The Plane that Always Pointed Down No Matter What
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- Опубліковано 7 жов 2024
- After the war exploded in Europe with the invasion of Poland, both Britain and France declared war on Germany, and the very first raids were about to begin.
At the time, the 4 Group of the Royal Air Force was the only trained night bomber force in the entire world, and the reliable Armstrong Whitworth Whitley would have to bear the brunt of the first aerial missions over Germany, Italy, and the rest of occupied-Europe until more advanced aircraft came around.
On the first night of the war, the Whitley had the critical task of bombing several German cities, making it the first Royal Air Force Bomber Command to penetrate the enemy nation.
But when the squadron approached its target and the Whitleys released their bombload, it wasn't precisely explosives that fell on top of the German population…
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A request: When you're talking about the Whitley, for instance, and no other aircraft, please make sure that the only pictures you show are of the Whitley. You can show diagrams and especially good stills or manufacturing locations or anything related to Whitleys if you need to fill some space. But Liberators and Flying Fortresses are not Whitleys, and they shouldn't be shown when they aren't relevant. Great video, though. Seriously. I enjoy all of your videos. Thank you!
totally agree these videos are very well done but show diagrams or anything else instead of the wrong planes :)
You've got to realize that there's only _so much_ footage of each of the topics...
And of that footage, only a very, *very* small portion of that is public domain. You'd also complain about seeing the same 104 seconds repeated over and over for the length of the discussion.
@@YouveBeenMiddled The same 104 seconds of the Whitley are already repeated over and over again, dozens of times.
@@YouveBeenMiddled Yes, I'm aware of that. Perhaps more imagination would be required.
That's totally unfair! You missed out the Fairey Battle and, I think, some Blenheims.
Boy it's strange that they didn't mention the 4 engine variant that was a dead ringer for the B-24. There certainly is a lot of footage of that mark.
s'why I disliked the video
"retractable ventral gun" ... Shows footage of tail gun turret.
What coincidence. Very common coincidence on this channel.
It was as though the creator of the video ran out of footage and just used footage of B-24 as "filler" - but it does denigrate whatever useful information you might receive after seeing that blooper.
yep detracts and confuses, no similarities between b 24 and subject, aside from both being bombers why is it included.
Always lovely to see repeated old footage of Fairy Battles, Vickers Wellingtons, B24 Liberators and others but still scratching my head over their relevance.
You have to put something in there.
Don't forget the Bristol Blenheims. Blenheims along with the Fairey Battles in the introduction to the clip which was supposed to be about the Whitley. Very odd. Better to show stills of the Whitley rather than adopt a policy of 'anything will do so long as it moves'.
@@richardmale3191 I could have mentioned several other random aircraft such as the Avro Anson, where do you stop?
There isn't much footage of the Whitley out there....thats why he had to fill the gaps with other aircraft footage. Give him a break. I thought he did really well to feature such an otherwise little known British aircraft that kept us going in the years we thought invasion by Hitler was almost inevitable. Dark days as well as dark skies.
@@davidgifford8112 I know. I stopped with the introduction but you already made the point. I merely filled in with another prominent item at the beginning. I applaud the Dark Skies gent's attempts to provide detailed historical accounts. But, again, he could have mentioned, or provided captions with very little extra effort - just for example - to the effect that these aircraft were contemporaries of the Whitley in the early years of the war. Not the first time that I've been reminded of the phrase "spoiling the ship for a ha'porth of tar".
My guitar teacher's father flew a Whitley on the first mission over Germany. He was dropping pamphlets. The ship went down and he was the first Canadian POW of WW2. He met Hermann Göring ( they talked about Hockey) and was also the 68th escapee from Stalag Luft III. Alfred Burke Thompson (RIP)
Alfred Burke (Alfie the artist) was the name of a character in Hogan's Heroes The Safecracker Suite. I wonder if that's where they got the name from?
@@Tex_actual no Americans were in the "Great Escape"... they certainly helped - but were relocated to a new camp, so III was Commonwealth and Europeans only at the time the 79 left... 3 got "home", 50 executed/murdered, and 26 returned to camp...
