Propwash wrote:..a documentary called just "RAF" on Talking Pictures ..filmed in 1935 ... What was particularly striking was the antiquity of the aircraft designs ..
Yes, very interesting film.
Although, by 1935, there were already much more modern designs in service or on order: Gladiators (with enclosed cockpits, 4 guns, faster, had flown), Hurricanes (monoplane 8-gun retractable, first flight 1935), both into service 1937, rather than Furies. Rather than the open cockpit and gunner positions training bomber shown (HP Hinaidi ?), Overstrand (enclosed cockpit and front gun turret) had started to replace Sidestrand (opens) in 1934, Hampden Wellesley and Whitley (monoplane bombers), were soon to fly; and AM Spec of 1932 gave rise to the Wellington. Monoplane Bombay (transport/bomber, first flight 1935) was about to start replacing the biplane Vernon and Valentia. A 1933 AM Spec gave rise to the monoplane, enclosed cockpit and turrets, Sunderland replacing the biplane (opens) Singapore .. AM was seriously looking ahead.
I suspect there may have been at least 2 factors in already obsolescent types being shown:
a. older types are (still
) routinely kept in training unit service long after they, or their technologies, have been superseded on the front line; and
b. already an element of 'security-mindedness' about current or imminent capabilities with prospects of another European war in the minds of military commanders and some politicians long before it was in those of the general public.
[I was also interested to note that the narrator did not bother to comment on the turbanned Sikh Officer Cadet at Cranwell undergoing pilot training. It would be more than 10 years before US military, under President Truman's EXecutive Order and against considerably public and military resistance, ordered desegregation of military units
]
(mere guide at) Jet Age Museum, Gloucestershire Airport
http://www.jetagemuseum.org/TripAdvisor Excellence Award 2015
http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Attraction ... gland.html