Ed Burke
Member
Healthy living is fine, but it's having fun that keeps us going!
Posts: 433
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Post by Ed Burke on Jan 28, 2009 5:47:05 GMT -5
My entries are in and only just before the deadline. Fact is that I have been very busy fitting out the living arrangements. All these past years I have been having to sleep under the wing with scorpions and wriggly things, not this year!
The old Bristol Frightener is fitted out like a top of the line Winnebago RV and I will be sleeping in style. The beauty of the beast is that there is still plenty of space for the bar where all you thirsty fellow sufferers can grab some refreshment. I must add that that will be after Dili as all the spare capacity will be used up until there with my cargo shipment for the East Timorese.
My second mount is a Yakovlev UT-1 to provide some light relief. If the Yak breaks down I will toss it into the big fella.
Now all I have to do is not burn the 170 to the plimsol line if one of the regular engine start-up fires gets out of hand.
How fast is a Bristol 170? About the same as a Goonie, ask Andrew Godden, he's entered one.
Ed
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Post by paulvdberg on Jan 28, 2009 7:07:09 GMT -5
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Post by johnl on Jan 28, 2009 7:51:12 GMT -5
I was very tempted to fly a Frightener, but decided to leave it until the GAAR gets round to visiting Broken Hill. Silver City Airways, who ran the Lydd operation until the merger, were named in honour of BH, and having lived under their Southampton-Cherbourg route as a child, I'd like to get my revenge! A word of warning: although the Frightener can operate off grass, they tended to bog down in wet conditions, which is why Silver City moved from EGHI to Hurn. The Lydd-Calais and Lydd-Le Touquet service operated in a special "car ferry" airway which allowed them to fly IFR at FL10 eastwards and FL20 westwards.
What is generally not known about the Frightener is it's success as a RACING aircraft. To celebrate the 50th anniversary of Bleriot's channel crossing flight, a newspaper organised a London-Paris race (I think the starting and finishing points were Marble Arch and the Arc de Triomphe). Either the RAF or the Royal Navy won the unlimited class, but in the "using a scheduled service" class, Stirling Moss drove a Jaguar down to Lydd, and then straight on from Le Touquet to Paris, beating those who thought that BEA's or Air France's Heathrow-Le Bourget service was the best way to go.
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Post by katiepipkin on Jan 28, 2009 12:23:55 GMT -5
I was really pleased to be the only person flying a Vultee. Then I noticed someone else is too!
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Ed Burke
Member
Healthy living is fine, but it's having fun that keeps us going!
Posts: 433
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Post by Ed Burke on Jan 28, 2009 16:33:47 GMT -5
Thanks for the link Paul, in a hurry and haven't been able to play it yet. They refer to tyre squeals. I wonder if they are referring to brake squeaks? It took a lot of brake work to taxi them with any accuracy and the brakes were VERY distinctive.
My thoughts on the Frightener in the 09 GAAR regions go back to the 'Air Beef' days when quite a lot of animals were being slaughtered on the properties and the carcases were flown to the markets rather than all that droving or trucking. Seemed to make sense.
Sorry you missed out on an exclusive, Katie. My reference to a not very exclusive Goonie was that two a/c had identical times for the trial flights and one of them was a Bristol 170; the other one wasn't !
Ed
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Post by rattler1 on Jan 28, 2009 17:02:10 GMT -5
Some fine footage there of another Gentleman's Horseless Carriage. Hercules radials, the same as the Pig (affectionate term for the Valetta) that I've entered. You should get a good load of relief supplies with the Frightener. I managed just over 9,000 lb in the Pig, and if the runway is long enough you should better that. Nice to see some classic British engineering getting a look in; too many of these American products cluttering up the airspace (stands by to duck) !!!
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Post by Allan_Lowson on Jan 28, 2009 17:52:33 GMT -5
Dearie me Ed, Proppies blonde wig has obviously led you astray.
We'll have to find you an appropriate Prospect for next year from the old country. Something designed with the respectable Ocker in mind with a separate cabin for the support crew and a suitable box in the back for the eskie.
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Post by Andrew Godden on Jan 28, 2009 18:06:56 GMT -5
I grew up with the "Frightener" around Essendon (YMEN) in Melbourne and I still marvel at it and the AW.650 "Argosy" which I nearly entered in the GAAR. In fact, the "Goonie" I've entered is the XC-47C, which is the prototype on floats. The extra drag probably explains the break neck racing speeds, Ed and I are enjoying.
If either of us have to ditch, we are both probably safe, the displacement of the fuselage on the "Frightener" should keep her afloat until help arrives. In the meantime, Ed can sit back and settle into the "on board" bar. If I see Ed go down, I just might have to put the XC-47 down in sympathy and keep him company at the bar.
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Post by johnl on Jan 30, 2009 7:31:26 GMT -5
We'll have to find you an appropriate Prospect for next year from the old country. Something designed with the respectable Ocker in mind with a separate cabin for the support crew and a suitable box in the back for the eskie. Blackburn Beverly?
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Post by rattler1 on Jan 30, 2009 12:10:03 GMT -5
Anyone entering a Beverley for next year had better hedge their oil costs now. Oil, not fuel. It was said that the Bev only needed a navigator on the outbound leg; coming home they just followed the oil slick. ;D
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Post by Allan_Lowson on Jan 30, 2009 17:48:03 GMT -5
Swipe me John. How big's your eskie!!! Actually the Beverley would have been my second choice aircraft if the Concordia had not proved such a brilliant plane. Well, Peter's model of it anyway. Nope think of something the other end of the alphabet. Or PM me! Any road coming your way soon.
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Post by robbie12 on Jan 31, 2009 2:20:22 GMT -5
;Dthank the lord that noone has entered a Bristol Beverley!! In the fifties, an unknown American airman saw one on the tarmac at some UK airbase and his jaw dropped with astonishment and he is reputed to have remarked"Gee, lawdy lawd, that sure won't ever replace the airplane." It was a monster, high wing and when several arrived in Aden, one had engine problems and they had to wait for suitable ladders to arrive from the UK before they were able to service the beast,
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Post by Allan_Lowson on Jan 31, 2009 6:31:56 GMT -5
When the first Beverley was making its maiden flight some of the onlookers were laying bets on whether it would leave the ground. I see the Edgar Percival Prospector has broken cover over at Classic British Files. You were close John, they both have a boom tail. I'm sure when the Prospector grows up it will want to be a Beverley. Edgar Percival designed the Prospector after he left the Percival aircraft company. It was designed with the Australian market in mind, but only about 26 were built by either Edgar or the Lancashire Aircraft Company - so you might see it referred to as the Lancashire E.P.9. As one was evaluated by the British Army, it would even fit in with a warbird theme for the event! (along with all the C-47 gooney birds.)
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Post by robbie12 on Jan 31, 2009 19:11:38 GMT -5
:)let's not be too unkind to the Beverley, during Confrontation, when Indonesia flexed its muscles in the 60s my whole company of Gurkhas,( about a hundred or so) fitted comfortably in to the tail boom with lots of room in the body for vehicles and sundry military equipment, would have taken tons to Dilli instead of my measly 800 pounds in my trusty Goose. Not too happy at the thought of flying the Atlantic in a Bev unless the body was turned into an enormous belly tank.
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Post by johnl on Feb 1, 2009 7:12:09 GMT -5
Nowt wrong with t'Beverley - can't think of anything else that could paradrop a single 40000lb object. It must have been a very interesting exercise in elevator trim as the payload slid aft.
As for the Prospector, many thanks for the tip. It will find a place in my "uglies" hangar with the Transavia Airtruck and the PZL Belphegor, etc.
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