though it had, at the time of the Kingswood shot, a horizontally opposed engine. Wonder when that went in? Have to say, though that I just love & even prefer the Kinner sound - nothing like the smooth beat of a five cylinder radial.;)