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'Two of the surviving Dambuster airmen have attended a ceremony after a flypast to mark the 70th anniversary of the World War II raid on German dams. Hundreds of onlookers gathered as a Lancaster bomber flew over Derwent reservoir - one of the practice sites used ahead of the top-secret mission. More than a third of the men never returned from the raids, when they had to fly just 60ft above ground. RAF Scampton later hosted a sunset service. The RAF Battle of Britain Memorial Flight and 617 Squadron flew over the dam in Derbyshire's Hope Valley on Thursday lunchtime....

"Nick Grace bought the 2 seat Spitfire in 1979 in a dismantled state and after 5 years of work took off with his wife Carolyn on their first flight. Apart from the substantial task of general re-assembly the fuselage and wings were essentially as they left the factory but a large amount of the work involved stripping back to bare metal and re-riveting after treatment with modern anticorrosives which is why OUV is still operational today with no corrosion. .... This short clip is taken from the film "Perfect Lady" which covers the full story of OUV's restoration...and the Spitfire...

Nice video clip of a P-51 and a Spitfire going through some maneuvers...pretty clear sky for Britain,*smiles* http://www.ferociousfrankie.com/video1.html crank it up

Burma has signed a deal with a British aviation enthusiast to allow the excavation of a World War II treasure: dozens of Spitfire fighter planes buried by the British almost 70 years ago. Aviation enthusiast David J. Cundall discovered the locations of the aircraft after years of searching. The planes are believed to be in good condition, since they were reportedly packed in crates and hidden by British forces to keep them out of the hands of invading Japanese. The British Embassy said Wednesday that the agreement was reached after discussions between President Thein Sein and British Prime Minister David...

RAF Bomber Command RAF veteran defies health and safety to take to the skies A 91-year-old former RAF pilot, who was told it was too dangerous to sit in the cockpit of a Spitfire, has taken off once more, flying in the face of health and safety rules. Telegraph News By Telegraph reporters 8:18AM BST 20 Aug 2012 Eric Carter, the last surviving member of Force Benedict, a secret mission to protect the northern Russian port of Murmansk, flew Spitfires during the Second World War. But he was shot down earlier this year when he wanted to sit in the...

He survived the daily dangers of being a pilot in the Second World War and even risked his life on a clandestine operation in the Soviet Union. Now aged 91, and seven decades on from his wartime exploits, Eric Carter has taken to the skies again at the controls of a rare two-seater Spitfire. Earlier this year, museum officials denied Mr Carter the chance even to sit in the cockpit of a Spitfire because of health and safety rules.'Just as I remembered it': Eric Carter, 91, said it 'all came back' after ten minutes of flying in the Spitfire. The...

The Prime Minister secured a historic deal that will see the fighter aircraft dug up and shipped back to the UK almost 67 years after they were hidden more than 40-feet below ground amid fears of a Japanese occupation. The gesture came as Mr Cameron became the first Western leader to meet Aung San Suu Kyi, the Burmese democracy campaigner held under house arrest for 22 years by the military regime, and invited her to visit London in her first trip abroad for 24 years. He called on Europe to suspend its ban on trade with Burma now that it...

It’s like something out of an Indiana Jones film, if you take away the religious overtones and ophidiophobic adventurer. After 15 years, a British farmer’s quest to find a squadron of legendary fighter planes lost in Burma during World War II has finally paid off. Lincolnshire farmer David Cundall, 62, has spent £130,000, traveled to Burma a dozen times and negotiated with the cagey Burmese government, all in the hopes of finding a stash of iconic British Spitfires buried somewhere in the Southeast Asian country. Cundall started his search after his friend heard from a group of U.S. veterans...

EXTRAORDINARY plans to raise a lost ''squadron'' of Spitfires that have lain buried in Burma since the end of World War II were revealed at the weekend as David Cameron, Britain's Prime Minister, visited Rangoon. A Lincolnshire farmer who devoted 15 years of his life to finding the planes has spoken about his quest to recover them and get them airborne. David Cundall, 62, has spent £130,000 ($200,000) of his money, visited Burma 12 times, persuaded its secretive regime to trust him, and all the time sought testimony from a dwindling band of Far East veterans in order to locate...

An attempt to recover a Spitfire from a peat bog in Donegal will highlight the peculiar story of the men - both British and German - who spent much of World War II in relative comfort in neighbouring prisoner of war camps in Dublin, writes historian Dan Snow.> The pilot was 23-year-old Roland "Bud" Wolfe, an RAF officer from 133 "Eagle" Squadron, a unit entirely composed of Americans. > On 13 December 1941 he walked straight out of camp and after a meal in a hotel, which he did not pay for, he headed into nearby Dublin and caught the...

