I ended up killing time in the Little Venice/Maida Vale area of London a few days ago. I saw the following object in a garden:
In all honesty I’m leaning towards it being more nautical than aviation, as it was quite clunky in appearance. The four mounting holes (?) on right hand side were numbered from 1 to 4, and the angled fins make me wonder if it was designed to to maintain a nose-up profile when towed through water? I could be wrong either way.
As an aside, and only slightly more aviation related, I went to the Pink Floyd exhibition and saw the model Stuka they used to have set up in concerts to dive towards the stage:
The blurb suggested it was a 1/2 scale replica, but it looked a little small for that.
I also photographed a model of one of the airships used to promote their tour in 1994:
By: DaveF68 - 12th June 2017 at 11:03
More than that the chimneys are actually being demolished and rebuilt
https://www.batterseapowerstation.co.uk/#!/go/view/app/chimney?view=updates
The roof will being going back on eventually
By: Meddle - 11th June 2017 at 17:39
That sounds likely, as I don’t think the scene was ever recreated for any other purpose. The pig was also used for some live performances. There are a few stories of how and why Pink Floyd’s pig broke free, most of which I think are fairly apocryphal. Pink Floyd’s drummer Nick Mason states that a police helicopter had to carefully chaperone it, but that eventually the pig came down in a field belonging to a farmer in Kent, who then phoned the band (how did he have their number?), which is ultimately how they learned of its fate. I’ve read variously that the marksman was having tea, bunking off or was simply only hired for the first day of photography and the pig broke free on day two or three. I’ve also read and heard that the pig disrupted Heathrow traffic, though Gatwick seems more probable.
In the end Animals album cover features the power station and pig from one photo session and a more dramatic sky airbrushed in from another. As a Pink Floyd fan I was slightly surprised to see that most of the Battersea power station I know and love has been removed, with only the four chimney stacks and two end walls in place at the moment.
By: hampden98 - 11th June 2017 at 16:26
Many, many years ago. I guess I must have been 10’ish. I was travelling home aboard a school bus after having visited the Commenwealth Institure on a School trip in London.
Bored, I looked up and saw what appeared to be a large inflatable pink pig floating overhead.
I didn’t think much more of this until a few years ago I watch a documentary about Pink Floyd and the large pink pig tethered to Battersea Power Station.
Apparently it broke loose and the sharp shooter employed to shoot it down should that happen was at lunch.
Presumably this was the large pink pig I saw?
By: Arabella-Cox - 11th June 2017 at 14:47
I think you are correct to lean towards a nautical origin rather than aviation. It looks to me like its a paravane, part of an anti-mine sweep gear.
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June 11, 2017 at 2:29 pm