437 replies to this topic

[Doug Nye]

But in the relevant instrument applications the allegedly perilous paint is normally sealed-in beneath a glass face....or it certainly was in the Spitfire mentioned?  Opening up the instrument itself would, of course, be a different matter.

 

For this reason same I have yet to dump our 80/90-year-old alarm clock.  

 

DCN

[doc knutsen]

The IWM Halifax cockpit, I believe, is still languishing in a hangar at Duxford and not as directly accessible anymore. Even now I’d love to see it on the front of The Yorkshire Air Museum’s Halifax and have a brand new interactive cockpit built as a display.

A Halifax is a star attraction at the Yorkshire Air Museum (" Friday 13th")

[10kDA]

Re: Radium dials & aircraft instruments - long read from 2006 on the subject here, with an anecdote about what happened and how the "ban" was implemented in the US.

 

https://www.avweb.co...greater-danger/

 

One thing I note is that the government had been able to "successfully defend itself" in lawsuits up to that time, yet still felt the need to take drastic measures to svoid future claims. Sort of like what happened with the C-123 aircraft used for spraying Agent Orange defoliant in Vietnam - The govt was able to sidestep a certain amount of liability in court cases involving exposure of aircrews and ground crews to Agent Orange, but after some museum volunteers became sick after working on a C-123 which was being prepared for display many years later, virtually all C-123 airframes that had been sold as surplus or donated to museums were re-acquired by the feds and then scrapped. Whether the airframes had actually been used in defoliant application or not. Just covering all the bases.

Edited by 10kDA, 16 December 2022 - 13:54.

[10kDA]

But in the relevant instrument applications the allegedly perilous paint is normally sealed-in beneath a glass face....or it certainly was in the Spitfire mentioned?  Opening up the instrument itself would, of course, be a different matter.

 

For this reason same I have yet to dump our 80/90-year-old alarm clock.  

 

DCN

But if it broke, would the local clock repair shop have the proper hazmat clothing and equipment to protect employees while repairing it? That was one of the "points" raised in the confiscation of AC instruments. Aircraft maintenance workers might be exposed to radium while performing routine repairs without indication of possible long-term consequences. So in the political/bureaucratic realm's version of cause-and-effect, if a person gives up their "dangerous" object, they are saving some other person's life. Don't we all feel better?

[10kDA]

Marie Curie was once questioned by Warsaw H & S, about the dangers or exposing oneself to Radium. She was reported to have told them that in her opinion, working with Radium was less dangerous than attempting to hurry across a wet Paris street in front of an oncoming tram..

Yet due to a lifetime of exposure to radioactive substances, today her radioactive remains rest in a lead-lined crypt.

[PayasYouRace]

This is an interesting discussion because even modern military aircraft produced today use radioluminescence for key features such as battery master switches or emergency egress indicators. But modern systems use tritium with a relatively safe half life of 12 years unlike radium which has a half life of 1600 years.

 

Still not an easy situation if one of them breaks in the hangar.

[JtP2]

Yet due to a lifetime of exposure to radioactive substances, today her radioactive remains rest in a lead-lined crypt.

 

Much like those who died of smallpox.

[Ray Bell]

Originally posted by PayasYouRace
.....But modern systems use tritium with a relatively safe half life of 12 years unlike radium which has a half life of 1600 years.

So this means that it loses half of its radioactivity in twelve years...

And radium in 1,600 years (Plutonium, we're constantly told, has a half-life of 2,400 years).

So if they started with the same level of radioactivity, the one with the 12-year half-life would be emitting huge amounts compared to the one with the longer half-life.

What are the comparative radioactive levels in the beginning?

[Lee Nicolle]

Re: Radium dials & aircraft instruments - long read from 2006 on the subject here, with an anecdote about what happened and how the "ban" was implemented in the US.

 

https://www.avweb.co...greater-danger/

 

One thing I note is that the government had been able to "successfully defend itself" in lawsuits up to that time, yet still felt the need to take drastic measures to svoid future claims. Sort of like what happened with the C-123 aircraft used for spraying Agent Orange defoliant in Vietnam - The govt was able to sidestep a certain amount of liability in court cases involving exposure of aircrews and ground crews to Agent Orange, but after some museum volunteers became sick after working on a C-123 which was being prepared for display many years later, virtually all C-123 airframes that had been sold as surplus or donated to museums were re-acquired by the feds and then scrapped. Whether the airframes had actually been used in defoliant application or not. Just covering all the bases.

