Phil Perry

I blame that Muck Stirrer Phil Perry for posting such a controversial piece in the first instance. . . I reckon we need a show of hands to ban the bugger for a coupla months. . . bleedin' Larrikin. . . .

Ugly Aircraft. A few years ago, I was flying across Salisbury Plain, which is used at pre-announced times for Live Fire military exercises. Having already checked the route Notams, I had nothing to fear that day ( ! ) I was flying a Blade 582 trike belonging to a friend who hadn't got his licence yet, only 3 hrs experience thus far. Approximately half way across the Military range, I could not help but notice that an Apache helicopter had crept up behind and was flying in formation, slightly aft to my right, The worrying bit was that when the crew looked at me, the guns turned towards us as well . . .I wasn't aware of this interesting feature at that time, and for a few moments my rectal orifice was modulating slightly ! That is one extremely Fugly Machine,. . .surely only it's Mother could love it.

I will post some of Blown Periphery's FICTIONAL stuff, in case anyone fancies a bloody rivetting read with more highly detailed stuff about the military embedded than you'll read very often, but I will do this on WhatsUp Australia, as, although it relates to flying a bit, it is military fiction. Really Worth reading, for those who like a bit of a thriller. . . . ( from a man who MUST have Been there ! ) First 'Out of Sequence' installment tonight on What's Up . . .just a bit of a taster. 'The RAF Loadmaster's Story' . . .there are naughty words on this tale, which the Autobot will delete, I shall leave these to your imagination and not attempt to edt an author's work. I say Out of sequence,. . as a lot of these tales are interconnected, as you will see if anyone is really interested. . . .

