154 Sqd Spitfire Mk IX on Corsica

No 154 Squadron, Spitfire IX, in Corsica 1944. Based on Corsica, first at Poretta and then Calanzana. 

MiG-15 Startup and Takeoff, Santa Fe Municipal Airport, New Mexico

 A single click to view here. Fascinating run through the MiG 15 check list with take off and climb out

Iraqi Mirage F.1 EQ 5s over Baghdad - Recommended Aviation books

Ahead of Tom Cooper's " Iraqi Mirages " due next year, former Dassault Technician and French-expat in Mossoul during the Iraq-Iran war, Jean-Louis Bernard, has published his 'Heroes of Baghdad' detailing the exploits and service of the Mirage F.1 in Iraqi Air Force service. Coincidentally the January 2018 issue of 'Le Fana de l'Aviation' starts a four-part series on the same subject and features accounts from Saddam's Mirage pilots in the petrol tanker war against Iran..

By late 1983 the Iraq-Iran war is in its third year and has reached virtual stalemate. The Iraqis understand that they will have to change their strategy if they are to make any headway against the Iranians  and decide to up their war against the Iranian economy. During October 1984 the Iraqis take delivery of the latest variant of the Mirage F.1 - the Exocet-capable EQ5, an aircraft that has the capabilities to lead this 'new' offensive. The new aircraft are brought together as Squadron '81' on the air base at Qayarah south of Mossoul. This new book relates the missions and events that comprise the history of this notable Mirage unit.

the author's blog is here

More at http://www.editions-jpo.com

from the 14 May 1988 edition of the New York times;

".. Iraqi planes bombed an offshore terminal in the Strait of Hormuz today and set fire to five tankers, including two of the world's largest, in a stepped-up drive to destroy Iran's oil lifeline. At least 16 crew members were reported missing. One of the ships, the 235,000-ton Spanish tanker Barcelona, was said to be sinking. Two others, including the Seawise Giant, at 564,739 tons the largest vessel afloat, were blazing out of control hours after the mid-afternoon raid on the Larak Island oil terminal, shipping officials said. Gulf-based contacts said Iranian salvage tugs were fighting fires on the ships, some of which were moored together to transfer cargo. Iraq announced the raid five hours later, the 10th attack it says it has made against Iranian oil targets since April 29. To reach the Strait of Hormuz, the Iraqi jets flew more than 750 miles each way, requiring mid-air refueling en route. Reports of casualties varied widely. ... More than 500 ships have been damaged in the Iran-Iraq war, most of them since the fighting spilled into Persian Gulf lanes in 1984. Estimates by maritime agencies and other sources indicate that more than 300 seamen have been killed in the fighting, which has become known as the ''tanker war.'' The attacks were part of an intensified effort by Baghdad to cut off the export revenues that Teheran uses to finance the war against Iraq. The raid was the third in the last seven months against Larak, where international tankers pick up oil cargos brought from Kharg Island by Iranian ships. Five tankers were hit in the last Larak raid, on Dec. 22 - among them the Seawise Giant, which was damaged in the first raid last October. Both the Seawise Giant and the Burmah Endeavor, also one of the world's five largest vessels, are under charter to Iran as ''mother ships,'' or offshore storage tankers, at Larak. Most of the attacks have been against tankers owned or chartered by Iran, which must use the Persian Gulf sea lanes to export its oil...."

Jean Copponex " Pilote de combat au temps de la guerre froide - Combat Pilot in the Cold War" - personal account from a Mirage IV pilot

Jean Copponnex flew both the Mirage III and IV during the Cold War with the Escadron de Bombardement 3/94 'Arbois'. During September 1973 a detachment of three Mirage IV A nuclear bombers are in Solenzara, Corsica, for their annual training week practising high speed low altitude weapons delivery - crews were tasked to drop one mock-up AN 22 nuclear free-fall bomb using the LADD (Low Angle Drogue Delivery) procedure, releasing the bomb while pulling up from low altitude to roll out and down and accelerate at high speed away from the drop zone while the bomb itself is braked by parachute. With a TOW of some 25 tonnes (10 tonnes of fuel) Copponnex gets airborne on the afternoon of Wednesday 26 September 1973 in 'clean' ('lisse') configuration (no drop tanks). During his second approach run he experiences an engine failure at well over Mach 1 off the coast of Corsica. The aircraft quickly becomes unrecoverable and less than two minutes after the first 'oil 1' warning light flashes up on the dashboard and stays lit, both pilot and navigator have ejected from their aircraft - Mirage IVA n°2 AA. An interesting account...

 ".. I informed 'Jack', my navigator, of the failure, and applied my procedure which was very straight forward and clear-cut - throttle back the defective engine (to avoid any possible further deterioration) and go to full throttle on the other while radioing in our problem. While infrequent, this type of failure was not unknown and we trained for it of course. Now we had to get the aircraft back to the airfield - we were at low altitude and high speed some five nautical miles from home...the only manoeuvre possible to accomplish this was a wide starboard turn while climbing to just below the cloud base - there was no question of losing visual with the ground - while slowing to 250 kts to prepare for landing.. ..however I was suddenly unable to light the after-burner on the starboard engine. Our speed continued to fall away ..alarmingly. Checking the fuel circuit I twice -tried - to relight the afterburner in the starboard engine ...while letting out a 'ca merde!' ( " its going tits up!").  Nor could I relight the port engine that I had just shut down. At 600 ft and 300 kts, we were reaching the limit of the capabilities of our Martin Baker seats. I ordered the ejection. Two minutes had past since the first alarm. Immediately the navigator's seat 'took off' leaving me free to pull the lower handle. While not an 'emergency' at the outset, subsequent and successive failures demanded a quick and clear decision. I had Jack to thank for acting quickly and unhesitatingly. I had barely shouted out 'jump' than I heard the explosions detonating the canopy glazing and the two cannon 'shots' propelling his seat out of the fuselage. He told me later that he already had his hand on the handle as he heard me let out my expletive - had he hesitated, I'm not sure that I would have had time to jump in turn..at moments like that you can't afford to ask yourself, 'have I done the right thing?', 'where have I gone wrong?' or even, 'I'm going to have account for my actions here'. Too many pilots haven't had the good fortune to act quickly, preferring to stay with their aircraft, hesitating over or delaying a decision. For a pilot, carrying out an ejection is anything but a 'normal' decision. - you take off, you bring the aircraft safely back to terra firma... As I drifted down under the canopy that had safely deployed, I was treated to the breath-taking spectacle of 'my aircraft' plunging into the sea in an enormous fountain of spray.."

More Armee de l'air pilot accounts on this blog;

  "JAGUAR SUR AL JABER" by Alain Mahagne, former Jaguar pilot of EC 2/11 Vosges, the only French pilot to be injured on operations in the first Gulf Air War, Jaguar sur Al Jaber is a 127-page account of flying the Jaguar in combat. Mahagne describes his sortie flown on 17 January 1991.

Curtiss Hawk H-75 - Lionel Persyn - Lela Presse

Following on my previous Hawk post here, some more H-75 reference for builders of the new AZ 72nd scale kit

Below; page extract from Lionel Persyn's huge tome on the H-75 published by Lela Presse. Note that  this blog author wrote the extended captions/English summaries published in this work based on Lionel's French-language text.

see a longer pdf extract from the book on the Lela Presse website here