October 30, 2002 at 9:56 am
The Comet at Old Warden flew for the first time in ages yesterday.
Unfortunately it came to grief on landing – undercarriage failure and sustained some limited damage.
Some photos – not of the accident – here
http://stevelevien.warp9.org/dh88comet.htm
Moggy
By: Moggy C - 7th November 2002 at 07:13
Welcome Steve
Nice to see you here,
Moggy
Who you, of course, know quite well 🙂
By: philo - 6th November 2002 at 22:11
RE: BTW, Is ‘Steve’ the chap often at Old Warden with a beard
Yes, welcome to the forum Steve.
I’m afraid it was me who asked about a beard as a result of a chat with a friend(Dave Macready) about the Comet and your pictures.He does the flight line tours at Old Warden and I’m often there too and I asked him if he knew ‘the photographer’, the answer being “I think he’s the chap with a beard”. All a bit irrelevant really, but there you go.
Anyhow it was good info about the Comet, not a good result of course.
Do you have any up to date info.?
Phil
By: vintage ATCO - 6th November 2002 at 20:05
RE: BTW, Is ‘Steve’ the chap often at Old Warden with a beard
Greetings!
Been reading this thread with interest but have been having problems registering so I couldn’t reply earlier. A big thank you to the Webmaster for registering me manually.
No, I haven’t got a beard. Don’t know anyone at Old Warden who has???
———————
vintage ATCO
www.stevelevien.com
By: Moggy C - 1st November 2002 at 07:57
BTW, Is ‘Steve’ the chap often at Old Warden with a beard
No
http://stevelevien.warp9.org/pictures.htm
Moggy 🙂
By: philo - 31st October 2002 at 18:01
RE: For info
I’m sure you are right guys and of course Shuttleworth will be pretty upset by this, especially given the uniqueness(almost) of the Comet and the interest in seeing her fly again.
I fully accept why the photographer chose or was asked not to publish his pictures, I was just, as I’m sure most of us are, concerned and curiuos.
BTW, Is ‘Steve’ the chap often at Old Warden with a beard.Well you know what I mean he could hardly go without it !.
I’ll shut up shall I !!.
By: Moggy C - 31st October 2002 at 00:13
For info
Steve (Who took the pics) is an ATCO who works Shuttleworth in addition to his day job.
Moggy
By: philo - 30th October 2002 at 21:52
RE: Comet flies 🙂 and flops 🙁
Great shame if after all this time of waiting something has gone wrong, however I’m slightly confused because assuming that the last picture in the sequence is a landing shot the gear looks OK and locked. Could it have been that she unfortunately found a soft spot in the grass taxying back in and sunk a bit.
Just out of interest why are there no further pictures in the sequence ? it would have been interesting to try and determine what happened.
Lets hope its all OK and look forward to seeing her in all of her glory next year and who knows it may not be too long before she is joined by G-ACSP ‘Black Magic’, what a sight that will be.
By: Arabella-Cox - 30th October 2002 at 12:21
RE: Comet flies 🙂 and flops 🙁
Great pictures, and fantastic to see they finally managed to get the right pilot / aircraft / weather combination. What a terrible shame about the gear incident though. Are there any initial early estimates a to the extent of the damage, and how long it’s likely to take to repair?