In response to Pilot Pete who requested it. . .here's part 2. The Berlin Airlift Begins – Part Two Avro York Aircraft lined up in West Germany, Destination Berlin While the road and rail routes into Berlin from the West had never been negotiated, the air routes had specified in writing, that there would be three times twenty-five mile wide air corridors providing free and unhindered access into Berlin. The unarmed aircraft could not legally be intercepted and the only way to force them to turn round was to shoot them down, which would have been a clear act of war. But any attempt to supply the city by air required an air bridge to have a massive scale and efficiency. General Clay the US commander in Berlin asked the commander of US Air Forces in Europe, General Curtiss LeMay if an airlift was possible. LeMay replied “We can haul anything.” The Americans also approached the British who were already supplying their garrison and essential services in Berlin by air. General Clay’s counterpart, General Sir Brian Robertson, was ready with some concrete numbers. During the Little Lift in April 1948, British Air Commodore Reginald Waite had calculated the resources required to support the entire city, saving much planning time. Based on a daily ration of 1,990 calories, the daily supply needed to be 646 tons of flour and wheat, 125 tons of cereal, 64 tons of fat, 109 tons of meat and fish, 180 tons of dehydrated potatoes, 180 tons of sugar, 11 tons of coffee, 19 tons of powdered milk, 5 tons of whole milk for the children, 3 tons of fresh baking yeast, 144 tons of dehydrated vegatables, 38 tons of salt and 10 tons of cheese. That was a daily lift of 1,534 tons to sustain over two million people in Berlin. Additionally, the city required 3,475 tons of coal, diesel and petrol for power. Once the numbers had been crunched, the scale of the undertaking became apparent given the finite resources of the British and American air transport capability. The US had only two groups of C-47 Skytrains in Europe, the aircraft the British called the Dakota. The US capability totalled 96 aircraft that could move 3.5 tons of cargo per sortie. LeMay believed that the US could supply the city with around 300 tons per day. The RAF was in a higher state of preparedness as the British had moved more aircraft into Germany and calculated that the RAF could move 400 tons per day. Clearly this was insufficient to move the daily requirement of 5,000 tons and the RAF would be required to bear the initial brunt and would have to increase numbers quickly, by moving aircraft from the UK into Germany, going to Berlin in a single, initial lift from the UK. The RAF fleet was brought up to 150 Dakotas and 40 of the much larger Avro Yorks with a 10-ton payload. The British contribution would rise to 750 tons per day in the short term of up to a month while the US added additional aircraft from the states and the Pacific theatre. The Aircraft needed to be able to fly into the relatively small Berlin airfields, so bombers couldn’t be used routinely until Tegel Airport was completed. The US had the four-engined C-45 Skymaster and its USN equivalent, the R5D. Planners calculated that this would give the air lift 447 of these aircraft. The British asked the Royal Canadian Air Force to provide aircraft and pilots, but the Canadians refused on the grounds that the Airlift risked war with the Soviet Union and they had not been consulted in advance. General Clay also consulted with the German authorities, Ernst Reuter the Mayor elect and his aid Willy Brant and told them: “Look, I am ready to try an airlift. I can’t guarantee it will work. I am sure that even at its best, people are going to be cold and people are going to be hungry. And if the people of Berlin won’t stand that, it will fail. And I don’t want to go into this unless I have your assurance that the people will be heavily in approval.” Reuter, although sceptical, assured Clay that Berlin would make all the necessary sacrifices and that the Berliners would support his actions, which was rather good of them. The American and British decided to start the airlift without delay. The American effort was given the operational title of Vittles while the British contribution was known as Plainfare. Unlike the Canadians the Royal Australian Air Force also contributed to the airlift under the title of Operation Pelican. The Air Corridors into Berlin. General Clay gave the go-ahead for the Berlin Airlift on 25th June 1948 and the following day 32 C-47s took off with supplies of 80 tons of milk, flour and medicines. The RAF started operations on 28th June with the Australians. By 1st July the system had been well established. The Rhein-Main Air Base was the C-54 hub, while Wiesbaden operated a mix of C-54s and C-47s. The US aircraft flew northeast through the American Air Corridor into Tempelhof, returning due west out of Berlin on the British Air Corridor. The British flew in southeast from airfields in the Hamburg area, then returning out of the central corridor to land in Hanover. On 6th July the Dakotas and Yorks were joined by Sunderland flying boats. These aircraft flew from Finkenwerde on the River Elbe and landed on the River Harvel next to Gatow. Because the flying boats had corrosion resistant hulls, they were ideally suited for flying in baking powder and salt. The logistical handling and coordination of so many aircraft with different operating parameters can be imagined. A complex timetable was developed for flights known as “The Block System. The C-54s operated on three eight-hour shifts followed by a C-47 run. Aircraft were scheduled to take off every four minutes, each following aircraft flying 1,000 feet higher than the one in front. The