A new book in my library.

[Dana Bell]

Answer 1: Since submitting the material for this book to Osprey, we've been able to get what's in NARA and frankly I don't think we would have been able to use much of it anyway due to the publisher's restrictions on how many pages, how many illustrations, and how many words we were allowed to include in order to keep within the "X-Plane Series" format. It's mainly drawings of components, and a few technical reports that would benefit aero engineers more than average readers. We're working on an all-inclusive future work that will pull these in though, along with a huge number of other things that we've found in more obscure places and private collections. That's at least 2 years out, assuming that we can find a publisher willing to tackle such a big job.

Answer 2: My own opinion, based on having spent the first 3 years of my career at USN/USMC aircraft rework depots, is that the marks could be either stickers or white paint or maybe just bare metal, put there as some sort of thing for maintainers. I'm attaching one of the few photos we have that shows some of them close up, and each of these is associated with a small access panel. They weren't on the aircraft when it rolled out of final assembly or during taxi testing, but at least some had appeared by the time the first flight occurred. They're on both upper and lower surfaces too. I'm pretty sure they were white because they stand out more brightly against the upper surface color than the tail numbers which we know were yellow, and are on a par with the star in the national insignia. They're easily visible against the lower gray surfaces too, more so than I would expect yellow to be. At some point they were either removed (if they were tape) or painted over, because they don't appear in rare color frames dating to summer 1944, although the usual worn-off paint on fasteners is evident. But then they must have been put back on because they definitely show up on the post-fire photos of its final flight on 6 September.

About the "tape" - I have a half-baked theory that the yellow line patterns that were on the upper wings for at least part of XP-67's life may have been tape as well. That's based on close examination of one of the only photos we have that shows the details of those areas. That might explain why there's a faint residue from its removal on one wing in particular, in the famous overhead inflight view. I know that there was an XP-67 finish specification but so far it hasn't been found, and I think it's going to take something like that to nail this down definitively.

Steve,

If you do get back to College Park, make sure I give you a copy of my latest versions of the Sarah Clark finding aids - either drop me an e-mail or bring a thumb drive. I've repaired most of the errors introduced by the interns who help process and rehouse the materials, and added some critical notes on contents.

(We may have met about this before, but I'm notoriously bad with names and faces. Still, there are monthly updates to the finding aids that might prove useful.)

Cheers,



Dana

 

[Capt. Vick]

Answer 1: Since submitting the material for this book to Osprey, we've been able to get what's in NARA and frankly I don't think we would have been able to use much of it anyway due to the publisher's restrictions on how many pages, how many illustrations, and how many words we were allowed to include in order to keep within the "X-Plane Series" format. It's mainly drawings of components, and a few technical reports that would benefit aero engineers more than average readers. We're working on an all-inclusive future work that will pull these in though, along with a huge number of other things that we've found in more obscure places and private collections. That's at least 2 years out, assuming that we can find a publisher willing to tackle such a big job.

Answer 2: My own opinion, based on having spent the first 3 years of my career at USN/USMC aircraft rework depots, is that the marks could be either stickers or white paint or maybe just bare metal, put there as some sort of thing for maintainers. I'm attaching one of the few photos we have that shows some of them close up, and each of these is associated with a small access panel. They weren't on the aircraft when it rolled out of final assembly or during taxi testing, but at least some had appeared by the time the first flight occurred. They're on both upper and lower surfaces too. I'm pretty sure they were white because they stand out more brightly against the upper surface color than the tail numbers which we know were yellow, and are on a par with the star in the national insignia. They're easily visible against the lower gray surfaces too, more so than I would expect yellow to be. At some point they were either removed (if they were tape) or painted over, because they don't appear in rare color frames dating to summer 1944, although the usual worn-off paint on fasteners is evident. But then they must have been put back on because they definitely show up on the post-fire photos of its final flight on 6 September.

About the "tape" - I have a half-baked theory that the yellow line patterns that were on the upper wings for at least part of XP-67's life may have been tape as well. That's based on close examination of one of the only photos we have that shows the details of those areas. That might explain why there's a faint residue from its removal on one wing in particular, in the famous overhead inflight view. I know that there was an XP-67 finish specification but so far it hasn't been found, and I think it's going to take something like that to nail this down definitively.

Thank you. I am obsessed with the arcane and to read this fills me with immense joy. Would gladly buy an expanded edition. - Jim

 

[OldGeezer]

Steve,

If you do get back to College Park, make sure I give you a copy of my latest versions of the Sarah Clark finding aids - either drop me an e-mail or bring a thumb drive. I've repaired most of the errors introduced by the interns who help process and rehouse the materials, and added some critical notes on contents.

