Post amazingly cool pictures of aircraft (Volume 2)

[irocfan]

[hammo19]

perdu said:

I wonder how many of us learned the secret pleasures of "A whiff of cordite and warmly bruised shoulders firing 0.303" in the Cadets?

I gained my first Range Officer's certificate for the No4 rifle and the 0.22" cadet rifles back in the very early seventies

Happy days for sure

Me too. My Dad was a range officer and my brother and I got through 100 rounds each one Sunday on the outside range at RAF Manston and had the pleasure of digging in the sand bank to recover the bullets for recycling afterwards.

The best thing was trying to shoot the arrow heads off the pointers the cadets used in the butts to show where the shots went at Hythe Ranges.

[Simpo Two]

perdu said:

I wonder how many of us learned the secret pleasures of "A whiff of cordite and warmly bruised shoulders firing 0.303" in the Cadets?

I gained my first Range Officer's certificate for the No4 rifle and the 0.22" cadet rifles back in the very early seventies

.22 in the school 25 yard range and .303 at an RAF station somewhere in Suffolk. That was 25 yards too - rather overkill! The latter were of course Lee Enfields but I don't know what the .22s were.

Amazing now to think a school could have a real live rifle range - and used by teenagers. PC has a lot to answer for.

Dorm prefect was rather a good shot and used to put football cards on the targets - then try to shoot their nuts off. Sorry, rambling OT.

[perdu]

Simpo Two said:

perdu said:

I wonder how many of us learned the secret pleasures of "A whiff of cordite and warmly bruised shoulders firing 0.303" in the Cadets?

I gained my first Range Officer's certificate for the No4 rifle and the 0.22" cadet rifles back in the very early seventies

.22 in the school 25 yard range and .303 at an RAF station somewhere in Suffolk. That was 25 yards too - rather overkill! The latter were of course Lee Enfields but I don't know what the .22s were.

Amazing now to think a school could have a real live rifle range - and used by teenagers. PC has a lot to answer for.

Dorm prefect was rather a good shot and used to put football cards on the targets - then try to shoot their nuts off. Sorry, rambling OT.

We were accustomed to using the Lee Enfield 0.22" modifed version on the ranges in the ATC

Single shot, Lee Enfield Number 8 rifle I believe (old man bad memory)

Nice rifle

[Andy Zarse]

perdu said:

We were accustomed to using the Lee Enfield 0.22" modifed version on the ranges in the ATC

Single shot, Lee Enfield Number 8 rifle I believe (old man bad memory)

Nice rifle

That's the one Bill, with the little peep sight. Deadly accurate in the right hands.

You guys who fired off 90 rounds a session at such tender ages, yeesh that's got to hurt! You will no doubt now be awaiting the geriatric crumbling of shoulder joints and slackening tendons

[Dr Jekyll]

perdu said:

We were accustomed to using the Lee Enfield 0.22" modifed version on the ranges in the ATC

Single shot, Lee Enfield Number 8 rifle I believe (old man bad memory)

Nice rifle

We also used a .22 with a Martini action, don't know how common they were in ATC circles.

[Andy Zarse]

Dr Jekyll said:

We also used a .22 with a Martini action, don't know how common they were in ATC circles.

What century are we talking about?

[Dr Jekyll]

Andy Zarse said:

Dr Jekyll said:

We also used a .22 with a Martini action, don't know how common they were in ATC circles.

What century are we talking about?

20th, 1970s to be precise.
Lee Enfields and one Martini 22. Lee Enfield 303s and on a camp Browning (I think) 22 automatic pistols.

[Andy Zarse]

I was in it late 70s/early 80s and never saw any Martini actions. IIRC we used Browning 9mm pistols on the one occasion I got to shoot them.

[perdu]

The number 8 was a sweet rifle for cadets to fire, so little recoil they could pop off all day without shoulder fear.



Actually Andy I heard of a few Martinis around when I was an ATC CI, might have been in Warwicks and Birmingham Wing though or I would probably not have heard the stories.

Could have been the King Edwards CCF maybe, a VR-T officer I worked with in the squadron was an old KE boy...

[Dr Jekyll]

The Martinis were made at least until the 1950s, so hardly muskets.

[tight5]

does anyone know if there are any of either of these types still flying ?

[Dr Jekyll]

tight5 said:

does anyone know if there are any of either of these types still flying ?

No Beaufighters, there was one at Duxford meant to be under rebuild to fly but suitable engines couldn't be found.

I think there are a few P47s though.

[IroningMan]

yellowjack said:

Dr Jekyll said:

Eric Mc said:

Was that a special Falklands War mod?

[geek mode]Can't be a Falklands mod That's a Bren, in the true sense of it being the curved magazine and conical flash eliminator original 1930s designed .303" (rimmed) cartridge version license produced in UK. In the 1950s a large number of true 'Bren' guns were converted to fire the standard NATO 7.62×51mm rimless cartridge, with a slotted flash eliminator similar to the L1A1 SLR and a magazine with significantly less 'curve' to it which was interchangeable with the magazine from the SLR These were designated L4 Light Machine Gun. They certainly wouldn't have taken an original .303 Bren to the Falklands in 1982 - there'd have been no bullets for it, silly![/geek mode]

Better yet, in the days before the invention of the bright yellow BFA the Bren required 'bulleted' blanks, with balsawood rounds rather than crimped ends, in order to generate enough gas pressure to operate correctly. The flash eliminator had a plate welded over the left side to shred the bullets.

Issuing bulleted .303 blanks to the Section gunner, and 'normal' blanks to everyone else in the Section with a rifle must've made more than a few CCF instructors nervous...

I once had the distinction of bringing down a MATS-A drone with an L4 LMG - I was chuffed to bits.

[eccles]

Dr Jekyll said:

perdu said:

We were accustomed to using the Lee Enfield 0.22" modifed version on the ranges in the ATC

Single shot, Lee Enfield Number 8 rifle I believe (old man bad memory)

Nice rifle

We also used a .22 with a Martini action, don't know how common they were in ATC circles.

Our squadron had two Mk8's and a Martini rifle in the late 70's.The Martini seemed much more refined to me.

[tight5]

Dr Jekyll said:

No Beaufighters, there was one at Duxford meant to be under rebuild to fly but suitable engines couldn't be found.

I think there are a few P47s though.

thanks .


is there any web site I can check to see what exotic types are still flying ?

[FourWheelDrift]

This lists everything, not just flying so it's a bit of a search to find the fliers. - http://www.warbirdregistry.org/index.html

This one lists the aircraft usually seen flying in the UK by group, so most likely all fliers or restoration to flying - http://www.air-shows.org.uk/uk-airshow-directory/h...

[Riff Raff]

Deleted as I can't get the links to work.........

Edited by Riff Raff on Saturday 10th January 20:29

[Eric Mc]

No pictures.

Any Gee Bees flying today are replicas.

[Riff Raff]

Eric Mc said:

No pictures.

Any Gee Bees flying today are replicas.

That's odd - pics work for me in Firefox, but not Safari. Obviously a problem with hotlinking, I'll have a play with the URL's....