A packed hall had a wonderful April lecture about the Typhoon aircraft when first designed and built in World War II given by James Rendell.
He first told us some of his life story including has many and varied jobs; one of which was being a lead architect for The Roses Theatre in Tewkesbury. Britain needed a fast fighter bomber to keep up with the German Focke-Wulf Fw 190s. Its speed of over 400mph was enabled by having two 12 cylinder engines joined together ! It weighed 7 tons – twice the weight of a spitfire so there were many technical problems to overcome. It was built by the Gloster Aircraft Company at Brockworth. Over 3,000 Typhoons were built there. Initiall they were fitted with .303 guns but later had guns firing the 20mm cannon rounds. Towards the end of the war they were very successful at destroying tanks.
He showed us a video of an interview with two women who worked on different parts of the assembly line Phyllis Gough and Peggy Fisher. The link is to a separate interview with Steve Knibbs of BBC Points West (https://youtu.be/zFBKq15wBxo ).
