Did you read Biggles when you were a youngster?

[winsor68]

Biggles info site here....http://www.biggles.info

 

 

 

[winsor68]

List of aircraft that James Bigglesworth flew.... http://yabs.isambard.com.au/prop-list.php?type=1 Impressive!!!

 

 

[rgmwa]

Afraid so, and I still have a couple of favourites - The Cruise of the Condor (illustrated and printed in the 1950's) and Biggles of 266. I counted the ones I'd read once - came to 86 from about the age of 9 or 10 until I discovered science fiction in my mid-teens.

 

rgmwa

 

 

[pudestcon]

Nup, never read a one!!! And never wanted to. I was an avid reader but Biggles didn't do it for me.

 

Pud

 

 

[Riley]

Still have "Biggles... Pioneer Air Fighter"

 

... Special Air Police"

 

... Second Case"

 

... Flies Again"

 

... Air Detective"

 

... In The Jungle"

 

... The Black Peril"

 

... Cruise of The Condor"

 

... Camel Squadron"

 

...Flies To Work"

 

in my bookcase. Some still with their dustcovers. Guess I need some grandsons! Cheers all.

 

 

[David Isaac]

Read a lot of them from age 10 to about 14. Don't have the copies anymore ... maybe mum still has them.

 

I remember when I started high school at age 12 in Form 3 (we started high school at Form 3 in NZ) when our English Master asked the whole class what books we had recently read ... no guesses the response I got when I told the whole class I had just read a whole series of Biggles Books, not to mention the condescending response from the English master. He really was an arrogant condescending old bastard (see it still affects me to this day ... )

 

 

[dazza 38]

Nope never read Biggles.I was too busy reading Big books.Example-The Pictorial History of Air Warfare.I was 9 or 10.It was 187 pages long.Another one I still have is "The illustrated encyclopedia of Aircraft in Australia and NZ.That is a great book.I contains a photo and description of every VH registered aircraft on the register at the time.I was 13 when I read that. 240 pages long.I like factual books.Another beauty is "The history of Aviation".That is about 245 pages long.I read that one when I was 11 or 12.

 

 

[David Isaac]

.......I like factual books.......

Daaaazzzza,

 

What are you saying ... that Captain W. E. Johns was telling us Porky Pies when he wrote of Biggles exploits ... I am mortally wounded ...

 

 

[David Isaac]

.....Another one I still have is "The illustrated encyclopedia of Aircraft in Australia and NZ.That is a great book.I contains a photo and description of every VH registered aircraft on the register at the time.I was 13 when I read that......

I have the same book, but I was a damn site older than 13 when I got it, ya cheeky young Pup ...

 

 

[winsor68]

I read both sorts of books...

 

 

[kgwilson]

I read some of the Biggles books, but not all I could get my hands on. At the time I was more into Air Ace war comic books and had a large collection.

 

 

[Guest DJH]

Never read Biggles, I was also an avid Commando Comics and Air Ace fan. I enjoyed the RAF tales and looking at the great art work. They're available online now, saves walking all the way to the newsagency.

 

http://www.commandocomics.com/air

 

 

[David Isaac]

Never read Biggles, I was also an avid Commando Comics and Air Ace fan. I enjoyed the RAF tales and looking at the great art work.

Mate you were a deprived child ...

 

 

[Guest DJH]

Biggles.......too many words and no pictures.

 

 

[Wayne T Mathews]

Biggles.......too many words and no pictures.

But the dust cover picture... The one Win put up right at the start of this thread... Could the subliminal face in the moon be the first known picture of Voldemort (or however he who musn't be mentioned spells his name)... Could Harry Potter's Dad have really been Biggles?

 

 

[David Isaac]

But the dust cover picture... The one Win put up right at the start of this thread... Could the subliminal face in the moon be the first known picture of Voldemort (or however he who musn't be mentioned spells his name)... Could Harry Potter's Dad have really been Biggles?

Bugga off Wayne, forget the bloody moon and Voldemort ... Look at that beautiful little ol yella Auster , aint she sweet ... I'm in love

 

 

[eightyknots]

I confess to not only reading Biggles but also enjoying them; I was in the 12-14 age group when I read most of them, I think.

 

And, through reading Biggles books, my vocabulary increased markedly

 

But... who has heard of the "pancake manoeuvre" in Biggles?