pattern began at 5,000 feet and was repeated in multiples of five aircraft. This stacking of the flights into the city became known as “The Ladder.” Later in the lift the Americans experimented with dropping coal sacks without landing, but the time wasted picking up pieces of coal from the burst sacks resulted in this being counterproductive and even coal dust was precious. Additionally, aircraft needed to spend as little time on the Ground in Berlin as possible, for the lifts to be cost effective and to free up pan space as quickly as possible. Take a bow the RAF Movers, the Royal Corps of Transport and the women of Berlin who humped sacks of coal off the aircraft and onto Lorries. The aircrews were in admiration of their stoicism, but after having to service the rapacious sexual requirements of Russian Infantry Battalions after the fall of Berlin in 1945, dragging sacks off aircraft for extra rations must have seemed like a walk in the park. As the airlift dragged on into late summer, it became apparent that pro-rata the RAF aircraft were moving more freight than the US and their aircraft were really “sweating the metal.” Many of the navigators on the RAF Dakotas were ex-Bomber Command aircrews who had decided to stay in after the war for a flying career. Flying on regular corridors to fixed beacons proved much easier than navigating a bomber over night-time Germany, with irregular doglegs and course changes. Additionally, the RAF was well-versed in the use of radio navigation devices. The US Air Force in Europe was a tactical organisation without any sustained airlift experience. Maintenance and servicing schedules were slipping with the heavy workload and the best use was not been made of aircrews and airframes, which often stood idle. Record keeping was poor due to the ad-hoc throwing together of air and ground crews, unused to such a daily grind of operations. Aircraft were flying round the clock and poor servicing soon became apparent. What was thought to be an enterprise that would last for three weeks to a month was to last well into the following year. Following a meeting of the US National Security Council on 22nd July 1948, it was clear that a sustained airlift would be necessary. Major General William H Tunner, the then head of the Military Air Transport Service (MATS) was recommended to take command of the operation. Tunner had been the head of the India-China Division of the US Air Transport Command and he had been instrumental in reorganising the Hump Airlift into China across the Himalayas. Tunner arrived in Wiesbaden on 28th July to revamp the entire operation. He formed the Combined Air Lift Task Force, which brought RAF and other lift operations under a single, centralised command. A further 72 C-54s were flown into Wiesbaden and Rhein-Main to augment the existing forces and each aircraft was allocated thee crews. On 13th August Tunner flew into Berlin fact-finding and to award a citation to Lieutenant Lykins who had made the most flights into Berlin. Cloud cover over the city was down to zero feet and heavy rain was affecting the radar. While Tunner circled over the city, a C-54 crashed and caught fire on the end of Tempelhof’s runway. A second aircraft burst its tyres trying to avoid it and a third ground looped after landing on the wrong runway that was still under construction. The aircraft stacked up at the rate of one every three minutes and unloaded aircraft were refused permission to take off. Tunner was furious that the control tower had lost control of the situation and ordered all aircraft in the air to return to base. The incident was known as “Black Friday” and as a result, Tunner instituted a number of new rules. • All aircraft would fly under instrument flight rules regardless of actual visibility. • Each sortie would have only one chance to land in Berlin and if it missed its approach, the aircraft would have to return to base. • The approaches would be straight in, with no joining the circuit for final approach. This speeded up the unloading of the aircraft significantly. • The separation in the stack was reduced to 500 feet. Tunner would eventually replace all US C47s with C-54s, because they were more cost effective and easier to unload being tricycle undercarriage aircraft made a level cargo deck and the platform between aircraft and truck was at the same level. An impoverished Britain and RAF didn’t have that luxury. On his first inspection trip to Berlin on 31st July, Tunner noted that aircrews were being delayed in taking off after unloading, because they were loafing in the air terminal waiting for refreshments. He ordered that mobile snack bars should visit the unloading aircraft and that manifests and clearance paperwork should be handled on the flight lines. Because of these initiatives, engine shutdown to start-up at Tempelhof was reduced to thirty minutes. The Berliners solved the problem of shortages of manpower to unload the aircraft by being given extra rations to do the job. These measures drastically improved the turn-round times for aircraft on the ground and the average time for unloading a C-54 of 10 tons of coal was ten minutes. By the end of August, over 1,500 flights a day were going into Berlin, delivering 4,500 tons of cargo. The Berlin Airlift was now achieving optimum performance and the city was being supplied. However, the winter was approaching and the Soviets were yet to react fully to the scale of the airlift. The crucial question was whether this scale of air operations could be sustained through the winter and into the following year, or whether the Soviets would allow it to. 201 Squadron Sunderland unloading supplies of the River Havel. Blown Periphery 2018 going postal blog