@@timbushell8640 Dude...didn't you ever see the movie??? The tunnel king, kooler king and James Garner were Murikahn
@@timbushell8640 Ever read "The Latter Days at Colditz"? Great book. British prisoners built a false wall to hide construction of a glider to launch a relative of Churchill's to safety if there was ever a danger to his life. There was a film made with a VERY similar story, but of course featuring a Merkan bashing the feckless Brits into shape to get things going.
@@paulslevinsky580 And they had their Ausweis.
Tom Dobney was 15 years old when he flew Whitleys over Germany during the Second World War. He was 14 when he enlisted and trained in Canada after soloing 12 hours in a Tiger moth. He was so small he had to sit on a cushion under his parachute to see over the cockpit.He flew 20 missions as captain in charge of a crew of five before his age was discovered and was discharged. He nearly managed to enlist again but was again discovered. He was the youngest military pilot of WW2.
I have been in awe of him ever since hearing his story and I have his signature.
Dont omit that he was English , not Canadian .
@@jameswebb4593 Anybody with an interest in WW2 aviation would know that Canada was huge in the UK training program and many pilots trained on Moths here before going to Canada getting their wings there.
@@offshoretinker Never denied that , Also Rhodesia and South Africa were significant. Just the post suggested that he was Canadian ,which is false . An Englishman from Gloucester .
who GAF after you killed our anglo cousins???
no he didn't
I find no ugly in the Whitley. It is absolutely beautiful for it's era
Agreed. There's a certain look to British planes of the era and I like it.
From Biplanes to Jet engines in just 10 years. Incredible.
Necessity is the mother of all inventions
And War is the statistically best way to invent new things
Then the introduction of the SR-71 shortly after. Incredible leap of innovation in such a short time considering the lack of technology compared to today.
Lancaster to Vulcan, about 11 & 1/2 years and the same designer. Incredible.
From a great metropolis to a crumbled, smoldering wasteland in less than 5 minutes. if we don't keep our guard up
Great video with plenty of information about an easily overlooked aircraft. The most startling thing here is that it was produced quite some time into the war which I wasn't aware of before and in large numbers too. Hats off to the crews who flew this aircraft as it looks awfully cumbersome and a sitting duck TBH.
A lot of those Whitley's look like B-24s. I wonder how many still exist?
The 'Whitley' was a flying death-trap, as was the much-more-sophisticated 'B-24' which had four motors instead of the 'Whitley's' two. No 'Whitleys' survived the war.
Nice clip of four engined B-24s from the 1940s when talking about the twin engine Whitley in the 1930s
I have heard and read about this plane, but this is the first time I have actually seen one flying during the War. Thank You for such a great History lesson.
You think we wouldn't notice the B-24's? Good video on a less-known aircraft over the pond.
The footage of B24's was somewhat inappropriate. They were totally out of place in your discourse on the Whitley.
Nice video, thanks for posting. But curious as to why you showed multiple shots of B-24's while discussing the Whitley?
Does it all the time. Not wired up properly.
And the Wellington, never explained.
@@ianjones3568 Wellington was a Medium bomber, not heavy.
@@jeffrogers5929 ?? Wasn't disputing that.
I grew up watching Walter Cronkite's "Twentieth Century" in the late 50s and early 60s. (I was different from the other kids.). You're telling many of the same kinds of stories that he did. You employ a different style of dramatic effect, but I think you do Cronkite-quality work. Thank you. I enjoyed this video a lot. Ever since you softened your enunciation and (slightly) slowed your cadence, I've enjoyed all of the dozens of your videos that I've seen so far. Also a lot. Although I wouldn't be opposed to a bit more softening. Anyway, you do top-quality work. However, be aware that advertisers will make very tempting offers to place ads in your videos. The money might be worth it, too. But please don't ever let an advertiser make a suggestion. A patron? Of course, but I'm tellin' ya, Fab, Gain, and ALL work exactly the same in the washer. Seriously, the only thing that you'd be selling to your viewers is the color of the box, and they already know it's b.s. because their moms told them when they were helping with the laundry.
Yes, their videos are nicely edited and are easy to watch!
I watched those programs in the 1950's too. I also enjoyed Air Power, another Cronkite work.