(We may have met about this before, but I'm notoriously bad with names and faces. Still, there are monthly updates to the finding aids that might prove useful.)

Cheers,



Dana

I'm afraid I can't travel for medical reasons, my wife does all of that. You sent me an email in August 2021 with a list of "hits" on XP-67 in RG342. I'm frankly baffled by the whole Sarah Clark Collection thing. Ray Ortensie at AFMC/HO said you were the guy who knew the most about it. He had previously said this: "The collection, also known as the Sarah Clark Collection, is still Air Force Records and in November 2019 was released back to me. However, for years they would not even let Air Force Historians in to see it. There are no good finding aids for what is in that collection. I have rough backing slips of what they shipped over but even that doesn't tell you what is in there. I do however have a finding aid for the items of the Sarah Clark Collection that was accessioned at College Park. I went up there for a week in September 2019 to do a rough look through the collection and had hoped to go back a few times in 2020 but obviously that never happened. Let me see if I can get those spreadsheets to you." The 2 spreadsheets that he sent are the biggest ones I've ever seen, just under 130 thousand lines, so I'm glad somebody else is working on opening up that collection because there are bound to be treasures hidden in something whose index alone is so massive. I had heard a rumor that the index only includes every 10th item in the collection itself, or something like that.

 

[Capt. Vick]

Love his books, there are always pictures in there that I have never seen.

This should be interesting, though I haven't cracked it open yet.

 

[Wurger]

 

[Airframes]

Good stuff. I never knew that turboprops had been tried on the Ambassador.

 

[SaparotRob]

I never knew there was an Ambassador.

 

[Airframes]

Yep, Airspeed Ambassador, originally with piston engines, with happy memories from my younger days. (pic via Pinterest).

 

[Wurger]

 

[fubar57]

I never knew there was an Ambassador.

Nor did I

 

[Daggerr]

Good stuff. I never knew that turboprops had been tried on the Ambassador.

AFAIK:
After finishing its work at Airspeed the second prototype G-AKRD was in 1953 transferred to Bristol for testing of the Proteus turboprop engines, and in 1958 to Rolls-Royce for testing Tyne turboprop engines and later Dart turboprop engines. So it was used only as a turboprop test bed by engine manufacturers, not by or for Airspeed.

There was a project AS.59 for a Mk II Ambassador with four RR Dart turboprop engines but that was cancelled in 1951 without any production.

 

[ThunderChief76]

 

[Greg Boeser]

 

[Wurger]

 

[A.G. Williams]

Something different: Ken Lussey's Orkney Trilogy.

These books (Bloody Orkney, The Danger of Life and Eyes Turned Skywards) are espionage thrillers largely set in northern Scotland and the Orkney Islands during WW2. They are notable for sticking to the facts as much as possible, with a lot of people, places and events being real, or very nearly so. They are also interesting for the focus on aircraft (German as well as British featuring in detail). My knowledge of this subject isn't that great and doesn't really compare with others on this forum (especially the aircraft bit!) but I was very impressed with these books, which are really one continuous story. Definitely worth a look.

 

[GTX]

A couple of simple ones:

 

[Airframes]

Just received this from my friend Max.
The sub-title intrigued me, but the back cover "blurb" gives some hope, and an extract from this is also shown below.

 

[Wurger]

 

[GTX]

Just received this from my friend Max.
The sub-title intrigued me, but the back cover "blurb" gives some hope, and an extract from this is also shown below.


View attachment 699465View attachment 699466

What's your opinion of it? Many of the reviews I have seen are not complimentary.

 

[Airframes]

So far I've only flipped through it, and not read anything yet.
I was already sceptical, having read the cover referring to the BoB, and I'll admit that, the presentation of the book itself doesn't do it any favours, being printed on "cheap" pulp stock, and with mediocre quality illustrations, using stock shots not all of which are relative to the time period being discussed. For example, a pic of a late mark Spitfire when referring to the BoB, which suggests lazy research on someone's part, there being many, many period images available.
Being only 120 pages of narrative, in paperback, from an author and a publisher I've never heard of, also starts alarm bells ringing.
However, if I can get through the first 75% to 80% of the text, which seems to be coverage of development, history and politics, and get to the "meat" of the story, the i may be able to comment. I'm about to settle down and start reading ...................