Warbird Information Exchange

I was doing some research on the SARO Lerwick flying boat and on Wikipedia it mentioned the Marine & Armament Experimental Establishment near Hellensburgh in Scotland on The Isle of Grain. The article made it sound like a wet version of Farnborough. Can anyone fill in the corners?

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Don't make me go get my flying monkeys-

The Isle of Grain is the UK's version of Intercoastal City. Way out in the boondocks, swampy, and nothing but oil refineries. I don';t think it's really an island but I don't remember why I think that.

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"I knew the jig was up when I saw the P-51D-20-NA Mustang blue-nosed bastards from Bodney, and by the way the blue was more of a royal blue than an indigo and the inner landing gear interiors were NOT green, over Berlin."

Soo, does dey spoke th english versaion of cajun roun bout dere fo sho?

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Don't make me go get my flying monkeys-

Think you've concatenated two things there. The Isle of Grain is in England:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isle_of_Grain
(2 seconds on Google, btw)

Pretty much. The Marine Aircraft Experimental Establishment (MAEE) was where they tested, Farnborough style, the maritime aircraft.
It was at Grain 1918 - 1924, then Felixstow, then moved to Helensburgh (which is the one in Scotland) at the start of W.W.II as the other locations were at greater risk of enemy attack.

There's an excellent book I intend to get (missed a copy recently) by Hikoki on it:
http://modelingmadness.com/scotts/books ... eyears.htm

In the 1918 era the Kent accent would have been quite distinct to the ear, and probably even differing to as specific of the Hoo Peninsular area, yes. Nowadays it'll be 'Estry' which is pretty flat, and thanks to the ease of mass chav communications.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estuary_English

The Saro Lerwick; serious contender for the worst production aircraft of W.W.II.

Regards,

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James K

"Switch on the underwater landing lights"
Emilio Largo, Thunderball.

www.VintageAeroWriter.com

Thanks James, Wiki was a bit vague saying Helensburg then switching to Isle of Grain, kind of like sorting out a teenagers excuse. Imagine if they'd located it in Yorkshire!!
And the Lerwick, come on- they built 24 and only crashed 10 of them and can't locate one that disappeared on a flight. Could have been the Blackburn B-20, a worthy contender for worst with the extendable lower fuselage. Not to mention the proposed Blackburn B-44 fighter

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Don't make me go get my flying monkeys-

Yorkshire - yes, England's Texas might've been a problem. Still a testing station in Robin Hood's Bay would've been good...

Thing about the Lerwick was it was a production aircraft, and was designed to (essentially) do a similar job to the PBY Catalina, and should've been killed at birth before it killed a bunch of young men. The contrast to the Cat's success is stark.

Certainly Blackburn (a favourite of mine, btw) get some kind of award for the most failed designs of W.W.II. But let's be fair, there was nothing wrong with the B-20, it was an idea that needed to be tried (and then discarded) and there's a number of tried ideas that no-one expected to work but did, as well the thousands that didn't.

The critical Lerwick issue was it went into production - the B-20 was, after all, another bright idea prototype - of which...

Regards,

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James K

"Switch on the underwater landing lights"
Emilio Largo, Thunderball.

www.VintageAeroWriter.com

and, if it hadn't been for the sucesses in the island campaign in the Pacific, Boeing probably would have been cranking out PBB SEA RANGERS instead of B-29's @ Renton. Yes, the B-20 concept should have been explored but on a less energenic project.

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Don't make me go get my flying monkeys-