The Butt Report showed that RAF bombers for the first two years of the war did no significant damage to the German war machine. Only one out if five were shown to have gotten within five miles if their target. Over heavily defended targets such as the Ruhr only one in ten dropped bombs within 5 miles if the target. They lost hundreds of aircraft and thousands of highly trained aircrew essentially for nothing. It took another year for the RAF to develop methods of reliably finding large target like cities. They then switched to incinerating German cities which caused no appreciable damage to German warmaking while losing massive numbers of expensive bombers and more expensive aircrew.
You made a hell of a documentary out of a pure labor of love. Thanks for featuring the Whitley!!
Yet another very interesting and informative video, thanks so much for this and RIP to the souls who were lost.
When living in my former home in Denmark, we had a stream to the south with Europes, by then longest, English built bridge from 1937 (Dorman, Long & Co.) going over: "Storstroems Broen" (3,2 km)! Close by, an old 1th World War Fort, which the invading German troops honored with the first ever "parachute attack" (Besides Antwerpen and Rotterdam, the day before!) to secure the bridge not being destoyed!
At a time a Whitley had to land in the water close by, being damaged and its full crew got away from the plane, which sank in the deep, fast moving water! Local divers have seen the wreck in the water, so it is still there!!
Always love to see the unsung heroes get their much deserved recognition
When I was first stationed at a base that was flying B-52s, I was astonished to discover that when they took off, the tail lifted first. I don't think they flew with as extreme a nose-down posture as the plane in this video, but they did have a slightly nose-down attitude in level flight.
First time I saw that I thought my eyes were fooling me, crew chiefed them for 4 years.
Theoretically, a B-52's tail might lift off a few inches and microseconds before the front, especially if the pilot made an error, but that isn't how it normally takes off. They're intended to fly straight and level. However, a B-52 can take off sideways. I mean, with the plane's wheels pointed straight into the wind, but with the nose pointed waaay off-center. Also, if you lived so close to them that they woke you up every morning at 6:30 when you were a kid and they were warmed up on the flight line, you could tell the difference between the Pratt & Whitney model G's and the earlier J57 models. They had a different startup cadence. But I was seven. I don't remember it that well. Besides, my dad flew the KC-135, and I knew more about them than about the B-52.
As I have heard, the B-52 is unusual in that its center of lift is slightly behind its center of gravity, and this is responsible for its slightly nose-down attitude on takeoff.
@@eveningstarnm3107 were you at Castle AFB?
@@robertheinkel6225 We were there for one summer. It was my favorite base. We had a big fig tree with a tree house in the back yard, we were at the edge of a peach grove where no one could see you steal a peach.
The footage of almost anything but Whitleys spoiled this video.
Your B-24 video seems to have a voice over about the A W Whitley, perhaps you didn't get a chance to check it before sending it to UA-cam?
My great great uncle was the pilot of a Whitley v and his plane got shot down over a small village in France in 1943 the plane was going to hit the village but my great great uncle redirected it and it hit a field a small boy saw the plane go down and 60 years later one of his kids I think wrote a book about it called,six men on a nickel,at least I know about all of this and I’m thankful that he served in the war.
Btw no one on board survived just to get that out of the way👍🏻
And my great great uncle was the first ever Chinese pilot in Windsor Ontario and his family was one of the first Chinese immigrants from 🇨🇳
The Dark Channels are some of my favorite UA-cam channels. Keep doing what you do.
Leonard Cheshire, famous as one of the 'Dambusters' - was fond of the Whitley which he said was a very good aircraft, just very dated by the start of the war. It did have a reasonable range - and a remarkable bomb load!
Leonard Cheshire VC was not one of the Dambusters, but he was CO of 617 Squadron after Guy Gibson.
*Dark Skies film of Avro Lancaster, Blenheim, He-111, Ju-88, Halifax, Pe-2 etc. always contains 70% clips of B-24. A tribute to the B-24s large production run.*
For a video about Whitleys, there is an awful lot of footage of Bristol Blenheims and others.
Why repeated clips of B-24s??
Why do you keep showing American Consolidated B-24 Liberators?
Because they were the Liberators.
@@enigmamod it's probably difficult finding war footage of certain planes
"But... but... they have twin tails. The viewers won't know the difference."
@@lancerevell5979 😄
@@lancerevell5979 Not to mention two additional engines.
Why were you showing B-24 Liberators???