Operated the Air Ground radio station from 0900 to 1700 today ( Sunday 3rd June ) We had more than 45 visiting aircraft, and many of our own lot were off out somewhere, plus some practicing circuits. There were ,no really major incidents ( fortunately ) but I was a little concerned about some of the radio, as well as Approach procedures employed by visitors to our site. one of these, odd though it may seem, was pilots calling 'Runway Vacated' . . .when they were still visibly half the way along the active strip and still rolling out. We had aircraft holding to use the same runway, as well as up to four in the circuit to land. . .and if we had not had someone looking from an elevated position, then we could well have had a problem as the strip in use today (25L) has a downslope for the last 90 metres or so, and this means that the pilot of the aircraft wishing to roll cannot see that the runway is clear before beginning their takeoff run. Several 'Discussions' were had with visitors about this odd trait. It makes me wonder how they get on at their base fields. . . . One bloke said that, "What I meant was that I was about to vacate. . . . ." and he was quite annoyed that I'd mentioned it ! I said, "OK mate, let's try this scenario then,. . you call RUNWAY VACATED then have an engine, or undercarriage fail, tyre puncture,. . and can't vacate without getting out and pushing the bloody thing off the strip ? You can see that we have a three foot deep grass crop.both sides of the runway. . . . . then you could have some bloke accelerating up your Ar$e at 60 odd Knots, and your plane is in the way. . .?." No response,. . . cheesy grin only. As a general rule,. . .I DO NOT Bollock other pilots. . ( NEVER -ON THE RADIO) But I lost my rag with this particular wanker as he was bang out of order.. Second Gripe. And more important. . . Pilots who do not seem able to identify what leg of the circuit that they are currently occupying. . . . I lost count today, of those who called 'Descending Deadside for 25L'. . .when they were actually descending into the downwind or Base leg. . . . I mean FCS, we have a website Published approach procedure for all Four runways. . . backed up by Videos of each approach for the terminally dim. . . It got so bad today that I was asked by the CFI to read the riot act On the Radio, to all approaching aircraft. . . It is supposed to be a site requiring PPR. Prior Permission to visit. . . this can be made via Phone OR radio. There are certain NO fly areas that we observe to preserve our existence,, and it seems to me that there are a lot of rather Lazy iPad Driver people out there who do not seem to care. I hope that you folks don't have these probs. . . . OH. . .and as rough statistic,. . .it appeared to us that it was the 'well to do' Airplane jockeys with mega expensive aircraft fitted with all manner of juicy avionics that were the worst offenders. . . ( ? ) Rant over ( I WISH that I was a rich man though. . .) :-)

