GETTING CLOSE AND PERSONAL

PP – if you have not already been, go and have a look at AirSpace for yourself. I had the opportunity to visit AirSpace earlier this week. You can almost touch the RE8, Tiger Moth and Mossy. It seemed to me that by sticking to the relatively staid ‘flying’ poses the special attachments for hanging the aircraft have been made very unobtrusive. Those on the aircraft in the AAM, for example, look agricultural in comparison. Similarly, from what I have seen in photos posted on this Forum, the wires used to hang the aircraft at Cosford seem to be much more numerous and thicker in order to hold the aircraft in their dramatic ‘ballistic’ poses, as is also the case in the AAM. Whilst I have yet to see the Cosford display in the flesh, I know what floats my boat for now. Moreover, I suspect that the nature of the original structure of the AirSpace also imposed some limitations in how much imagination could be used in posing the suspended aircraft. That said, some of the danglers have the landing gear down and some have it retracted. To me, the Mossy, Canberra and Dove in particular seem to benefit from being displayed with the gear up. The Strikey also has the gear up and with its full set of SNEB pods looks very business-like.