Defoliant spayed on people was dangerous and stupid. However a plane near 50 years on is about as dangerous as soap. This has been thrashed out over said 50 years.

[Lee Nicolle]

But in the relevant instrument applications the allegedly perilous paint is normally sealed-in beneath a glass face....or it certainly was in the Spitfire mentioned?  Opening up the instrument itself would, of course, be a different matter.

 

For this reason same I have yet to dump our 80/90-year-old alarm clock.  

 

DCN

Doug, you are letting commonsense get in the way of rhetoric.

[GreenMachine]

So this means that it loses half of its radioactivity in twelve years...

And radium in 1,600 years (Plutonium, we're constantly told, has a half-life of 2,400 years).

So if they started with the same level of radioactivity, the one with the 12-year half-life would be emitting huge amounts compared to the one with the longer half-life.

What are the comparative radioactive levels in the beginning?

 

I don't think that is so Ray.  I am not sure they even commence with the same level of emissions, but I believe the 'half life' is simply a measure of the rate of decay of whatever level they started out with (or have at a particular point of time?).  It is not like a bucket of water, with the comparison of a big hole compared to a small hole, more like two holey buckets, one with water, the other with say wet concrete or some other highly viscous substance..  Hopefully someone with a better science education than me can clarify/correct as necessary.

Edit: spelling

Edited by GreenMachine, 17 December 2022 - 20:05.

[Doug Nye]

Radiate information?

 

DCN

[PayasYouRace]

So this means that it loses half of its radioactivity in twelve years...

And radium in 1,600 years (Plutonium, we're constantly told, has a half-life of 2,400 years).

So if they started with the same level of radioactivity, the one with the 12-year half-life would be emitting huge amounts compared to the one with the longer half-life.

What are the comparative radioactive levels in the beginning?

That’s not really how it works.

 

It’s the rate of emission that gives the intensity of the luminance. So for an equivalent lit instrument or control, the emissions would be similar.

 

It should also be pointed out that beta particles emitted by tritium can’t penetrate more than a few mm of air and cannot penetrate the outer layer of human skin. They’re low energy emissions. Bad idea to inhale or ingest water that has formed from it, but relatively safe. There are of course procedures for dealing with broken beta lights.

 

Radium posed the extra danger because it decays into radon, which can easily be inhaled and is still radioactive. The human body also treats radium like calcium, so if you ingest it, the body transports it to the bones and it’s stuck there for a millennium.

[Gary Davies]

16/17 May 2023. 80 years. 

[Lee Nicolle]

That’s not really how it works.

 

It’s the rate of emission that gives the intensity of the luminance. So for an equivalent lit instrument or control, the emissions would be similar.

 

It should also be pointed out that beta particles emitted by tritium can’t penetrate more than a few mm of air and cannot penetrate the outer layer of human skin. They’re low energy emissions. Bad idea to inhale or ingest water that has formed from it, but relatively safe. There are of course procedures for dealing with broken beta lights.

 

Radium posed the extra danger because it decays into radon, which can easily be inhaled and is still radioactive. The human body also treats radium like calcium, so if you ingest it, the body transports it to the bones and it’s stuck there for a millennium.

Having worn various lumuinous watches over the decades what sort of issues could I face.

[Lee Nicolle]

16/17 May 2023. 80 years. 

How time flies,, it is 53 years since I first read the Dambusters book as required school reading. I have read is numerous times since. How much Paul Brickhill either glossed over or dramatised I do not know but I believe quite factual. And a very good read.

I feel sure many Germans and family of Polish prisoners however may not agree.

Though again a tribute to an obstinate engineer , Barnes Wallis who thought most of the weapons up. And if his ideas had been taken up earlir possibly the war would have been shorter

[FrankB]

IWM Duxford has taken its original 3D briefing model of the Sorpe dam out of storage for a series of special events this week. Two highlights are…Tomorrow evening there’s a showing of the 1950s film preceded by a chance to go inside a Lancaster and view the model. Next Saturday a new film, Attack on Sorpe Dam, will be shown.

https://www.iwm.org....-sorpe-dam-2023

[john aston]

How time flies,, it is 53 years since I first read the Dambusters book as required school reading. I have read is numerous times since. How much Paul Brickhill either glossed over or dramatised I do not know but I believe quite factual. And a very good read.

I feel sure many Germans and family of Polish prisoners however may not agree.

