Woke aviation history

[pmccarthy]

I just spent a couple of hours in the Flight section of the Science Museum on South Kensington. I love the place, it has the best collection of aero engines anywhere, more than fifty I guess. Not many aircraft, but a Spit, a Hurricane and the Alcock and Brown Vimy. My first visit for at least fifteen years. 
 

They had a series of displays about important people in aviation, in about twenty panels spread around the gallery. I expected I would know most of them but I didn’t know any. The people displayed were, in no particular order, the first Indian fighter pilot, the first black British pilot, the first disabled British pilot (missing an eye and an arm), a couple of first female pilots, the first gay RAF pilot to come out, and so on. I am still thinking about what it means, and what it will mean to the mainly young visitors who want to learn about the history of British aviation.

[Underwood]

5 hours ago, pmccarthy said:

I just spent a couple of hours in the Flight section of the Science Museum on South Kensington. I love the place, it has the best collection of aero engines anywhere, more than fifty I guess. Not many aircraft, but a Spit, a Hurricane and the Alcock and Brown Vimy. My first visit for at least fifteen years. 
 

They had a series of displays about important people in aviation, in about twenty panels spread around the gallery. I expected I would know most of them but I didn’t know any. The people displayed were, in no particular order, the first Indian fighter pilot, the first black British pilot, the first disabled British pilot (missing an eye and an arm), a couple of first female pilots, the first gay RAF pilot to come out, and so on. I am still thinking about what it means, and what it will mean to the mainly young visitors who want to learn about the history of British aviation.

I'm pretty sure there has been plenty of time and space given to white male able bodied heterosexual aviators so don't feel particularly concerned that those outside that sphere get some recognition

In the interests of full disclosure I am a white male heterosexual, though the able bodied bit might be a a stretch these days😁

 

[onetrack]

There are plenty of forgotten, ignored, and unrewarded war heroes in our world. We've been conditioned over many decades, to believe that heroes only come from the ruling class. Many military awards are handed out on a very unfair basis, as we've witnessed recently in the Afghanistan War, SAS debacle. Military people who spent the majority of their time behind a desk getting high awards for combat roles, and this has been happening since WW1.

 

Have you heard of Charles Arbuthnot Crombie? Probably not. He was a member of the "ruling class". He was a Beaufighter pilot during WW2 and has been credited with a confirmed 12 Japanese aircraft kills, and another 4 possible kills.

He abandoned his shot-up Beaufighter over Burma with his clothes on fire, and landed in a "god-awful swamp". After surviving the swamp landing, he had to fend off locals trying to capture him for the Japanese.

He was rescued by Allied troops, returned to duty, was awarded a DFC and DSO, and became a Squadron Leader and CFI of 5 OTU.

 

But he was killed just 12 days after WW2 ended, when his Beaufighter crashed short of the runway at Williamtown after an engine failure. He got just a short paragraph noting his death in most newspapers, and no memorial.

[Neil_S]

13 hours ago, pmccarthy said:

I just spent a couple of hours in the Flight section of the Science Museum on South Kensington. 

They had a series of displays about important people in aviation, in about twenty panels spread around the gallery. I expected I would know most of them but I didn’t know any. The people displayed were, in no particular order, the first Indian fighter pilot, the first black British pilot, the first disabled British pilot (missing an eye and an arm), a couple of first female pilots, the first gay RAF pilot to come out, and so on. I am still thinking about what it means, and what it will mean to the mainly young visitors who want to learn about the history of British aviation.

Well we keep being told there is a pilot shortage so I hope it inspires people from minority groups to become pilots, when they otherwise may not do so.

I remember my ex-airline instructor telling me that the few female pilots he came across were better than most of the males as they had always had to work harder to prove themselves in the eyes of the males. And let's not forget the Tuskegee airmen from WW2, and Eugene Bullard (black American living in France) from the Escadrille Lafayette in WW1.

Sadly the Orange man in the US would probably discourage it.......

 

Cheers,

Neil

[spacesailor]

I don't agree with ALL the Woke idea's .

I had a colour-blind electrician wire ' panel heaters ' in my daughters bedrooms .

only the heaters ended up being live , with  the wires in the wrong order .

now none ' colour blind 'people are getting those wires wrong ,  sky blue , should be high . Brown is dirt so Earth wire

 

Grrrrr madness.

spacesailor

[onetrack]

If he was colour-blind, he shouldn't have been in possession of an electrical licence. "Woke" is a very abused and misused word today, it originally meant, "be awake" (to conniving trickery, as regards racism and social injustice).

There's nothing wrong with people who have some kind of physical or intellectual deficiency being employed in certain jobs, provided they can perform the job to the required standard, and be generally accepted as capable.

 

Now "Woke" is applied to anything that offends conservative senses and established values or positions. There are plenty of incompetent people amongst conservative ruling classes, just look at the recent list of British PM's.

 

As regards employing women, I have employed women dump truck drivers and they had a better attitude to operation of equipment than most males. They had a better maintenance record, when it came to things being broken by abusive treatment. They were better at repetitive, boring tasks than many males. But not all women were capable of doing the job, it was no different to how some men weren't worth employing, either.