The Whitley V was merely a Whitley IV with an extended rear fuselage - which greatly improved the tail-gunner's field-of-view. It was already a major variant in 1939.
The B52 also flies nose-down with an adjustable attitude angle on the horizontal stabilizer. This is to allow the bombs to gradually meet the air flowing across the bottom of the aircraft, dramatically improving the accuracy of gravity weapons.
Actually a B-52 can’t rotate while on the ground due to the double tandem landing gear, so the wing is mounted on the fuselage at the angle of attack it would need to takeoff.
In flight that large of a pitch angle isn’t needed so the plane flies nose low
- surprised they didn't try and sneak in a few B-52 over Vietnam images while talking about Whitleys dropping leaflets.
Go to the Midlands Air Museum. There you will find a section of fuselage; about the last 6ft of the tail. This is all that remains of the last Whitley. A great shame.
A unsung hero. Thank you for the video. (Did you occasionally sneak in pictures of a 4 engine bomber?)
My Father, a pilot, flew these on the anti-U-boat patrols from St Eval. He loved flying it, but to his eternal relief, he never actually spotted a U-Boat! He was convinced it would be suicide, as the Whitleys were so slow and unmanoueverable, and the U-Boats had, at that stage, been ordered to stay on the surface and fight it out in the event of aircraft attack
I'm surprised they were using Whitleys that late, but if it turned away the risk is that the U boat could catch it.
@@himoffthequakeroatbox4320 yes, but the point was to keep them down so that they couldn’t recharge their batteries. So all Dad was doing was flying patterns over the Bay. A U-Boat commander, having a look through his sky periscope before surfacing, would see a plane and therefore stay down. If it got to the point of actual combat, well so be it, but that wasn’t really the point of the mission, which was to slow down the U-Boats, force them to expend nearly all their electric battery power, and therefore have to stay on the surface for a long time recharging, giving Coastal Command or the Royal Navy time to vector in more capable assets. Also Coastal Command was, for a large part of the war, a sort of dumping ground for redundant or obsolescent RAF aircraft. When my Dad flew these missions is was part of his progression to the front line - in effect, part of his training. He went from St Eval to 1651 HCU at Waterbeach, to convert to Stirlings. Having said all that, I am a bit surprised at the timing too, and I wonder if his memory wasn’t a little confused when he told me this.
@@zimondye On 20 June 1943 a Whitley from St Eval was shot down while attacking an Italian submarine in the Bay of Biscay. An OTU (operational training unit) aircraft
Bloody good episode lad! Keep 'em coming!
It amazes me how quickly aircraft evolved during the war, just compare the Whitley with the A26 Marauder.
for greater accuracy the B24 footage needs to be spliced with USS Arizona exploding at Pearl Harbor and the Graf Spee scuttled in Montevideo .
As long as its about the RAF lets be accurate...🤨
4:10 This is a 4 engine bomber - not a Whitley. B-24 Liberator?
Special American version of the Whitley 😂
One of my uncles flew on leaflet raids in Whitleys...said the aircraft were and drafty and could not maintain altitude on a single engine on takeoff and climb. They were later used for training, which was also dangerous as the aircraft were old and worn and initially, the concrete "bombs" used for training were wired in place to prevent rookies from dropping them on populated areas. An engine failure meant almost certain loss of the airplane, and that practise was stopped.
You don't hear match about the whitley in the 2nd ww drama in documentary series. Good to learn . A Unsung hero . 👍🌲🎅
The B-24 Bomber was a USA Bomber, commonly called the Liberator, not the Wittley, at the start of WW2!
Many of the videos in this presentation depict 4-engine B-24 bombers when describing incidents or actions taken by the 2-engine Whitley.
When Whitley's were used to deploy paratroopers, the jumpers would exit via a hole in the floor. One hazard of this technique, was the slipstream would push the legs back causing the head to strike the edge of the hole. This was described as "ringing the bell".
Interestingly back in the 80's, some of the balloon cages used for jump training still contained the remnants of the floor exit holes.
Glad they were no longer in use at that point!
The jump hatch of the Witley was actually the mount ring for the little used and ineffectual Boulton Paul Ventral Turret....
AKA "The Whitley Kiss"
I like the Art Deco feel of that chin and sloping fuselage. Gives it a real Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow feel.
