Battle of Britain 80 year anniversary

EstuaryBoy said:
'Obviously removed' Bernhard??? Not at all... Debate then vote, maybe, but lets hear the arguments for and against first please.....
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Thing is these issues have been debated/disccussed for decades. I see the knock downs as just the pent up frustration with no results over lifetimes coming to a head.
Today on the local radio there was a discussion about certain sports teams here in North America with overtly offensive names....Washington Redskins; Edmonton Eskimos etc.. The discussion mentioned one team was taking a poll of locals to find out if they should change the name. Trouble with that is, vast majority will not understand what it is like to live with being a person of colour with those offensive symbols all around them in society. Tyranny of the Majority and all. The opposition to changing such team names will trot out any number of folks/fans that say the names mean no harm, are "part of their history" etc. Yet how do you make this point to a young person wanting to participate in these sports when they are from that targeted/offended population? I say change the names....it's only a sports team, not some sacred ancient relic we cannot go without.
 
Sorry, that may be the case in North America, but there have been no 'decades of debate' in the UK. And whilst I don't hold the UK up as 'perfect', I do think our histories are too dissimilar for a 'one size fits all' solution...
 
Spit or Mustang flight and seeing Great Pyramid my 2 bucket list items prolly never do either but a chap can dream...eddie it would have brought a tear to my eye to see the Hurricane good on you for telling the kids the story ...from so long ago......
 
Alan , for me it getting to point now I can’t remember what I have/had on my bucket list , plus I keep getting it mixed up with the ongoing list my (lovely) wife keeps showing me with things I need to do right Now !!!! or when I get a chance .... example: I hilled potatoes in garden most of morning , instead of getting Griso ready for solo run on Thursday ....
 
A 27 litre V12 with open pipes sure makes a lovely noise..
For the engineers here, worth checking out the book: 'Negative Gravity.... A Life Of Beatrice Shilling'
Not only was she behind the Merlin modifications that allowed it to catch the ME109s in a dive (previously the engine would cut momentarily due to fuel surge in the float bowl, the ME being fuel injected had no such problem) BUT.. She also successfully raced her own modified Norton at Brooklands, Norton even using her photo in their 1935 catalogue...
 
EstuaryBoy said:
The modification was known throughout the RAF at the time as: Miss Shillings Orifice :) (She was actually Mrs George Naylor by then)
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I don't want to appear to be rude, but we have already discussed this Merlin engine mod on this forum previously elsewhere, or has it been removed?
Ref; attention to detail , 2014 motorcycle related discussion
 
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Bernhard said:
I don't want to appear to be rude, but we have already discussed this Merlin engine mod on this forum previously elsewhere, or has it been removed?
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Apologies Bernhard.... though if repetition was a crime here I think most forums are recycling old problems, no? Just for a different audience.. So.. guilty as charged!
 
This is where the Vincent Black Shadow got it's name.
According to Phil Vincent, he came up with the name after thinking about a wartime sighting of battered RAF planes flying low and about to land on returning from the Battle of Britain.
This would cast an aircraft shaped shadow on the factory roofs.
Hence the "Vincent Black Shadow."

Glen
 
worntorn said:
This is where the Vincent Black Shadow got it's name.
According to Phil Vincent, he came up with the name after thinking about a wartime sighting of battered RAF planes flying low and about to land on returning from the Battle of Britain.
This would cast an aircraft shaped shadow on the factory roofs.
Hence the "Vincent Black Shadow."

Glen
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Any idea what factory? Assuming not Stevenage unless they had a satellite field close by... Anybody know???
 
As for the Confederate statues in the American South, there is great irony there.

FDR and his Depression era New Deal financed the artists and the erection of some of those statues.

Democrats controlled the South from the end of Reconstruction, 1877, through the 1960s and almost all of those Confederate war leader statues were commissioned during their time of control.

The Dixiecrats were the “ solid South“ and a critical part ofthe Democrat Party’s New Deal coalition. Dixiecrat control of the South persisted through the ‘60s, arguably ending in ‘68.

Jefferson/Jackson celebrations and glorification of the leaders of the Confederacy were staples of American Democrat Party politics for nearly a century.
 
worntorn said:
This is where the Vincent Black Shadow got it's name.
According to Phil Vincent, he came up with the name after thinking about a wartime sighting of battered RAF planes flying low and about to land on returning from the Battle of Britain.
This would cast an aircraft shaped shadow on the factory roofs.
Hence the "Vincent Black Shadow."

Glen
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Great story Glen, I didn’t know that.
 
Surely the aircraft in question would be bombers , neither spitfires nor hurricanes would cast much of a shadow...and if bombers , then surely not planes returning from a battle in which they took no part..
 
The Battle of Britain was also fought by Bomber command, targets were the barges in the invasion assembly areas in France and of course the raid to Berlin which then resulted in the Germans changing tactics and going for London instead of the airfields.
 
kommando said:
The Battle of Britain was also fought by Bomber command, targets were the barges in the invasion assembly areas in France and of course the raid to Berlin which then resulted in the Germans changing tactics and going for London instead of the airfields.
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Correction, a lone German bomber got lost early in the war, so dumped it's bomb load, which happened to be London and not a RAF airfield.
The next day Churchill ordered bombs to be dropped on Berlin which enraged Hitler, who ordered bombs to be dropped on London from then on, giving the RAF airfields a break. The rest is history.
 
Bernhard said:
Correction, a lone German bomber got lost early in the war, so dumped it's bomb load, which happened to be London and not a RAF airfield.
The next day Churchill ordered bombs to be dropped on Berlin which enraged Hitler, who ordered bombs to be dropped on London from then on, giving the RAF airfields a break. The rest is history.
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Correction Bernhard: It's ALL history :-) !!
 

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