Q1

nah ... Messerschmitt weren't you listning :-)

Focke = German Fokker = Dutch ... different companies

piston-engined

De Haviland Hornet was the last piston engined "fighting" aircraft in the airforce (*), for the navy it was the Sea Fury. Various transports up until the 1970s and trainers (ye olde Bulldog) to ye present day linger on.

(*) Actually I think that it may have been the Lincoln Bomber ... I'll check if you like, certainly wasn't a Spit derivative, the final ones were called the "Spiteful" and "Seafang" most of those produced were never taken out of their packing cases before they were scrapped. Jets had already taken their place.

Chris,

What about the Shackleton flying with Coastal command - an unbelievable noise hearing a small fleet of them taking off with all these Griffin engines. I remember staying at a hotel near RAF Kinloss in the 70s and being woken up during the night with the Coastal Command planes taking off.

I also remember being taken to a Fleet Air Arm station at Abbotsinch (now Glasgow Airport) in the 50s and seeing single engine Grumman planes there - possibly Wildcats.

Jim.

No need to call Wulf names.

-- Cheers Roger T.

of the Great Eastern Railway

The Shackleton was in active service from 1951 to 1991, whereas the Lincoln only lasted until 1961. Interestingly (or not), the current basic Trainer used by the RAF is the Tutor (piston engined) which the RAF pays Bombardier (railway link there, phew) to operate under a PFI. The Sea Fury was the Fleet Air Arm's last piston engined fighter, with the last squadron being disbanded in 1955.

Cheers Clive

Yup bit of brain death there ... in my defence look at the time I was posting ... The last Shackletons were the AEW versions known as the "Magic Roundabout" ... as for years the last of them were all named after characters from the series of the same name.

No, Avengers, they were taken out of service shortly after WW2, later we bought some new ones from the US and were used in two versions to hunt Russian boomers during the cold war.

Tommy

Focke Wulf was a German aircraft manufacturer. The famous Focke Wulf Fw190 was *built* by Focke Wulf but *designed* by Kurt Tank. As another pedantic point, the "Messerschmitt Me109" was in fact the Bf109. Although designed by Willy Messerschmitt, it was built by Bayerische Flugzeugwerk. It was only later in the second world war that Tank and Messerschmitt got their own aircraft manufacturing facilities, building aircraft such as the Ta152, Me210/410 and Me262.

The Fokkers in use by the German Army Air Service in the first world war were designed by a Dutchman, Anthony Fokker, but built in various German workshops. Anthony Fokker later formed his own company in his native Holland and this is the company that built the Fokker Friendship.

piston-engined

Piston engined aircraft are *still* being flown by British forces.

Let's ignore the Spitfires, Hurricanes, Lancasters, Fireflys, Sea Furys, etc etc still flown by the RAF and FAA in various historic flights.

We now have to consider what we mean by "flown". If we mean flown in a combat role, then that accolade almost certainly goes to the Avro Shackleton MR3. The last of these were withdrawn in the late 60s, replaced by Nimrods.

If we mean flown in an *operational* role, then that was the Avro Shackleton AEW2, an airborne early warning aircraft which was retired in the mid 80s.

Non-operational aircraft currently include Bristol Bulldogs and Grob Tutors

flown by various University Air Squadrons and a single C-47 Dakota flown by the Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough.

The "souped up Spitfire" to which you refer was the Seafire FR47, a navalised version of the Spitfire F24. Most were withdrawn before 1956. The final developments were the land based Spiteful and the carrier-borne Seafang. The Spiteful had a *very* limited service life, mostly with the RAE, but the Seafang never entered service at all. The latter versions of the Spitfire actually outlasted the Spiteful in service.

-- Enzo

I wear the cheese. It does not wear me.

Re previous messages reagarding aircraft thank you Enzo, Chris, Jim, Clive and anybody else for the info.

Tommy

Well there were some beautiful N Gauge diesels on the CJM stand, but £350+ for various Class 66s is just a bit rich for my taste. Oh, and Dapol are producing some N Gauge coaches, but given the quality of their OO products, that may not be anything worth cheering.

Cheers Clive

"Tommy " skrev i meddelandet news: snipped-for-privacy@mb-m03.aol.com...

piston-engined

Hawker Fury-the ultimate piston engined fighter. Beowulf

Salvé "Chris Wilson" skrev i meddelandet news:bqr9fe$247ii2$ snipped-for-privacy@ID-163332.news.uni-berlin.de...

The Avro Anson was bombed up and givena manual gun turret during ww2 I remember them in RAF service during the late 50´s.... Beowulf

Salvé "Jim Guthrie" skrev i meddelandet news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com...

Shacks from Ballykelly : Beowulf

salvé "Roger T." skrev i meddelandet news: snipped-for-privacy@grapevine.islandnet.com...

tank you beowulf ooooow!

More likely they were AEW Avengers.

What did you think of the show in general this year?

Because I never went I'm hoping you'll say it was rubbish.

Green with envy Tommy

Mark Newton

That sounds *very* likely.

-- Enzo

I wear the cheese. It does not wear me.

Hate to disappoint you, but it was very good. Wasn't as busy as I expected when we arrived about 11ish. Stayed a good 4 hours and still hadn't seen everything. My son (just short of 4 years old) enjoyed it, as did myself (38) and my father (73), so something for everyone. Underwhelmed by Hornby's live steam Mallard, but a decent selection of layouts in gauges of interest (N, 00 and 0). Great deal of hilarity on the Lego layout, where they had a Peak look-alike with articulated bogies. Watching it corner was a bit like watching a double-joint person. Standard of modelling on the various layouts was good, although some seem lacking operationally.

Somehow managed to keep my wallet in my pocket, but only because rumour has it that Santa's bringing me some goodies. Though if the Hymek is in his sack, I'll have to spend Christmas mulling over excuses for having one operate on a ficticious Scottish Highland line....

So, in summary, well worth a visit and I'll be back next year.

Cheers Clive

The message from snipped-for-privacy@aol.comeoffit (Tommy ) contains these words:

..and then order a Vindaloo?

Ta! I did have a good time. Very impressed with Copenhagen Fields - imagine having a layout so involved that CCTV is needed to keep track of the train-running! As for buying stuff, I turned up at the N-gauge Society stall and then found out that I didn't have my membership card with me...

What's a diesel?

David Jackson (Frodsham) wrote in>Message-id:

Diesels were loosely designed on the shape of the Q1 (how's that for getting back on topic!) except there was no chimney or space allocated for the coal.

Tommy

You forgot to add disiesels got Uglier!