I think the officer observing through binoculars at 8.26 is Ewen Montagu, architect of the 'Man Who Never Was' deception.
Hey dark skies, why are you showing footage I would B-24?
That's OK - in most posts about B-24s, half the footage is of B-17s or B-25s.
As Pilot my Father flew Whitley V's in 1943 out of Kidlington near Oxford providing Navigator Training to new heavy bomber crews. Dad described the Whitley has having the flying characteristics of "barn door" and on two occasions during night-time operations with an engine failure the Whitley V had as Dad described "a negative rate of climb"! On both occasions he put the aircraft down (wheels up) in fields next to the Thames around Oxford. He, and the crew of 10 trainee navigators and instructors walked away without a scratch. Dad went on to fly Halifax III & VI on operations in 1944 & 1945 which described as a superior aircraft which was a very easy performance bomber to fly.
My grandfather actually flew the flying barn door,with FOUR GROUP,NOT THE FOURTH GROUP.when airfix released the A W WHITLEY,my grandad actually FLEW one of the Aircraft they supply colour schemes for in the box,ZA¤K Z9226 with 10sqdn,I have a picture of him and his crew in my hobby room.
So in effect, you have a custom made Airfix kit of your grandfathers aircraft? Not many people can claim that distinction even if the Whitley is a very ungainly aircraft.
@@markfryer9880 I have,My older sister now has it along with a framed picture of.him and his crew.
That's pretty special. I have a similar story.
My Uncle skippered 35 sorties in a Lancaster B.III. Although Airfix didn't supply the decals for his Lanc, they are available third party. One of the pair of decal sets included with the 1:72 kit is of a Lanc from his Squadron.
Despite several close calls, Unc and all of his crew survived the war, as did their Lanc, which achieved Ton Up (100 or more missions) status. Unfortunately it isn't one of those still surviving today, being scrapped at the end of the war.
The 767 I fly has a positive 1-2 degree deck angle in cruise flight. On approach with flaps 30, it is about 0 degrees. To land this plane you get to 20 feet and lift the nose about 2 degrees and slowly retard the throttle; It will settle on the runway nicely. If you try to flare this airplane you WILL strike the tail skid!
Interestingly, the similar sized A300 has a deck angle of about 4 degrees on final with full flaps. Supposedly this results in lower fuel use, but everyone that has flown this plane tells me it is hard to land smooth due to the deck angle.
Great video!
Flown both; landing the A-300 only slightly different, more like doing a low fly past without flaring it on. Flap 15 landings at high altitude definitely require this technique or long touchdown and overheated brakes result in deflated tyres.
Talking about the Whitley at 0:31 while showing Blenheims? USAAF Liberators at 4:40 and repeated later? Describing the Whitley's ventral turret whilst showing a photo of a rear turret? Talking about "radial power plants" while showing a Whitley with in-line engines? The Fairey Battle shown as an example of "More modern aircraft"? wtf? This mess is even worse than the usual Dark Skies muddle😀
Dark Skies is a joke.
I used to have dreams as a kid dropping behind enemy lines in old Germany before D Day fighting through hedges etc
Apart of me not physically but something else that is hard to explain was in a lot of combat and loved it got a rush from it, the fearlessness of what most world call dangerous I still possess.
You'd probably like the old British movie "The Red Beret" (1953) starring Alan Ladd. There are no Whitleys but there are a couple of Wellingtons.
If you cant tell the difference between the Whitley and the B24 in the movie part, why do you expect anyone to believe what you say. Shame on the people who made this.
Dude. They needed some filler video to allow for dialogue and made a bad choice. It's nothing to get so emotional about. But please, whatever you do, do not watch any other videos on UA-cam. It's doubtful that you'll be able to cope with some of the truly amateurish mistakes that others make, and no one wants anything bad to happen to you.
An aircraft that is forgotten from WW2 is the Stirling bomber. It was unfortunately hampered by a wingspan that was too short (I believe because it had to fit into hangers that couldn’t accommodate longer spans) and a split bomb bay that could not accommodate larger bombs such as the ones the Lancs carried.
