Thirty years

1911 saw not just the introduction of John Moses Browing's (PBUP) classic pistol, but a new aeroplane design from a young man named Alliott Verdon Roe.  It was a revolutionary plane with three wings:



The young man, of course, went on to become Sir A. V. Roe, founder of the AVRO corporation, builder of the AVRO Lancaster Bomber that flew almost exactly thirty years after that triplane.

Americans are pretty full of their heavy bomber cred, with the B-17, B-24, and astounding B-29 from World War II.  But the Lancaster was no slouch, carrying the 22,000 lb "Grand Slam" bombs, known as "Ten Ton Tess".  Just as a point of reference, the "Little Boy" atomic bomb dropped on Japan only weighed 80% of this.

Odd trivia, part the first: Sir Alliott died in the same year I was born.  Makes me feel a bit old, right there.

Odd trivia, part the second: You know how military sites sometimes have displays of deactivated munitions?  You know, old cannons, shells, bombs, that sort of thing?  Well it seems that RAF Scampton had a Grand Slam on display for a decade.  They thought that it had been deactivated.  It hadn't been.  Oops.