BluBear

402nd FS Combat Report - 17/12 - Attack armour near Duren Both the 402 and 485 had the same target today, so it made sense to fly as a group. Unfortunately it didn't get off to a great start, the 402 had an aircraft go U/S due to control linkage failure before take-off reducing them to a trio and as documented by Lt Nailed, the 485 also lost an aircraft on the taxiway due to peculiar enemy clandestine activity. After forming up over Florennes, Capt Rea who was leading the group seconded one of his lot to fly as our Red 4 in order to balance the squads. With an initial grimace, we accepted Capt Payne into our formation as he nestled up snugly to Lt Vanderweit's wing and proceeded to chew our ears off for the entire ingress to target, with tall tales and blue jokes aplenty. Armour was spotted in the fields to the west of Duren transiting towards the cover of a wooded area, flak was light to medium. 402 were ordered to cover high whilst the 485th made their attack runs. Frustratingly, the sizeable escort cover we were offered managed to spend most of the time putting their big fat P-47s uncomfortably in our way; how there wasn't a collision Lord only knows. We subsequently made our own attack runs, but our 1000lb'ers scarcely made a dent today. With the group out of bombs, Zenith leader called us to investigate targets of opportunity at Kelz airfield SE of Duren. Trailing the 485th by about 5-10km we observed AAA coming up at them, but despite swift warning calls it became evident Capt Rea had been hit by a hot shot barrage and had to bug out West badly knocked about with a buggered P-38. Get well soon Capt! Understandably, we decided to steer clear of Kelz and quickly found targets of opportunity to the South, consisting of artillery and AAA guns. Sadly, on the first strafing run, 2nd Lt James Hendley (AKA Scrounger) flying as Red 2 was observed to lawn-dart quite spectacularly. Whether it was dive-brake failure, a stuck throttle or just misjudgement we'll never know. A regrettable loss to the squadron nonetheless. We'll miss his sublime oil can drum solos with a pilfered pair of ground crew's favourite wrenches. The rest of the mission went comparatively smoothly, with Red 3 and 4 working as a highly effective fighting pair as I flew as spotter and decoy, picking off targets along the way. A respectable haul of enemy hardware destroyed and an effective display of teamwork. Well done gents! That Capt Payne actually turned out to be alright in the end, all things considered.

Brems on the wing.

Regarding prospect of selling out, a contact based at Sywell posted this on the UKAR forums: Sywell is also a smaller venue than Duxford.

Sure, why not!

And here she is, what a beauty! https://www.instagram.com/p/CPQTV_XBku9/?utm_medium=copy_link

Finally downloaded and installed it, will give it a try soon!

It's a great line up already! And apparently they may have devised a curved flightline, similar to Old Warden, great for top side passes. Rumourmill suggests the Grace Tempest II could be the star of the show, but we'll see. It's not even emerged from the hangar at Sywell yet. That would be something. Either way, one is excited.

A few from me, featuring more of the stunning 2.7 clouds.

402nd FS Combat Report - 15/12 - Attack Armour, Julich Before I commence our report, I'd just like to acknowledge the regrettable loss of Maj Payne-Less. Despite his diminutive form, he was a towering figure in the 370th FG; ably leading the 485th FS through countless scrapes to become a ground pounding, jerry-downing, knicker flinging legend and the longest serving member of the group. A dark day made darker also by the unfortunate loss of their promising young Lt Reginald. Consolatory drinks are on the 402nd tonight. We proceeded to the target area as a five-ship armed with 4x 1000lb bombs; strong intel reported a build-up of armour approaching Julich from the NE. This was confirmed by the bomber boys of 410th who were on a recce in the area before our ingress, thanks for that guys! Sure enough, a significant number of tank columns and artillery were found in the midst of their advance hammering our boys on the frontline. With light to medium flak keeping us in check, a series of well-coordinated attacks rendered the armour well and truly buggered, with particular mention to Lt Crown flying as white two who pickled two and smacked two in one run. Whilst the majority of red flight continued to deal with various ground targets, white lead Capt Fruitbat spotted a gaggle of enemy aircraft high to the South West, tangling with our Florennes stable-mates of the 474th who had been escorting us. It quickly became obvious that our friends from the other side of the field were having quite a hard time of it, so with all hands on deck the 402nd made swift work of the enemy threat. Another mention here to white two who managed to smack down two 190s! During the melee, Lt Sparten – red three – had a slight coming together with the enemy and had to hit the silk; much like my own misfortune last mission. Luck was once again on our side however, as he was soon picked up by friendly units on the frontline. Well done chaps, it was a little hectic at times but an impressive haul of air and ground targets with a great display of teamwork and situational awareness nonetheless.