Hiya Mate. . .the Dog is only a couple of miles from the field, I think it's Graham's local. . .well, there are 2 Grahams in that video actually, both Foxbat owners . . I DO recall the Victor 'Bunnyhop' incident too, . . . can't remember if the 'Pilot' got into any bother about it though. . . One of our members was banned for 3 months for doing that in a machine without a permit to fly. . .

Recently, my old mate Graham Wiley and a couple of other ne'er do wells flew into Bruntingthorpe, in West Leicestershire . . .as you can see on the video, the runway is endless, ( I think it follows a great circle around the Earth and ends up in Narnia. . . ) Actually, it Isn't the longest runway in Europe, but it Is one of the top ones. . . they have Sunday markets there, but allow visitors to land at the other end during Market days, as there is perfect safety due to it's length. . . It has some interesting Cold War aircraft stored there, they are all volunteer maintained by ex-service personnel. . .and some of which come out for high speed taxying, but are not allowed to fly. . . This is a BookFace video ( sorry )

Indeed it was, hence it's ability to out turn the Zero. It preceded the Zero by some time, also the fixed gear wouldn't do much for it's top speed either. . .

Apparently, this machine, codename 'Claude' was the forerunner of the Zero and could fly rings around it. . .heavy undercarriage designed for carrier landings. .

I once met a pilot in Dublin. He was a Spitfire O' Phile though. . .(to be sure ) :-)

Yeah OK Pete. . .I'll kick his kennel. . . .

Been there bigstyle mate,. . .I was 25 years old, with a massive 119 hours P1. . . Overflew Bendigo airfield, no one on the bloody wireless,. . .must've gone for lunch I guess,. . casually checked out the windsock ( as you do ) and joined left base and made a lovely, smooth landing approach. The C-210 screeched and complained like buggery as I touched down, ( a couple of times. . ) and finally got to walking speed on the numbers at the other end. . . couldn't understand why the landing was so bloody fast, the airspeed was bang on. . .. The 'Wireless' suddenly said,. . ."Any particular reason you landed downwind there India Whisky Kilo . . . .? ? ? The shame,. . the shock,. . the horror. . . I did LOG it. . .but never told my two passengers why the landing was so interesting. . . 100 Hours = You think you know it all. 200 Hours = You KNOW you know it all It's my 68th Birthday on Saturday 2nd June. . . .flown many many hours since then. . . Why I'm still alive must mean I'm destined for greater things. . . . .

Hi Ian. . .welcome to the Forum. Nice place to be. . .Nice People, some are very Knowledgeable with regard to the safe defying of Gravity. Lots of useful info in the archives too. Enjoy.

