Tanks, Planes, Boats, Military Stuff

[NWoBHM]

Saw an intersting programme yesterday about a US (very rich) bloke who had purchased a Spitfire (£2.1m to buy and a further £250K in air worthiness work) from Duxford UK and was having it shipped to the US.

The bloke already has a P51 Mustang, but his heart was set on the Spit.

So it was stripped down, (wings removed, propellor, tail section etc) put in a 40ft freight container and sipped to the US where it was re-assembled.

A UK test pilot flew it ahead of the owner and reported there was a slight roll to the right when the ailerons were neutral, the cure of which was to knock with a soft hammer the trailing edge of the aileron to correct the roll. Bit of black art, but it worked.

Also, reading how pilots who were officers (as opposed to sergeant pilots) were allowed to set their guns to bring the fire power to a point at a certain range, but sergeant pilots were not allowed to do this as they were not officers - how crazy is that?