Plane Tales

It was the year 1919 and Billy Hughes, the Prime Minister of Australia, was travelling to attend the Paris Peace Conference.  He cabled his Government, “Several Australian aviators are desirous of attempting flight London to Australia they are all first-class men and very keen, your thoughts?”  The undertaking was momental since the longest distance ever achieved by an aircraft to that point was only a third of the required 11,000 miles, let alone attempting the journey in less than 30 days!  Regardless, the Great Air Race was on!

After an an epic 206 days, finally, Battling Ray landed in Australia.

The Vickers Vimy dubbed Gawd Elp All Of Us reaches Australian soil.

A monument to the Great Race erected in Darwin.

Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to Benparer, State Library of South Australia, State Library of Queensland and Bidgee.

The Mig-21, NATO codename Fishbed, was to become the most produced supersonic fighter in aviation history.  In the 1950s, its secrets were being tightly safeguarded and Western military forces were very keen to find out more.  Here is a spy story, more dramatic and blood thirsty than most fictional ones but one that put the new fighter right into the hands of the Israeli Air Force.

Mig 007 in the Hatzerim museum.

Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to Oren Rozen, US Gov DIA,

A narrow body of water separates England from the rest of Europe… between Dover and Calais it’s only 21 miles wide.  Crossing it has become a bit of a right of passage for many forms of transport and aviators, with or without moustaches, have been no exception.  These are the stories of some of those early attempts!

Jean-Pierre Blanchard rows across the channel in a balloon!

Louis Blériot sporting a fine aviator’s moustache!

Blériot completes the first crossing of the Channel by a heavier than air machine.

Harriet Quimby’s very fetching flying gear.

A captured Focke-Achgelis Fa 223 Drache.

Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to Jmack361,

The Upkeep mine was at last working and 617 Squadron had worked up to a level of skill that was unmatched amongst the Bomber Command units.  The waters of the Ruhr dams had reached their peak and the moon was waxing gibbous towards being full.  At last, all the preparation and training was going to be put to the test and the Dambusters raid was on!

At last… Upkeep had proved itself capable of being successfully dropped.

A painting depicting the attack.

Air Vice Martial Cochrane, Wing Commander Guy Gibson, King George VI and Group Captain Whitworth discussing the ‘Dambusters Raid’ in May 1943

The day after the raid showing the damage done to the Mohne dam. Belatedly, barrage balloons have appeared over the dam.

A visit by King George VI to 617 Squadron after the raid.

The Möhne dam as it looks today. A photograph taken by APG listener Emiel Achterberg from a C172 although he is also a keen balloonist.

Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to 617 Sqn, the Imperial War Museum, Flying Officer Jerry Fray RAF,  an RAF official photographer and APG listener Emiel Achterberg.

This is part three of a quadrilogy of stories about the Dambuster’s raid on the great dams of the Ruhr valley by No 617 Squadron.  Wallis faced an uphill struggle to convince the Air Ministry that his idea of bouncing a huge mine across the surface of the reservoirs, over torpedo nets and right up to the dam walls was feasible.  When finally given the go ahead he only had a few months to complete testing and then build a successful weapon.  In the meantime, a new Lancaster squadron had to be formed and trained. This is a remarkable story of genius and tenacity in equal parts.

A 1:50 Scale model of the Mohne Dam, blown up to demonstrate where the Upkeep mine should be placed.

Barnes Wallis watches a successful trial of Upkeep at Reculver.

A trail weapon recovered from Hearne Bay.

A surviving Upkeep mine.

Upkeep in position under Gibson’s Lancaster with the spinning mechanism visible.

Images under Creative Commons licence, with thanks to the Imperial War Museum, Martin Richards, the RAF, the Crown and the UK Government.

A man renown for his genius as a designer and inventor, Barnes Wallis turned his mind to helping Britain to win the Second World War by creating weapons that could defeat the industrial might of Germany.  From his ten ton bomb Tall Boy to the bouncing bomb Upkeep, his remarkable talent ran from designing Airships to supersonic aircraft.  This is his story.

Barnes Wallis as a young man in Naval Service.

Wallis’s geodesic design employed in the Wellington bomber allowed it to survive despite enormous damage.

The huge Tall Boy bomb, designed to penetrate deep into the earth before exploding.

The Swallow. Designed by Wallis as a variable geometry supersonic aircraft.

Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to the Royal Society on Twitter, The US Library of Congress, the Imperial War Museum, Royal Air Force and the RAF Museum Cosford.

This is the first of the four part story of Operation Chastise, the bombing of the great dams of Germany’s Ruhr valley during the Second World War.  This Tale examines the life of Wing Commander Guy Gibson, VC, DSO & Bar, DFC & Bar who took on the task of forming the Squadron of Lancasters which would achieve world wide fame following the attack.  Gibson was, to some, a flawed character but his leadership, skill and determination to achieve his aim was never in question.

Guy Penrose Gibson.

Gibson stands on the steps of his Lancaster with his crew around him as they depart on the Dambusters raid.

Gibson’s final resting place, alongside his navigator who also died when their Mosquito crashed.

The English Heritage blue plaque that marks Gibson’s house in St John’s Wood, London.

Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to the Royal Air Force, the Imperial War Museum, Edward X, Pandaplodder and Steenbergen.

A break from Tales of death and destruction with a little bit of aviation word play.  What was your score?

The North of Africa holds the world’s largest hot desert, known as The Greatest Desert, or more commonly by the Arabic word Sahara.  The Lady be Good’s WW2 mission hadn’t gone well and crew of the were hopelessly lost and running out of fuel when the first engine failed. They decided to abandon the aircraft rather than risk a crash landing and they parachuted out over, what they believed to be, the sea… only to discover it was a sea of sand.

The Lady Be Good as it appeared when discovered from the air.

The aircraft was in surprisingly good shape, considering it landed itself.

The aircraft’s weapons were still functioning.

Some of the guns were still able to be fired.

My apologies to the sharp eared amongst you as I misspoke when describing Lt Hatton’s take off, “Pushing up the throttles of his two Pratt & Whitney Twin Wasp supercharged radials…”  The Liberator is, of course, a four engined aircraft.

Images used under a Creative Commons licence with thanks to the US Air Force.

It was a hot and sunny day at the United States Airforce Base at Ramstein near Kaiserslautern in West Germany… a perfect day for their 1988 annual air show.  One of the best parts of the show was going to be the Frecce Tricolori, the Italian formation team, doing their stunning display.  After several minutes of what was a great performance, the team started one of the most impressive manoeuvres,  the pierced heart.  What followed was a disaster beyond anyone’s imagination…

The Frecce Tricolori.

The awful mistake that led to the tragedy.

Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to the US Air Force, A Micheuand J Herzog.