The wingspan limit wasn't to fit into hangers. It was set by the Air Ministry in an attempt to control weight and cost. That worked, but the side-effects were unfortunate. The split bomb bay was the result of designing too tightly to the specification of the kinds of bombs to be carried: Handley Page and Avro realised that things might be different in the future, and designed more versatile bomb bays.
Quite right. Existing RAF hangars were only 100 feet across the doors, the Stirling was designed with a 99 foot span. It was otherwise a very good heavy bomber and amazingly maneuvrable considering the size.
@@johndallman2692
The design specs for the Lancaster was to allow the bomb bay to be large enough (by weight and volume) to carry two torpedoes. AVRO also had access to the Merlin.
The 'basic' design of the B29 had the main spar bisecting the bomb bay splitting it into two sections, as such it wasn't big enough to carry the nuclear weapons used on Japan. To get around this 11 'Silverside' B29s were built with a different design of the main spar.
Until these were ready there was a squadron of 6 Lancasters based near Gloucester that spent most of 1943/44 doing 'dummy runs', over the Atlantic in case the nuclear bomb was built before the B29.
As such the RAF could've been dropping nuclear weapons in late 1943/44.
They could've done a lot more development with the Stirling, but somehow, the Manchester-cum-Lancs won the politicking.
@@johndallman2692correct, but that hanger myth will never go away 😎
Generally very good videos, my only criticism would be - please try to use footage of the aircraft being discussed - I have long experience building models and studying WWII machines and have recognised at least 5 other aircraft types in this presentation not remotely connected with the Whitley, very confusing for those not familiar with aircraft of this period!
It's a wonderful video about Whitley bombers that never I heard about it...thanks for sharing
My Dad had a few sorties over Holland, 10 Sqd, "leaflet raids". Always mentioned a certain Sdn Ldr Pollock Gore, and had a song for him. No idea who he was...
"Squadron Leader Pollock Gore, how he loves his hangar floor..." Some other stuff about polishing it all the time :D
Watch video of the B 52 in level flight..it flies nose down, tail high....from side view or from head on in a low level flyby..
Bomber Command definitely missed a trick by not calling the Lancaster, The Scouse.
Enjoy all your programs. Thanks for your efforts.
The folks at the back wouldn't get a look-in of the drinks trolley.
😂
Merry Christmas brother and thank you for entertaining me so much in 2022
I gather you couldn't find more Whitley footage? There are a lot of Bristol Blenheims, Fairey Battles, Wellingtons, even the odd Martin Baltimore & several Consolidated B-24's standing in while the narrator talks exclusively about the Whitley here. Even one segment of bombing-up an He111. Yes, a decidedly odd-looking bird!
Like others had already spotted, you put Consolidated B24s on screen at one point
We’re back to the showing of aircraft that are not Whitleys…
Typical Dark Skies video... lots of filler that's off topic.
The style of the narration and content is very good. I really enjoy these videos.
I can tell your speed of narration is slower,I just became a subscriber,thank you
“The British Military…” starts off with shots of the Home Guard 😂😂😂
Well, it's more accurate than some of the nonsense in the video.
You show B-24 Liberators when talking about this airplane!!
No. The first aircraft to penetrate Germany after the outbreak of the war was a MkIV Bristol Blenheim of 139 Squadron on an op to Wilhelmshaven. A raid followed the following morning by 139 and 110 Squadrons.
My late grandfather served in the South African Air force as a mechanic in WWII. His first flight was in a Lockheed Ventura. He said that the plane also had a nose-down attitude. It felt like it was descending immediately after levelling off after take-off.
My dad was a flight engineer with the SAAF around the med during the war.
Coincidentally, the Ventura is the only aircraft not shown in the video.
It would be awesome if you guys made a documentary on the gliders
In the RAF squadrons are referred to by their numerical number ie 10 (ten) squadron, not number 10 squadron and 51 (fifty one) squadron and 58 ( fifty eight) squadron, not the 51st and 58th as used by the USAAF. When RAF squadrons get into the hundreds they are referred to in singular numbers ie 101 ( one o one) 115 ( one one five) etc...
Interesting video, although I don't understand why there are clips of USAAF Liberators shown.
Quite right, though the singular exception is 111 squadron, which is always referred to as Treble One. My last OC flew with them in 1940, out of North Weald.
