Re: Solder to Aluminum?

Paul Burke wrote: 
Robert Peffers wrote:

... They would come in as soon as trouble
was indicated and there was much cannibalisation of bits from damaged and crashed aircraft. There was a war on after all...


Short of aircraft, short of pilots, short of ammunition, attacked by a vastly superior airforce that had had several more years to prepare than they had. Their only advantage was that they were fighting on home territory, so could fight longer than the Luftwaffe, who had burnt fuel coming and had to get back. They recycled what they could, from whole aircraft to the few remaining bits that were good. I wonder what would have happened had transplant surgery been developed back then:

The Aviator's Song:

Oh, the bold aviator was dying
And as 'neath the wreckage he lay, he lay
To the sobbing mechanics about him
These last parting words he did say

"Take the cylinders out of my kidneys
The connecting rod out of my brain, my brain
 From the small of my back get the crankshaft
And assemble the engine again"

Paul Burke

1. The RAF never had fewer than 50 fighters available for immediate replacements, and the number was usually over 100. Lots of good things were done to increase supply--Lord Beaverbrook would certainly have gone to jail in peacetime--but the planes were always there.

2. Home territory helped a lot, but Chain Home rdf (radar) got the planes to where they needed to be. Goering thought they'd need three times the aircraft they had, in order to intercept that effectively, and Dowding for once agreed with him--apart from radar.

(Reference:  "The Narrow Margin" by Derek Wood)

And anyway, that sort of stuff is done routinely by any good Nascar pit crew. Though they don't talk as loudly about trying to make the other guys crash. ;-)

Cheers,

Phil Hobbs
.

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