My next door neighbour is called Stan. He is a great guy, in his 90s and has a wicked sense of humour. His daughter is away for a couple of days so to-day I have officially been left in charge of looking after Stan.

Why is this so great?...well Stan is one of my heroes. He was one of the "Few" who flew Spits in the battle of Britain. To help him out for a few hours is an absolute honour! We all owe Stan a lot. John
07 HSE Narvick Black
Land Rover Series One
Triumph Rocket 111 (sadly gone!)

nice one

so were are you and Stan heading?

A The Royal Legion Club?
B The Lap Dancing Club?
C The Back Gammon and Poker Club?

or D a nice run out in to the countryside, pub lunch by a river and a good chinwag about the good old days

Cool
Bet he has a few good stories to tell

fantastic we are probably the last generation that realises that we enjoy the freedoms we have today because of guys like your neighbour . The word hero is often wrongly used these days but guys like him are the real living definition of that word.  2009 GS Auto Zermatt Silver - Sold June 21 after 10 years of ownership

2016 Subaru Outback SE 2.0 diesel SE Premium Lineartronic Sold 2024 after 8 years and 80k miles . Best Car I ever owned !

2023 Toyota Hilux invincible X 2.8 Auto .

The spitfire was one of the best looking aircraft of that time and looks fantastic to see fly now if your lucky enough. Just the sound of that engine as it passes over head on a low fly by sounds amazing

I know exactly what you mean. My bother's father-in-law did exactly the same thing athough, unfortunately, he died a few years ago.

To his absolute credit, he remained a complete petrolhead until the very end I didn't see him very often but, whenever I did, he was all over what ever I was driving and wanted to know all about it!

He spent the rest of his working life piloting jet airliners, but the feeling of awe for what he did never went away in the slightest. Women pilots weren't allowed to fly in combat, but he did tell me of a woman in her very early 20's (20-21 ish), that he used to fly alongside, whose job was flying Spitfires from the factory to front line airfields He seemed much more impressed with her exploits than anything he ever did.

Imaging your son bringing home a 20 year old girlfriend, whose day job might consist of flying Eurofighters into war zones. Not that that would be intimidating at all!

Tigger wrote:

Imaging your son bringing home a 20 year old girlfriend, whose day job might consist of flying Eurofighters into war zones. Not that that would be intimidating at all!

that would be a shock my son is 4 ,  At work
At home

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My father was in the RAF during WW2. I remember him telling me about things like the Spitfire having to go into a roll before diving, otherwise the carburettor float would cut off the fuel. The ME109 had fuel injection so could go straight into a dive without that problem. He also worked on Mosquitos which were made of wood! 2013 RR Evoque Pure Tech
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chicken george wrote:

Tigger wrote:

Imaging your son bringing home a 20 year old girlfriend, whose day job might consist of flying Eurofighters into war zones. Not that that would be intimidating at all!

that would be a shock my son is 4 ,

Shocked, but mildly impressed

Tigger wrote:

He spent the rest of his working life piloting jet airliners, but the feeling of awe for what he did never went away in the slightest. Women pilots weren't allowed to fly in combat, but he did tell me of a woman in her very early 20's (20-21 ish), that he used to fly alongside, whose job was flying Spitfires from the factory to front line airfields He seemed much more impressed with her exploits than anything he ever did.

Imaging your son bringing home a 20 year old girlfriend, whose day job might consist of flying Eurofighters into war zones. Not that that would be intimidating at all!

The ferry pilots were something else, no flight training on each type, no familiarisation or anything like it. They had a little handbook which contained a page or 2 on each aircraft and that was their lot.

All the respect we can give is due to the pilots who flew the aircraft in to war but the same respect is due to the (mostly) girls who got the planes to the front line airfields.  Prog rock is cool!
2012 XS SD4 Indus Silver

A very enjoyable day listening to Stan talk about flying. I didn't let him have the options of pub, lap dancing etc. as I wanted to be selfish and hear about flying the great old planes. He would talk about the planes for hours but not about any "kills" he made. I think he saw the idea of killing what he saw as fellow pilots and officers as offensive but a necessary duty.

I asked him the age old question of which was better the Spit or the Hurry. Although he conceded that the Hurry was a good crate in it's own right, the Spit was in a class of it's own....he actually said that compared to a Spit, a Hurry was like flying a brick! I asked him what made Spits so good and his reply was that you did not get into a Spit, onto a Spit or fly a Spit.....you wore it! The moment you got into it you felt like you were wearing a comfy pair of much loved slippers which knew your feet better than you. He said they were almost telepathic planes in as much as he swore that the dam things started to turn after you had though about turning but had not yet moved any controls! In short they were a joy to fly. He said that he flew the Mk24 Spit after the war in Hong Kong and that there were the ultimate flying machine. They could carry bombs or rockets and were fitted with cannons. A bit like the forerunner of the Tornado I suppose. They never saw action however.

He told me of one quirk the Hurry had in that there was an "H" gate in the cockpit one side of which controlled the flaps and the other side the landing gear....this apparently caused much confusion and consequently "entertaining" moments with novice pilots!

Needles to say I will be volunteering for further stints of Stan minding! John
07 HSE Narvick Black
Land Rover Series One
Triumph Rocket 111 (sadly gone!)

Very interesting.

I heard a very interesting program on the Beeb recently (http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01h666p/Hurricane_Rash/) where it turns out that the Hurricane pilots were very vulnerable to fire and pilot burns were usually referred to as "Hurricane Rash".

Ouch!