Though again a tribute to an obstinate engineer , Barnes Wallis who thought most of the weapons up. And if his ideas had been taken up earlir possibly the war would have been shorter

Try Max Hastings book Chastise, about the raid.  Unlike Brickhill's book (of its time , very jingoistic ) it does not shrink from some uncomfortable and inconvenient aspects of the raid . 

 

That said, I have no idea why we have a thread on here about it. What next ? Hiroshima , my part in its destruction? Goose Green , my story ? The Tet Offensive .... ?  

[GreenMachine]

The AWM has the Mohne briefing model, they are undergoing major building work so I don't know if it will be on display - having checked the website it is silent on the occasion.

[ensign14]

 

Guy Gibson's instrument binnacle, preserved at the Lincolnshire Aviation Centre just outside East Kirkby.

[Geoff E]

Recent news from Lincolnshire Live-

 

"Plans to dig up the grave of a black Labrador which served as a mascot for the Dambusters has caused a stir amongst councillors, residents and the wider public. The dog, which belonged to Wing Commander Guy Gibson of the 617 Squadron, is currently buried at RAF Scampton

It is believed that the dog died on the same day of the famous Dambusters raid on May 16, 1943. The application to dig up its grave and move it to RAF Marham in Norfolk was submitted to West Lindsey District Council on Wednesday, May 10."

The proposals to move the dog's grave come following the Home Office's plans to house up to 2,000 asylum seekers at RAF Scampton.

[Glengavel]

Recent news from Lincolnshire Live-

 

"Plans to dig up the grave of a black Labrador which served as a mascot for the Dambusters has caused a stir amongst councillors, residents and the wider public. The dog, which belonged to Wing Commander Guy Gibson of the 617 Squadron, is currently buried at RAF Scampton

It is believed that the dog died on the same day of the famous Dambusters raid on May 16, 1943. The application to dig up its grave and move it to RAF Marham in Norfolk was submitted to West Lindsey District Council on Wednesday, May 10."

The proposals to move the dog's grave come following the Home Office's plans to house up to 2,000 asylum seekers at RAF Scampton.

 

Never has the expression 'dog whistle journalism' seemed so apt.

[Vitesse2]

Try Max Hastings book Chastise, about the raid.  Unlike Brickhill's book (of its time , very jingoistic ) it does not shrink from some uncomfortable and inconvenient aspects of the raid .

Brickhill's book was first published in 1951, at which point most - and probably all - of the official files about Operation Chastise would still have been closed, so most of his material would have come from oral testimony, flight logs etc. He would probably also have had to submit the manuscript to the MoD in case he'd inadvertently revealed something which was subject to the Official Secrets Act. And like much of what was published in that era, Brickhill's book is written in what I what I would categorise as 'Commando War Library style'. Hastings is of course a much more 'serious' writer, but also had access to much material which Brickhill couldn't use.

 

Less sensitive World War II official files began being opened to researchers in the late 1950s, but as the more secret ones were subject to the 'thirty year rule' it wasn't until the mid-1970s that the more 'interesting' stuff, which was all batched as 1945, started to appear. Prior to the release of the official files on the Upkeep and Highball bouncing bombs in 1975 they were generally depicted as spherical, although they were of course cylindrical. Even so, some files were given longer dates - forty, fifty, seventy-five or even a hundred years.

 

When my late father decided to mount a window display about the 35th anniversary of the Battle of Britain in Southampton Weather Centre in the summer of 1975 he had to get written permission from the MoD to display copies of the original weather forecasts from nearby RAF stations because they were still official secrets.* During the war, public weather forecasts - on radio or in print - had ceased and exceptional weather events could only be reported in the press two weeks afterwards.

 

* Weather records for the city itself were destroyed when the Ordnance Survey building, which housed the then Southampton Met Office, was bombed during the Southampton Blitz in November/December 1940.

[kayemod]

Hastings is of course a much more 'serious' writer, but also had access to much material which Brickhill couldn't use.

 

Prior to the release of the official files on the Upkeep and Highball bouncing bombs in 1975 they were generally depicted as spherical, although they were of course cylindrical.

 

 

The smaller Highball bomb that was intended to be used by Mosquitoes was spherical, and not cylindrical like the Upkeep ones, and that's how it's described in famed Test Pilot Eric 'Winkle' Brown's 2006 book Wings on my Sleeve. I've read and enjoyed most of Max Hastings' WW2 books, but although interesting factually, I thought Chastise was unnecessarily woke, and hand-wringingly revisionary.