My mate Grumpy was a bit worried about this essay, but it's worth a read. Even if it causes discussion. . . THE SPITFIRE. . .OF COURSE. . . Ask anyone from the general public to name a great aeroplane or a great British fighter of WWII, and chances are they will say, without hesitation, “The Spitfire of course.” If you ask why you are likely to be told “It looked so elegant” “it had a lovely elliptical wing”, “It was lovely to fly”, “The Merlin engine sounded wonderful” “It was the fastest at the time” Well, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes and maybe; but not a single one of these features is a design feature, they are all incidental. A fighter is designed to fight, not to look good, not to sound good and not to be a pleasure to fly. My contention, which may raise a howl of protest, is that the Spitfire is a legend and, like most legends, is based on a myth. The Spitfire was hyped as the best plane in the world and, unfortunately, people fell for it. They still do. Resources were poured into making the legend and keeping it alive, resources that could have been best used by developing other planes. Pouring all resources into one, flawed. aircraft was a policy which could have been a disaster What should a fighter be ? It should be fast, manoeuvrable, easily produced and so be cheap and expendable, easy to service, well armed, carry a lot of ammunition, be rugged so that it can take damage and protect the pilot, have enough fuel to give it good endurance or range and, of course, to be better than the enemy’s version The Spitfire was designed to be fast, it was based on experience gained by making racing monoplanes. It was fast and it turned well enough but failed on just about any other measure. Far too much emphasis was put on the speed, all other requirements were compromised. Even the ‘turning’ thing was hyped. “Captain Eric Brown, the Chief Naval Test Pilot of the Royal Navy, recalled being impressed during tests. “I don’t think I have ever flown a fighter that could match the rate of turn. It had ruled the roost totally and was the finest fighter in the world until mid-1943.” No, not the Spitfire, he was talking about the Japanese Zero, not as fast as the Spitfire but which beat it on just about every other measure. When pitted against the Zero the Spitfire pilots found themselves outclassed on turning and on climbing and had to rapidly learn new tactics to avoid being shot down by a slower and less powerful adversary. The tactic chosen was to make one pass and get away as quickly as possible, the problem with that is that there is little time with the target in the sights which limits the amount of firepower that can be brought to bear. A German pilot stated that “ ….pilots from that period (1940) who will tell you that the Spitfire turned better than the Bf109. That is not true, I myself had many dogfights with Spitfires and I could always out-turn them.” “.. and I shot down six of them ….” “ the advantage changed when improved Spitfires were delivered.” Ah yes, but the Spitfire was ‘wonderful to fly’, another part of the legend. It was, certainly the early marks, but as the power and the weight of the aircraft increased it became a bit of a pig. Alec Henshaw who, being the Chief test Pilot would know, remarked that later versions were not nice to fly, they were heavy and did not handle well. Captain Brown didn’t rate the Spitfire as the nicest to fly in the whole war, that honour he granted to the DeHavilland Hornet which came much later. Yes but the wing ! The elegant elliptical wing ! The designer, Mitchell, when asked about whether the shape should be elliptical by one of the design team, commented that it could be any shape you like as long as it covers the guns. Flexing and twisting of the wing at high speeds caused all manner of flying and structural problems, throughout the life of the Spitfire there was a constant revision and update procedure, each design trying to overcome the problems inherent in the previous design. The ‘elegant’ wing that contributed to the speed of the plane was very expensive and time-consuming to produce and suffered from stress fractures, there is anecdotal evidence of piles of old Spitfire wings stacked outside of repair depots.. The Spitfire needed skilled workers and a lot of time to make. The time taken to produce a Spitfire was around 12,500 to 13,000 man hours, the Hurricane, the less glamorous aircraft that did the heavy lifting, 80% of Battle of Britain kills, while getting little credit, took about 5,200 man hours of less skilled labour while the enemy, the Bf109 could be knocked out by largely unskilled labour in 4,500 hours. Both the Hurricane and the Bf109 were designed first and foremost as fighters, not ‘fast and pretty planes that were nice to fly’ with guns added as was the case with the ‘legendary’ Spitfire.. Problems occurred when trying to mount canon in the wings to compete with the canon and machine gun armed Bf109, not a problem in that plane as the armament was fitted around the engine with the guns firing through the propeller disc. The design of the Spitfire wing meant that accessing the guns was done from underneath the wing. Lifting and feeding heavy belts of ammunition overhead while sitting in the mud was not an easy job for the ground crew. It was found that the time taken to re-arm, refuel and change the oxygen bottle was about twelve minutes for the Spitfire and four minutes for the Hurricane where the job could be done sitting on the wing with no lifting above the head. The Bf109 was designed for quick servicing, the whole engine and propeller could be swapped out in twelve minutes using a simple mobile gantry and hand tools. The Bf109 had a narrow track undercarriage which contributed to many accidents but the design, with the undercarriage fastened to the fuselage rather than the wings, meant that the aircraft could have thinner, lighter. wings as they did not have to bear the load transmitted by the undercarriage. Another benefit was that the aircraft could ‘stand on its own feet’ when wings were removed for repair or replacement. The armament carried by the early Spitfire was eight machine guns of .303 calibre although it was known at that time that the cannon was the gun of choice having far more destructive power. The ‘pea shooter’ effect of a .303 round was such that it had to find a weak spot in order to effect any damage that would disable a plane. The Bf109 was designed to use cannon from the onset and the machine gun rounds it fired were the far beefier 13mm/0.5” calibre. The Westland Whirlwind, was being developed at that time had the canon armament that was needed but that plane was neglected to pour more resources into the Spitfire production. A design fault of both the Spitfire and the Hurricane was that there was a fuel tank in front of the pilot, all will have seen or read about pilots being severely burned as they tried to exit the cockpit through burning petrol. The Bf109 had fuel tanks below and behind the pilots seat so any fire tended to hasten exit rather than hinder it. All three, Spitfire, Hurricane and Bf109 suffered from lack of range and from not carrying sufficient ammunition. The range problem meant that the Bf109 could spend little time in combat before having to break off and head for home, unfortunately the British fighters couldn’t capitalise on this because they were nearly as badly limited. The last item on my list of features was that the aircraft should be better than that of the enemy. It wasn’t, the first few years were a game of leapfrog, each finding a bit more speed, power or armament. In that time most of the increase in performance was due, not to the design of the aeroplane, but to the increase in power of the Merlin engine or swapping the Griffon in place of the Merlin.. In another essay, I will have a look at what the fighter of 1940/41 could have been, I have already mentioned one aircraft that suffered from neglect ,the Westland Whirlwind, I’ll have a look at the Miles M20 and how a development of that aircraft and a change in tactics may have been a better bet. Footnote. The Merlin does sound wonderful, especially if you have heard one at near full throttle as one did in the old days at air shows, however most big un-silenced piston engines do and most couldn’t tell the difference between a Merlin, a Griffon, a Daimler-Benz DB 601 or 605 Grumpy Angler. Going Postal bog.