The Mk IV referred to at 5.18 did not have radial engines. It was fitted with the inline Merlin IV engine. Only 33 Mk IV's were built. The Whitley's radials, as fitted to the first three Marks, were made by Armstrong Siddeley.
1:43 That guy seems awful careless and/or oblivious to the high speed machetes spinning just over his shoulder! Wow 😱
Thanks for your great video - didn't know much about this plane until now
What the hell is up with all the B-24 stock footage that has nothing to do with the Whitley?
I always enjoy your videos. Keep up the good work fellas.
mi dad was training at RAF Cranwell when he heard pilot officers refer to whitley bombers as "barn doors" . he said it was bcs their wing area was so vast even a novice enemy gunner could not miss . (😲!)
Why do you show B24 bombers when you explicitly detail the Whitley? Keep the documentary clean, please.
a very small country building all these planes ,ship and submarines , amazing
I can recommend the book "And Some Fell On Stony Ground" by Leslie Mann, which is a fictional account of a Whitley crew based on his own experience during the war in that aircraft type.
I would also recommend the book "The Whitley Boys" by G.L. Donnelly, a factual account of 4 Group Bomber Operations in 1939-40.
I can't say anything about the first bombing raid but according to sources, the first allied aeroplane to fly over enemy territory was a Bristol Blenheim
Thanks Leona
Bomber Command, the backbone of WWII.
What’s with all the footage of the B-24?
Exactly. Not e en the same number of engines 😡
Not sure about a pleasure to fly. They couldn’t maintain level flight on one engine with anything approaching a full load.
My father cash landed one shortly after take off when there was a problem with one of the engines when he was on submarine patrol in the Hebrides in 1943.
A lot of the film scenes showed Blenheim bombers!! Wrong plane!!
Interesting video don’t quite understand the shots of tbe B24s and Fair Battles, but interesting
Great narration! Thank you. 👍
An interesting aircraft. One I didnt hear much more than the name of in my WW2 airware infatuation in my childhood.
So that explais it, the angle of attack of the wing to th efuselage is 8.5 deg, a colossal angle, the Short Stirling was 7degrees.
So to get the right angle of attack, you had to point the nose down to compensate for the massive angle of attack, with there being no flaps, you had to use the elevator, it could have done with 'performance flaps, and set them in negative to allow the fuse to be aligned into the airflow!
I am pretty certain that Whitleys were also used to tow Airspeed Horsa Assault Gliders in earlier days of the assault gliders and before Albermarles and Halifaxes were used to tow them into action towards the end of WW2.....
It pointed down because of the necessity at that time, but luckily then came others pointing up to the bright blue sky so to win the war. Never gonna win the war pointing down haha, your optimism and good mood will come with the help you need and the results from that.
Great video but aren't you showing a B-24 in some of the scenes?
Clearly the makers of this video have only the vaguest idea of what they are talking about. In a video supposedly about the Whitley we see in order: Bombay, Battle, Blenheim, Liberator, and at 1125 when it talks about a "ventral gun" we see a tail gun on a Lancaster! Next, we see a picture of a Wellington whilst they are talking about the Whitley. After that, there are continual pictures of Spitfires - why? Then the Bombay again. Then at 1125 talking about "more modern bombers" we see pictures of Fairey Battles, which were certainly not more modern because they were phased out near the beginning of the war. It would be nice if such videos were made by people who actually know their subject.
The monologue start with an inaccuracy.
The Royal Air Force began bombing military targets in Germany, such as docks and shipyards, in March 1940,
Not the first night of the war, which started in 1939.
When paratroops exited the Whitley they did so through a narrow "tube" in the belly of the aircraft and had to go feet first with their backs to the pilot, if they went out facing the pilot the slipstream would cause them to viciously head-butt the lip of the tube given them what was commonly called the "Whitley chin"
Good video. I little disjointed perhaps. I get the shortage of relevant subject aircraft footage and appreciate seeing footage of contemporary aircraft which gives a fuller view of thinking at the time. But the liberators, B24’s, seemed irrelevant? If we were buying these from the US at the time of the Whitley it would be useful to explain their presence in the story. Also, for the uninitiated it would be useful to add a post script saying which aircraft were featured?
During large conflicts, every little bit helps.