RAF Spitfire pulled from Irish peat bog A Second World War RAF Spitfire has been excavated from an Irish peat bog almost 70 years after it crash-landed. A piece of the Wreckage of the World War Two spitire that crashed into the Bog in County Donegal A piece of the Wreckage of the World War Two spitire that crashed into the Bog in County Donegal 6:00AM BST 29 Jun 2011 Six machine guns and about 1,000 rounds of ammunition were also discovered by archaeologists searching the Inishowen Peninsula in Co Donegal. The British fighter plane was piloted by an American,...

The Spitfire - - an appreciation By George Kerevan 75 years ago today, as darkness loomed across Europe, an achingly beautiful aircraft soared into the heavens on its maiden flight. The plane would become both an eight-gunned instrument of freedom and a near-spiritual symbol of it. The Spitfire was born. AT 4:35pm on the afternoon of 5 March, 1936, a pilot called Joseph 'Mutt' Summers walked across the grass of Southampton Airport - currently a hub for Flybe. Summers had spent a tiring day testing a new RAF bomber. Now, he had to squeeze in the first flight of a...

The scene is still one of the most evocative in this island's history: dashing young pilots in their fighter planes, defying the odds as they speed across blue summer skies towards the intruder above southern England. A German aircraft goes into an uncontrollable spin, smoke pouring from its bullet-riddled engine as it plunges to earth. At an RAF station on the ground, the mellifluous voice of Vera Lynn wafts from a nearby wireless. From the House of Commons chamber, Winston Churchill's whisky-soaked growl rouses a nation to resistance at its moment of darkest peril. Seventy years on, the Battle of...

Alex Henshaw, who has died aged 94, was an outstanding test pilot whose name will forever be associated with the Second World War’s most famous aircraft, the Spitfire; between 1940 and 1945 he test flew some 2,360 individual Spitfires and Seafires (the naval version of the aircraft), amounting to more than 10 per cent of the total built.By 1939 Henshaw was already celebrated as a pilot, having won the King’s Cup Air Race and broken the record for a flight to Cape Town and back. When war broke out he volunteered for service with the RAF but, while waiting for...

IMMORTALISED in film and Churchillian speeches for its role in winning the Battle of Britain, the Spitfire is still the world's most famous military aircraft. More than 20,000 were manufactured to take on the Messerschmitts of Germany and the Zeros of Japan, but today only a few dozen can still be flown. Remarkably, the northern Riverina town of Temora boasts two of them.

The last time they flew across the Channel, they were 32 feet long, with Rolls-Royce engines and wings bristling with 20mm cannons. Now they measure all of 18 inches, have no engine and not so much as a peashooter - but their "pilots" still risk being thrown into German captivity. Inflatable and inflammatory? Fred Arnold, Andy Mitchel and Terry Dorell plan to sell thousands of planes The Sunday Telegraph has learnt that a "big wing" of more than 10,000 inflatable Spitfires will this week cross into Germany and, when the World Cup starts on Friday, they could face the kind...

The Supermarine Spitfire, a plane that became an emblem for the British and Canadian air forces in the Second World War, marked its 70th anniversary Sunday. Five Spitfires flew in a V formation above Southampton in southern Britain, 70 years to the minute after the first flight. Decades after he was the chief test pilot for the plane, 93-year-old Alex Henshaw called the Spitfire a thoroughbred. "Very, very accurate assessment because with a thoroughbred racehorse as you know, if it's got a tender mouth it'll respond or it will reject it or resent it. And a Spitfire was exactly like...

Harry Beck's 1931 London Underground map, "a labour of love, beautiful to behold" was by far the cheapest frontrunner in last night's Design Museum contest for greatest British design since 1900. It came in the top three with Reginald Mitchell's Spitfire fighter, which helped win the Battle of Britain, and British Aerospace's Concorde. The winner will be chosen by public vote on March 16.

Lord, Keep our Troops forever in Your care Give them victory over the enemy... Grant them a safe and swift return... Bless those who mourn the lost. . FReepers from the Foxhole join in prayer for all those serving their country at this time. .................................................................. .................... ........................................... U.S. Military History, Current Events and Veterans Issues Where Duty, Honor and Countryare acknowledged, affirmed and commemorated. Our Mission: The FReeper Foxhole is dedicated to Veterans of our Nation's military forces and to others who are affected in their relationships with Veterans. In the FReeper Foxhole, Veterans or their family members should...

Hello Lads, I don't know what sort of news coverage you're getting in the U.S, but I just thought I'd show you some pictures of London yesterday... 3 days after the terrorists struck: A Lancaster Bomber, escorted by a Spitfire and a Hurricane flies over Buckingham Palace to the Mall. Between 250,000 and 500,000 people are in the Mall. The Queen and the Royal Family are on the balcony of Buck House just as she was with Winston Churchill in 1945. The bomb doors open, and a million poppies fall to earth to commemorate those who made the ultimate sacrifice...