Reporting in

402nd FS Combat Report - 13/12 - Air patrol over 's-Hertogenbosch Firstly, apologies for the lateness of this report; you will understand why as you read on. Up to the relatively decent strength of six pilots this time round, the 402nd set off for a patrol over some unpronounceable Dutch city to the North, carrying a pair of 500lb'ers for good luck. Shortly after reaching the patrol area, a gaggle of unidentified aircraft were spotted much lower, but before we had the chance to investigate we received a call for help from the 485th which we dutifully accepted. Steering South West at Angels 14(ish) we soon saw flaming wreckage falling from the sky to our 1 O'clock. Another call to Zenith revealed they had everything under control, so we headed back to where we last spotted the lower unknown gaggle. Sure enough we spotted a formation of four low and uncharacteristically slow Me262s flying in a line heading roughly East, we ditched the bombs and prepared to engage. Despite best efforts to reduce speed from the lofty intercept, it soon became obvious that we were going to overrun them. With the straggling number four aircraft quickly filling my gunsight evasive action was taken but the now unsighted Jerry jet collided with the underside of my aircraft knocking out engine number two and ripping off my horizontal stab in the process. With no chance of recovering the aircraft I hit the silk and watched the rest of the engagement as I drifted to the uninviting snowy frontline below. At this point Capt. Fruitbat who was flying as White One assumed lead and proudly reports that all four Me262s were smacked down, one by himself, one by 2Lt Handley and two by 2Lt Over. Unfortunately, our newest recruit 2Lt Brem Sprow suffered electrical failure and had to return to base early on in the mission and 2Lt Wanderweit suffered a similar fate to myself, also colliding with a 262; though thankfully he was able to recover at Eindhoven and even beat the 410th BG to the mess, much to the chagrin of his hosts for the evening! After getting my bearings I headed South along the hedgerows until I reached the Waal river and a rather conveniently moored rowing boat. Rowing my way to the South shore my luck struck again by attracting the attention of a retreating friendly supply column. After a couple of stops I finally hitched a ride in a Jeep and made it to Eindhoven just in time to see Red Four beat one of those bomber boys to an arm wrestle 7 pints in. So, despite losing one aircraft and damage to two others, with no pilots lost and four of the enemy's new jet fighters destroyed, an arm wrestle won and a mess that wasn't our own completely drunk dry, it was a good day. Well done gents!

For those not on Facebook, they also announced this:

Happy to ditch CloD, I can barely remember the last time I flew it and it's not even installed on my new rig. Thanks for all your efforts with it over the years FT; plenty of fun was had there for a while but GBS and DCS rule the roost now.

Oops, all three days booked 😁

Tickets are now on sale gents! Reckon I'll go ahead and book three days. Line up already looks good and tickets include parking and flight line walk as standard. https://www.flyinglegends.com/tickets https://video.wixstatic.com/video/ea5f45_e05b21789c7d41c1ab1aefbd12145089/1080p/mp4/file.mp4

reporting in

A question FT, are you using your PC as an extractor fan in your wood workshop? That looks like the dust of model bridges!

NO THANKS!

Incredible!

Yep. Only just got home, M25 was a biatch and have fish and chips waiting to be eaten. Give em hell dogz!

Unlikely to make it tonight sorry gents, just finished here at Old Warden, by the time I'm home and fed it will be pushing it. Apologies and good luck!

Still having this issue with your images Kev, I'm on a completely different PC now! WTF?

I totally understand and heartily respect your opinion sir. I don't have anywhere near the experiences you have in that regard, in fact it's likely I'm more risk averse! Parachutes? No thanks! I suppose really, whilst I agree on the whole with what you're saying, I just mildly object at Mr Hanna being regarded as an idiot. I'd posit that the reason we don't see anyone perform such a low take off in a Spitfire now, isn't a case of not being allowed, but because there simply isn't anyone with that degree of low-level experience or skill on type anymore. He was an outlier. As reads on his grave stone, "Incomparable". However, I do also recognise and appreciate that performing such manoeuvres could and probably have encouraged actual idiots to imitate, with disastrous results.

I do agree for the most part Sidly and I was also shocked to hear about the background of this particular incident the other day. @Jabo this is what I was talking about. The US in particular are in a tricky situation at the moment with so many high profile warbird incidents and losses of life due to negligence etc. One thing though, I wouldn't lump the late Ray Hanna (the pilot of that now famous video clip you refer to) into the same category. Far from it, that chap was no idiot. There's enough info out there on his personal history (former Reds leader, low level RAF expert etc), his capabilities and the general high regard in which he was held in the aviation world, specifically historic aviation and what he did for it. In addition, it's important to understand the context of the video. That wasn't a low pass, it was a take off and a trademark of his display in MH434. The filming took place at the end of Duxford's runway and was timed with spotting from the control tower. If you read about the Old flying machine company and their involvement in films such as Memphis Belle, Empire of the sun and Goldeneye to name a few, you'll see just how well planned they were and how they managed risk in order to offer spectacle. I'm not saying that there aren't risk taking idiots in the UK warbird scene, I was at Shoreham in 2015 with Mr P. What happened that day was horrendous and totally avoidable. Just trying to offer context old bean as I think there's a marked difference between the Avenger incident, Shoreham, Reno and that of Ray Hanna. My rant over

After the disappointment of the VEAO Hawk, I'm looking forward to giving this a whirl. With MP twin stick support this is also the only free carrier capable module. Looks great too!