 

The Dambusters raid may have been less effective long term than had been hoped for and expected, but it boosted home morale, impressed the Americans greatly, and came as a massive shock to the Germans, who'd never dreamed that such a raid would have been possible. There was one huge but not often mentioned benefit to the Allies in that the labour force commandeered by the Axis powers to repair the two destroyed dams was taken from the mostly slave labour operation that had been building the Atlantic Wall along the northern French coast, which meant that the unfinished structure presented somewhat less of an obstacle to invading Allied forces on D Day.

 

There's a small information centre and souvenir shop at one end of the Möhne Dam today. The captions accompanying the photos omit any uncomfortable details, and I was disappointed to discover that they had no model Lancaster bombers on sale in the shop.

[GreenMachine]

There are others too, beyond those two.  My catalogue shows Sweetnam, 'The Dambusters Raid', Arthur, 'Dambusters', Holland, 'Dam Busters', and Burgess, 'Australia's Dambusters' if anyone is interested in a 'contrast and compare' exercise!  Pretty sure there are others that haven't found their way onto my shelves.

 

Yes, the 'Highballs' were balls!  For some reason I get the impression that the secrecy around them was a notch or two lower than the Upkeep weapon.

[Vitesse2]

I blame not enough coffee ...

[Glengavel]

Less sensitive World War II official files began being opened to researchers in the late 1950s, but as the more secret ones were subject to the 'thirty year rule' it wasn't until the mid-1970s that the more 'interesting' stuff, which was all batched as 1945, started to appear. Prior to the release of the official files on the Upkeep and Highball bouncing bombs in 1975 they were generally depicted as spherical, although they were of course cylindrical.

 

Upkeep at least was initially spherical until they realised a spinning cylinder could be just as viable. I think Highball remained spherical. There's archive footage of a test run, filmed in slow motion, where the camera nearly gets wiped out by the bomb, which is spherical.

[AJCee]

Equally frustrating to researchers are the number of files that weren’t saved which leaves a lot of loose ends in the trails, including the policy of destroying most of the RAF logbooks.
That and the lack of free public access to WWII service records…
It’s interesting to see some of the stuff that had a delay in declassifying. I came across one that concerned field modifications to Ju88 defensive armament… most of it rather Heath-Robinson (or his German equivalent).

Edited by AJCee, 15 May 2023 - 15:08.

[GLaird]

(......most of it rather Heath-Robinson (or his German equivalent))

 

A bit of fiddling with Google translate suggests somewhat tongue in cheek, 'Heide-Ribinsohn',

[GreenMachine]

The AWM has the Mohne briefing model, they are undergoing major building work so I don't know if it will be on display - having checked the website it is silent on the occasion.

 

Anniversary getting more attention here this morning, AWM quoted extensively.  Apparently they have two of the targeting models, by implication they will not surface until the extensions are complete.    No mention of any activity/display for this anniversary, I hope at least there will be a wreath-laying.

[Steve99]

A wonderful museum Ensign14, I’m lucky enough to live ten minutes away. The house I live in was occupied for some time by Fred Panton, the late co-founder of the museum.

[Steve99]

For those who may be local the BBMF Lancaster is flying a route taking in the sites of the bomber stations in Lincolnshire this evening, from around 6pm on

[ensign14]

A wonderful museum Ensign14, I’m lucky enough to live ten minutes away. The house I live in was occupied for some time by Fred Panton, the late co-founder of the museum.

I only went by accident, happened to be passing it after a trip to the Bubble Car Museum, which became one of my favourites.

[AJCee]

And the Halifax cockpit recreation at East Kirkby is also well worth seeing, not to mention Tony Agar’s Mosquito.

My dream is that the Wellington wings there might one day unite with the fuselage at Brooklands.

[Steve99]

Bubble car museum is among my favourites also, a truly charming collection!

[Steve99]

AJCee the first time I visited East Kirkby I was surprised to walk into one room and find an exhibition of vintage agricultural machinery with a hand painted sign reading ‘Tumby Lawn…’ - our house! We would like our stuff back!

[AJCee]

Priceless 🤣

[Lee Nicolle]

I nearly missed this on the news last night but there is a celebration of some sort for the Dambusters at the Australian War Museum in Canberra. I just saw a glimpse of a Lanc in the clip. When I was there late 70s the Lanc was hanging from the ceiling and appeared so small! In the tv clip it was on the floor. A little research has it as G for George from 460 squadron that is very high mileage managing 90 sorties, about I believe 4 times the average.

Edited by Lee Nicolle, 17 May 2023 - 04:31.