A little bit of Spitfire

A small flip book called Spitfire, published by the Imperial War Museum, has just been added to the OP collection at shelfmark OP5.210.11/50. It gives the reader (or flipper!) the chance to see aerial footage of the celebrated British fighter aircraft.

The Museum's Film and Video Archive holds some 20,000 hours of moving image material, much of which is from the Second World War. This includes British documentaries, newsreels and training films, including the 1944 aircraft recognition film Spitfires, part of which is featured in the flip book.
This publication is a simple concept and shows how books can still compete with digital media. Fans of the Spitfire F.21 plane can view a piece of aviation history in their hands without batteries!

(Photo credit: www.clevelandpeople.com)

Mull of Kintyre Chinook helicopter crash - case re-opened?

A recently discovered internal Ministry of Defence memo has shown that there were very serious concerns about the safety of the Chinook Mark II helicopter fleet, several months before the fatal crash on the Mull of Kintyre in 1994. The special forces crew and 25 senior members of Northern Ireland's intelligence community were killed.
A Royal Air Force investigation finally found the two pilots guilty of gross negligence. As well as the official reports, including Select Committee on Chinook ZD576, you can also find the House of Lords' discussions about it online.

Along with Sir Stephen Young's conclusions after the Fatal Accident Inquiry, we also have CD-ROMs containing the transcripts. These were supplied by Steuart Campbell, who wrote a book about the incident.

(Image courtesy of RAF)