Worst WWII planes

[Alanko]

I'm still annoyed that I never got to see Concorde fly, having missed several opportunities to do so. I've been inside one, and yes it is cramped! Indeed the cockpit looks like that of a bomber. At the time I suppose that aesthetic looked cutting edge and suitably business-like.

There is a Sunderland flying boat at the RAF museum at Hendon, and you can walk through if it you desire.

[uwe]

Ah, last time I was there (in Hendon), they didn't have that yet, makes another visit worthwhile!

I was always fascinated by that pic on the Airfix box



though I severely doubt that the Condor and the Sunderland ever had an air battle against each other  - more likely, if those two flying behemoths had ever met over the North Sea, they would have waved their wingtips at each other and never mentioned the encounter at home, after all air combat was other people's job and reconnaissance planes were valuable. And while the Condor (a beautiful plane in its own time but totally unfit for any and all military purposes, it had sensible range that's all) might have looked like it would have taken the lead in combat, it probably stood no chance against its ungainly English counterpart.

[Highlander]

Hellraiser or Corsicat... I'll never live that one down... They have a "Cherry Blossom" at Cosford RAF museum...
I've worked on 7 Concordes and been on all the British ones... Everyone forgets she was a child of the 50's so the technology was archaic... if any of you get into the cockpit of the last one that flew, try and spot the hat jammed just inside the door on the starboard side, and I'll tell you the story of why they are there, if you don't already know...
Me at work, back in the early 80's...


Funny someone should mention this spindley legged thingie...

[TBird1958]

Ah, last time I was there (in Hendon), they didn't have that yet, makes another visit worthwhile!

I was always fascinated by that pic on the Airfix box



though I severely doubt that the Condor and the Sunderland ever had an air battle against each other  - more likely, if those two flying behemoths had ever met over the North Sea, they would have waved their wingtips at each other and never mentioned the encounter at home, after all air combat was other people's job and reconnaissance planes were valuable. And while the Condor (a beautiful plane in its own time but totally unfit for any and all military purposes, it had sensible range that's all) might have looked like it would have taken the lead in combat, it probably stood no chance against its ungainly English counterpart.

It's only got single .303s in the turrets that would take a lot of shooting 
But yeah, it's go that "English ugliness" thing down! 

[wellREDman]

"Tehran", "as a kid", "airport" - did your dad by any chance work for the, uhum "State Department"?  Wasn't that a vanity landing for the Shah at the time? I believe it only flew to Tehran once. How long did you live there? (I was there a few years ago and charmed by the bustling city and the surrounding mountains as well as the reckless traffic!)

nothing so exciting, dad was an engineer for British Airways, although in retrospect I do often wonder about the actual professions  a lot of my parents yankie friends  . the posting was 76 to 81 but dad was there solo after the revolution. we were on the last BA flight out as things started to turn bad, was quite exciting for me as a 9 year old as there were only 2 seats left for me, mum and brother so I got to ride all the way home in the cockpit Jumpseat. my dad was on the last RAF herc out but the company had conned him back there within a fortnight.

   living there from ages 6 to 9 I really feel like that was where I grew up, I feel homesick when i see pictures of Iran. I long for an excuse to be able to go back and visit.

growing up on what was in effect a large American airbase gave me a closer cultural affinity to septics than my compatriots. I was exposed to NFL before soccer for example. and also was the foundations of my other guilty pleasure, a lifelong fascination with combat helicopters and a 30 year collection of toy ones.

[Alanko]

...if any of you get into the cockpit of the last one that flew, try and spot the hat jammed just inside the door on the starboard side, and I'll tell you the story of why they are there, if you don't already know...

I thought they all had the cap wedged in? Something to do with the bulkheads expanding in flight at mach speeds, and contracting again trapping the cap forever? An enterprising thief stole the flight engineer's cap from the Concorde that is now in the Seattle museum of flight. I gather that the Russian's equivalent, the TU-144, had an unpleasantly noisy cooling system to deal with the same heat generated by mach speeds.

The biggest crime however is the Concorde mouldering at Heathrow. There were plans to put it on static display, but at the moment it is hidden out of sight and out of mind. Like our static Vulcans, these large airframes don't hold up massively well in British weather without maintenance.