 

And when it came to WW2, 30% of the workforce during WW2 were women, and they built everything from machine tools to aircraft, without too many problems. Most of the problems that affected them were related to abusive and domineering treatment by men. The women who carried out transport of new aircraft from the factories in the U.S. to Britain, did outstanding work.

 

Edited April 7 by onetrack

[Blueadventures]

3 hours ago, spacesailor said:

I don't agree with ALL the Woke idea's .

I had a colour-blind electrician wire ' panel heaters ' in my daughters bedrooms .

only the heaters ended up being live , with  the wires in the wrong order .

now none ' colour blind 'people are getting those wires wrong ,  sky blue , should be high . Brown is dirt so Earth wire

 

Grrrrr madness.

spacesailor

So which colour is active in the ditty?

[spacesailor]

Possibly The " woke  " Rainbow  colour .

But I suspect the worst  ! , Earth Brown .

I have a ' trio ' of " flouro lights " all in " white wire " .

spacesailor

 

 PS. :  I just checked & confusion reigns supreme!.

Current colours 

 

what is yellow ?

Edited April 7 by spacesailor
PS added

[facthunter]

Wouldn't you check with a meter?   Nev

[red750]

My wife's neice drove one of those huge mine dump trucks in Qld. 

 

 

[spacesailor]

Perhaps  .

 

COULD IT be the wire to the " RCD "  . ? .

 

spacesailor

[facthunter]

Yeah they don't flog them as much as  the Blokes.  I'm easier on machinery than my wife is .  Nev

[spacesailor]

Only have 100 centimetres in my meter .

spacesailor

Edited April 7 by spacesailor
Maths

[facthunter]

?   Nev

[Blueadventures]

2 hours ago, spacesailor said:

Possibly The " woke  " Rainbow  colour .

But I suspect the worst  ! , Earth Brown .

I have a ' trio ' of " flouro lights " all in " white wire " .

spacesailor

 

 PS. :  I just checked & confusion reigns supreme!.

Current colours 

 

what is yellow ?

I've got some 4 colour wires in lovely sky blue insulation.  Looks very pretty on my split system A/C hookups🙃

[planedriver]

Back when I worked in UK for an electronics firm, I was involved in the final test and inspection for many huge control panels built for the British Navy.

All the wiring was pink. Thick bundles of it!

Can you imagine what a headache that was to sort out all the wiring mistakes from the factory floor?

It's no wonder i'm a bit nutty!

Edited April 7 by planedriver

[onetrack]

International trucks of the 1960's and 1970's (the "Butterbox ACCO's) had the best wiring harness I've ever encountered. Not only were the wires colour-coded, they were also numbered about every 10cm. That made life, SO much easier!

 

The wiring diagram showed all the wiring colours and numbers, and you could go back to the rearmost part of the truck and just scrub the dirt off a wire, and you knew immediately which wire it was, and where it came from, and where it went to.

 

 

Edited April 7 by onetrack

[ClintonB]

On 7/4/2025 at 5:47 PM, spacesailor said:

Possibly The " woke  " Rainbow  colour .

But I suspect the worst  ! , Earth Brown .

I have a ' trio ' of " flouro lights " all in " white wire " .

spacesailor

 

 PS. :  I just checked & confusion reigns supreme!.

Current colours 

 

what is yellow ?

Brown is active, blue is neutral and green is earth, usually with a yellow stripe. That four core is probably for an ac system, fan or something else that needs a control wire. Disclaimer: but don’t play with it unless you have a ticket.

Edited Wednesday at 09:47 AM by ClintonB
Forgot disclaimer

[spacesailor]

The " RCD " Will have an extra wire , could that be the ' yellow ' one ? .

spacesailor

[Blueadventures]

54 minutes ago, ClintonB said:

Brown is active, blue is neutral and green is earth, usually with a yellow stripe. That four core is probably for an ac system, fan or something else that needs a control wire. Disclaimer: but don’t play with it unless you have a ticket.

Could be connection / hookup wire between indoor and outdoor ac unit. What I use is 4 core with white as 4th for control signal. Sky blue outer so you know it’s air con not house LV.

Edited Wednesday at 10:40 AM by Blueadventures

[onetrack]

I don't know what electrical wiring has to do with "woke" aviation. I guess some people on here are the experts at diverting threads, well away from the original posters thoughts.

[coljones]

On 07/04/2025 at 6:18 PM, spacesailor said:

Only have 100 centimetres in my meter .

spacesailor

That is a very big meter. However there are 1000 mm in a metre 

[spacesailor]

Yes I thought that was wrong 100 cenimetres & 10 decimetres .

6 Dm to a ' bottle of milk ' . SO Say the French .

spacesailor

 

[Marty_d]

You don't need the deci- and centi- words. 

Works better just with the thousands.

1 litre =1000 millilitres.

1 kilometre = 1000 metres.

1 metre = 1000 millimetres.

[spacesailor]

My jogging  gives ( on the phone ap ) 0.16 Klmtre .

Please translate to Mtrs 

spacesailor