617Dambusters

Some nice planes in this one....only 5 years after the end of the war, you notice it too, in the plane design!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbAqyHRS ... ed&search=

Good stuff!
Bearing in mind the specs for many of those aircraft would have been laid out during the war.

I've always thought it's a shame the way the post-war British aircraft industry has come out with some awesome designs, often years ahead of their time, but have suffered from a lack of manufacturing and sales base, to be pipped at the post (some of those aircraft in the film were obviously doomed to failure, but as stepping stones to later designs they were essential).

Concorde for example... There were orders all over the world for Concorde, but then the fuel crisis hit, and nobody wanted a gas guzzling aircraft, no matter how fast it went, and all orders outside of France and the UK were dropped. Boeing had the same problem with their SST (could have been a real winner, but became economically unviable in the end).

Or the DeHavilland Comet... Potentially great early jet airliner, but they had to find out the hard way that square windows in a pressurised cabin at altitude lead to stress fractures and catastrophic decompression. Even when the later Comets came out with round windows, nobody wanted to fly them.

Still, many of the design innovations thought up by British designers have ended up in aircraft still in use today.

It was great to see that Canberra yawing its way over the runway, a great aircraft which was picked up by the US (manufactured under license as the B-57) and many other countries. The last few (photo recon versions) were only finally retired this year. Saw extensive service in Vietnam with the Aussie Airforce, with great results.

Good stuff scott. I am going to an airshow this weekend, not too biug of 1 but the blue angel's will be there and also some ww2 aircraft. I'll try n get some pics if i can borrow my cousin's digital cam.