 

 

[Wayne T Mathews]

Read a lot of them from age 10 to about 14. Don't have the copies anymore ... maybe mum still has them.I remember when I started high school at age 12 in Form 3 (we started high school at Form 3 in NZ) when our English Master asked the whole class what books we had recently read ... no guesses the response I got when I told the whole class I had just read a whole series of Biggles Books, not to mention the condescending response from the English master. He really was an arrogant condescending old bastard (see it still affects me to this day ... )

Could it be the arrogant condescending old bastard was the model for Professor Crawford in the movie, "Finding Forrester"? What a pompous ass...

 

 

[eightyknots]

"pancake manoeuvre" as used in this air crash news report from

 

http://smashing-newsmail.blogspot.com/2009/08/pilot-owes-his-life-to-biggles-after.html :

 

Pilot owes his life to Biggles after crashing plane into a tree... then walking away

 

Posted on 7:26 AM by SS

 

It might not look like a text-book landing. But the pilot who crashed this plane into the branches of a towering tree says he owes his life to fiction. Vince Hagedorn, who amazingly walked away from the wreckage, put his survival down to the fictional fighter and adventurer Biggles. Despite the blood streaming from his forehead, he left the scene with a wide smile spread across his face.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mr Hagedorn carried out an unorthodox 'pancake' manoeuvre to land in the tree at Dundee's Caird Park Golf Course yesterday afternoon when he realised he was going to crash land after running out of fuel. He confessed he had read about the move in a book about the World War I hero decades ago - and paid tribute to its author for saving his life.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mr Hagedorn, 63, from Chelmsford, Essex, said: 'Captain W E Johns saved my life. As a boy, I remember reading a Biggles story where he was shot down while flying over a wooded area. 'He managed to "pancake" the plane sideways into a tree, which minimised the impact, and he walked away unscathed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the moments before impact, I was doing about 70 knots and still managed to think, "What would Biggles do?".'

 

Business consultant Mr Hagedorn - who spoke to wife Carole, 58, by phone in the ambulance - was taken to Ninewells Hospital in Dundee but had suffered only bruised ribs and a gash to the head. His two-seater Flight Design CTSW struck the tree on the 15th hole. It took fire crews and ambulance staff an hour to free him using a series of ladders and pulleys. Mr Hagedorn, who has four years' flying experience, said: 'I left Barrow-in-Furness in the morning and was heading for RAF Kinloss, where I had been cleared to land, to visit my daughter Maggie in Lossiemouth. 'I was just north of Dundee when I checked my fuel gauge and it said it was half-full, but when I checked the wing gauges, one said it was empty and the other said I had only half-an-hour left of flying. 'I looked for somewhere to land and saw the golf course. I couldn't land on the fairway because there were too many trees, so I lined up the tree and did what Biggles did, stalled and "pancaked" into it.' A spokesman for Dundee Airport said: 'The Air Accidents Investigation Branch has been notified.'

 

 

[Wayne T Mathews]

Bugga off Wayne, forget the bloody moon and Voldemort ... Look at that beautiful little ol yella Auster , aint she sweet ... I'm in love

See !!!... Put a good looking sort in the picture and even smart men miss the true meaning...

 

I'm of the opinion that the Biggles books, and maybe even the Billabong series, were to our generation as the Harry Potter Books are to our Grandsons.

 

 

[Guest DJH]

Mate you were a deprived child ...

 

No, definitely not, I did spend a lot of time outdoors chasing free flight models and flying control line though. Smashing cricket balls, billy cart racing and surfing were also a popular pastimes.

 

 

[Piet Fil]

Read them as a teen and still read them now, Preference on WWI books, ........ Also, there was a parody in another british annual (Goodies or Monty Python) called "Biggles Flies Undone" whch was quite a hoot!

 

 

[rgmwa]

"pancake manoeuvre" as used in this air crash news report from http://smashing-newsmail.blogspot.com/2009/08/pilot-owes-his-life-to-biggles-after.html :

Pilot owes his life to Biggles after crashing plane into a tree... then walking away

 

Posted on 7:26 AM by SS

 

'I was just north of Dundee when I checked my fuel gauge and it said it was half-full, but when I checked the wing gauges, one said it was empty and the other said I had only half-an-hour left of flying. 'I looked for somewhere to land and saw the golf course. I couldn't land on the fairway because there were too many trees, so I lined up the tree and did what Biggles did, stalled and "pancaked" into it.' '

If you ask me, I think Biggles would have spent the half hour of fuel looking for a better place to land !!

 

But he did land in the trees at one point in the Cruise of the Condor, as I recall.

 

rgmwa

 

 

[dazza 38]

Could the bloke have found a bigger tree to smash into.Probably not.

 

 

[kaz3g]

Biggles info site here....http://www.biggles.info

Hope you all recognised the AUSTER!

 

kaz