The Berlin Airlift 1948 – 1949, Part One 27th May 2018. This is dedicated to a man, the son of a Yorkshire miner, who served his country in Iraq 1936 – 1941, Egypt 1941 – 1943, Canada 1944, Air Bomber Lancaster No 153 Squadron 1944 – 1945, No 12 Squadron post WW2, No 18 Squadron Berlin Airlift and a teacher for 40 years. A much missed warrior and father. Post War Tensions After the final surrender of Nazi Germany, the Allies signed the Potsdam Agreement, which was a natural progression from the highly unsatisfactory Yalta Conference of February 1945. The aim of the conference was to shape a post-war peace that represented not just a collective security of the major powers, but a plan to give self-determination to the liberated peoples of post-Nazi Europe. During the Moscow Conference of 1944 from which President Roosevelt was absent, Stalin and Churchill carved up a post-war Europe into zones of influence. During the Yalta conference held in the Crimea, Stalin’s home territory, Churchill was side-lined and Roosevelt was a sick and dying man. Within months of Yalta, Roosevelt was dead and Churchill had been turfed out of office. But Stalin was still there and like all successful dictators, he was playing the long game. The defeated Germany was divided into four, supposedly temporary occupation zones, roughly corresponding to the areas the armies of the major powers occupied. The city of Berlin, which was 100 miles inside Soviet controlled East Germany, was also divided into occupation zones: The United States, United Kingdom, and France controlled western portions of the city, while Soviet troops controlled the eastern sector. Berlin zones of occupation. No Berlin Wall existed at this time The Soviet occupied zone of Germany was forcibly unified under the Communist Party of Germany and the Socialist Unity Party (SED). The SED leaders then called for the “establishment of an anti-fascist, democratic regime, a parliamentary democratic republic” while the Soviet Military Administration suppressed all other political activities. Factories, equipment, technicians, managers and skilled personnel were removed to the Soviet Union at gunpoint when protests were attempted. In 1945 Stalin met with German Communist leaders and he informed them that he expected them to undermine the British position within their occupied zone and that the Americans would withdraw after a year or so. Then nothing would be allowed to stand in the way of a reunified Germany under communist tenet, within the sphere of Soviet control. A major factor that complicated the Allies’ position was that no formal agreement had ever been made, regarding guaranteeing access to the city by road or railways through the Soviet zone. After the war the Allies had come to rely on Soviet goodwill, but access to the city from the west was limited to a single railway line running ten trains per day, a two-lane Autobahn and three air corridors, which the Soviets refused to allow any expansion of. In 1946 the Soviets stopped shipments of agricultural goods and food from their zone of occupation into the Allied controlled areas of the city. To put it brutally, Stalin was attempting to undermine the Allied occupation of the city with slow starvation. The United States responded to the asset stripping of German industry by the Soviets by stopping any exports from West Germany to the Soviet Union. In parallel to these manoeuvres, Stalin entered a concerted public relations campaign to undermine Allied policy regarding Berlin and continued to obstruct all administrative activity in the four zones of the city, including their own. The US hadn’t even made a commitment to remain in Berlin following the establishment of a West German government planned for 1949. Berlin was pivotal to the US and Soviets who were attempting to realign Europe into their versions for the future. As Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov noted, “What happens to Berlin, happens to Germany; what happens to Germany, happens to Europe. The war had wrecked Berlin and its pre-war population of 4.3 million had been reduced to 2.8 million. The treatment of the German people by the Soviets in their occupation zones, caused a backlash in the local elections of 1946. Berliners overwhelmingly elected non-Communist members to the city council. The Allies coordinated the economies of their occupied zones and in the London Agreement on German External Debt Agreement would see the German debt halved to fifteen billion marks, stretched out over 30 years and these debts had minimal impact given fast-growing German economy. Meanwhile, the population of Britain was still under rationing. In January 1948 the Soviets began stopping trains to Berlin to check passenger identities and cargo manifests. Stalin met with his military advisors and a secret memo was sent to Molotov in March 1948 outlining a plan to force Western policy into line with the Soviet plan by “regulating” access to Berlin. On 25th March 1948 the Soviets issued orders restricting passenger traffic between West Germany to Berlin and between the Allied occupation zones in the city. Additionally, no cargo could leave Berlin by train without the permission of the Soviet commander. All trucks and trains were searched by Soviet authorities. On 2nd April General Clay the US commander halted all military trains and instructed that the military garrison was to be supplied by air. This action was known as “The Little Lift.” The Air Corridors into Berlin While the Soviets eased their restrictions on traffic into the city on 10th April 1948, for the next seventy-five days they sporadically stopped traffic. At this time the US forces were operating twenty flights a day into the city, to not only supply the garrison, but build up stockpiles against future Soviet aggression. Soviet military aircraft began to violate West Berlin airspace and “buzz” Allied flights into and out of the city. On 5th April a Soviet Yak-3 collided with a British European Airways Vickers Viking 1B near Gatow airfield killing all on board the two aircraft. However the Soviets had misread Allied intentions and stated: “Our control and restrictive measures have dealt a strong blow to the prestige of the Americans and British in Germany” and that the Americans have “admitted” that the idea of an airlift would be too expensive. On 9 April, Soviet officials demanded that American military personnel maintaining communication equipment in the Eastern zone must withdraw, thus preventing the use of navigation beacons to mark air routes. On 20 April, the Soviets demanded that all barges on the waterways into the city obtain clearance before entering the Soviet zone. On 19th June 1948 Soviet guards halted all trains and closed the Autobahn into Berlin. That same day, a Soviet representative told the other three occupying powers that “We are warning both you and the population of Berlin that we shall apply economic and administrative sanctions that will lead to the circulation in Berlin exclusively of the currency of the Soviet occupation zone. The Soviets conducted military manoeuvres outside the city and German Communists spread rumours that the Soviets were about to occupy all of Berlin. West Berlin had thirty-six days of food and forty-five days’ worth of coal and the British and US forces were severely outnumbered because of the indecent haste to scale back their post-war military. The entire US Army was 552,000 in 1948 and there were 8,973 US troops, 7,606 British and 6,100 French to garrison the city. US war plans relied on their nuclear capability, but they possessed only fifty atomic bombs and thirty-five “Silverplate” B29 delivery aircraft with pitifully few trained assembly personnel and aircrew. While three B29 bomber groups arrived in August 1948, the Soviets knew that they weren’t “Silverplate” capable. Stalin was never so foolish as to believe in a “peace dividend” and had maintained a huge army in Europe. There were 1.5 million Soviet troops surrounding Berlin alone. Despite the little resistance the two US and two British Divisions could have put up, General Clay summed up the reasons for not retreating from the city as follows: “There is no practicability in maintaining our position in Berlin and it must not be evaluated on that basis…. We are convinced that our remaining in Berlin is essential to our prestige in Germany and in Europe. Whether for good or bad, it has become a symbol of the American intent.” It can be surmised that this was British position as well. The French units remained an unknown quantity as their best troops were in Indo China and North Africa. And let’s not forget that the nice Labour Prime Minister, Clement Attlee had in 1948 agreed to supplying Russia with British jet engine technology. To Stalin’s amazement, the British Labour government and its Minister of Trade, Sir Stafford Cripps, were perfectly willing to provide technical information and a license to manufacture the Rolls-Royce Nene jet engines. Sample engines were purchased and delivered with blueprints. Following evaluation and adaptation to Russian conditions, the windfall technology was tooled for mass-production as the Klimov RD-45 to be incorporated into the MiG-15. How the American, Australian and British pilots over Korea must have cheered such an altruistic gesture of generosity. It was completely bizarre decisions such as Attlee’s made in the post war that had emboldened Stalin. He believed that the US and Britain had little option other than acquiescing to Soviet demands, but General Clay believed that the Soviets were bluffing and trying to force diplomatic and trade concessions from the West. The commander of US Air Forces in Europe, General Curtiss LeMay wanted a bellicose response to Soviet aggression. He presented a plan where B29s with fighter escorts would bomb Soviet air bases, while a ground offensive forced its way east into Berlin. Washington vetoed the plan. Meanwhile, food and coal supplies were beginning to run short in West Berlin. Blown Periphery Going Postal blog UK.

