Guy Martin - Spitfire Rebuild

Deadman

This is my favourite Spit. P7350. I resprayed it twice in my 4 years working with BBMF. They rewarded me with a flight in the Lanc. I felt so honoured, still do.
http://www.aeroflight.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/s94-7350x.jpg

GuyBoden

Good program, but I enjoyed his Record Breaking record program more.

Funniest plane story was the Russian built MIG 15, the best fighter Jet plane of the Korean war.

The Russians had copied a Rolls Royce Jet engine, which Rolls Royce had sold them.

Stalin said, "What fool will sell us his secrets?"

The British Government were the fools that obliged and sold Russia Rolls Royce Jet engines and technical documentation, this was during the cold war.

ICBM

The British didn't believe the Russians would have the ability to copy the engine accurately, so they weren't worried. They were right, the Russians didn't copy it accurately...







... they reverse-engineered it and improved it.

paulnb57

I really like Guy, his accent, his enthusiasm, etc and a Spitfire gives me tingles in places a Spitfire shouldn't, but the programme was a disappointment, can't describe why, but it just didn't match my expectations. Hte finished article was awesome though.....

Fusionista

ICBM said:

The British didn't believe the Russians would have the ability to copy the engine accurately, so they weren't worried. They were right, the Russians didn't copy it accurately...

... they reverse-engineered it and improved it.

The arrogance of the British establishment was a feature both pre and post-war and comes out quite well in the biopic of Mitchell.  However they may have learned their lesson as Concordeski perhaps demonstrated.

ESBlonde

The British government gave our allies (American and Russian) the jet engine during the war. There was no provision for Whittle or his company to profit from there invention, investment and hard work. Rolls Royce too were gifted the technology.

Come the Korean war the American and Russian jets facing each other had German high speed flight technology and versions of the same Rolls Royce engine.

Of course when we went to the Americans for financial assistance after the war they fucked us over royally. Like fools we then trusted them with the speed of sound technology from the miles aircraft company in a deal to swap technologies, the yanks reneged on the deal once we had fulfilled our part by not reciprocating data and used out technology in the Bell X1 to put Yager as the first man to exceed the speed of sound. As if that wasn't enough the same has happened a number of times since, our American 'friends' being hard arsed and self serving only.

Fusionista

Make that 'arrogance & stupidity'.

Er, plus ca change ?

Gagaryn

I enjoyed the programme, but despite initially really liking Guy Martin, he's starting to grate! I don't doubt his ability to work with his hands but his ability to work with his mouth leaves a lot to be desired - he seems to be getting worse too - the wee catch all phrases are being used more and more 'proper hard graft', 'now't wrong with that, is there?', '100%', etc.

Problem is, despite all the words coming out his mouth, he isn't telling you anything. He's saying nothing and saying it twice!

ESBlonde

Fusionista said:

Make that 'arrogance & stupidity'.

Er, plus ca change ?

The Russians were very good at reverse engineering and with Stalins delight in murdering anyone that didn't perform to his expectations they made some classics.

The Americans ditched a B29 inside Russian territory just after WW11, given that it was state of the art with remote electronic controlled turrets, pressurised cockpits/crew areas and a big bomb load and range it was converted by the commies. Stalin asked for it to be copied and produced, the copy was so accurate that the word Boeing was contained in the cast alloy rudder pedals! The American delegation invited to watch the next military parade in Moscow were astonished to see six 'B29s' fly over in formation wearing the red star!

ICBM

They were using that electronic-controlled gun turret technology they nicked from the B-29 as late as the Tu-95 'Bear' which is still used for long-range patrol/probe/annoy the West flights to this day. They don't believe in throwing out stuff that works.

GuyBoden

The disaster for British Aircraft industry was De Havilland Comet's fatal crashes in the 1950's, but they didn't know much about metal fatigue, a largely unknown phenomenon at the time. Boeing capitalised from De Havilland's misfortunes.

This 2mins tells the Comet's story well.

ICBM

One of the men who worked at Boeing at the time admitted that it was DeHavilland's misfortune to be the leader and find out about it the hard way, and that if it had been the other way round, Boeing would have been caught by it instead.