Some nice pictures of RAF-100 celebrations in the UK #Tread #RAF100

Flight Lieutenant Eric James Brindley Nicolson VC DFC (29th April 1917 – 2 May 1945), No. 249 Squadron, RAF. Air Ministry, 15th November 1940. The KING has been graciously pleased to confer the Victoria Cross on the undermentioned officer in recognition of most conspicuous bravery : Flight Lieutenant James Brindley NICOLSON (39329) — No. 249 Squadron. "During an engagement with the enemy near Southampton on 16th August 1940, Flight Lieutenant Nicolson's aircraft was hit by four cannon shells, two of which wounded him whilst another set fire to the gravity tank. When about to abandon his aircraft owing to flames in the cockpit he sighted an enemy fighter. This he attacked and shot down, although as a result of staying in his burning aircraft he sustained serious burns to his hands, face, neck and legs. Flight Lieutenant Nicolson has always displayed great enthusiasm for air fighting and this incident shows that he possesses courage and determination of a high order. By continuing to engage the enemy after he had been wounded and his aircraft set on fire, he displayed exceptional gallantry and disregard for the safety of his own life." https://upload.wikimedia.or... [*]

Too easy for you Peter.

The crew of De Havilland Mosquito Mark II, DZ757 'RA-Q', of No. 410 Squadron RCAF, Flight Lieutenant M A Cybulski RCAF (pilot, left) and Flying Officer H H Ladbrook (navigator), stand by their fire-damaged aircraft at Coleby Grange, Lincolnshire, after destroying a Dornier Do 217 east of the Zuider Zee on the night of 27th September 1943. Burning petrol and oil from the exploding German aircraft temporarily blinded Cybulski and engulfed the Mosquito, sending it into a steep dive from which Ladbrook managed to recover it after losing some 4,000 feet. Although the dive extinguished the flames, the port engine stopped and the aircraft became extremely difficult to control because of the damage to the rudder. The crew, nevertheless managed to steer DZ757 back on one engine over 200 miles to Coleby Grange, for which both were awarded the DFC https://media.iwm.org.uk/ci...

?

?

Thanks for that Neil,. . .but as I have never owned a 912 series,. . I don't have a manual either. But THANK YOU ALL for your valuable input.

I just saw the weekend WX forecast mate,. . . ANOTHER HEATWAVE predicted with temperatures expected to 'Soar' to 23 DegC Beachgoers are warned to make sure young children wear hats. . .

Flying over a heavily congested area like that can't be a Really Good idea . . . Mind you,. . .there is a precedent now,. . .in an emergency he could always use the Hudson ?

Had a recent flight in a Sportcruiser. Not overly impressed. This is the Marque that Piper took on for a while, and then rejected. It is quite a heavy composite airframe, and I believe that the machine is Under - powered using the Rotax 912 100 HP engine. It looks a million dollars, . . very sleek and you'd think, from looking at it,. . . . that it ought to cruise at around 130 odd Knots. . .no way Jose,. . . 88 Kt was all we managed at cruise throttle setting. . . .OK I am a fat Barstard I admit,. . but the Commander was a stick insect. . .around nine stones in his undies I reckon. . . .I am twice that ! I reckon that, re-fitted with a 914,. . .or a continental, it might shine ! My mate's RV4 does 145 Kt with a smallish 'Conti' up front. . . .