The way we were – c1970's colour

Best thread ever!! Fantastic stuff and thanks for taking the time to scan these wonderful images – very much appreciated 😉 Could I ask what scanner/software you use and how much time it takes to scan an “average” slide? I have plenty of my fathers and uncles slides that I would like to share with you of similar subjects…

Kodak,

Well thank you for that. It is appreciated.

I use a three year old ‘Epson Perfection 3200 Photo’. This has proved to be an excellent general purpose scanner. Although a flat bed, it has various attachments to scan slides, and negatives of various formats.

It will scan four slides in one operation. For these slides I have scanned at the ultimate quality setting at 3200 dpi. This is a ten minute cycle. Some, with more expertise than myself, may well consider this way over the top but in many of these slides the aircraft is but one quarter of a square inch in surface area, so perhaps 50-80% of the slide has been cropped away. At this stage I would level horizons by rotation and if a small element of structure such as a wing tip was missing leave sufficient scope to clone in a bit of adjacent scenery to balance the image.

I do not know what camera was used to take the majority of these slides but I would suggest it was quite a modest affair for 1970 with a standard 50mm and a non zoom telephoto. You will have noticed the slightly sluggish shutter causing the image to darken on the RHS.

To this cropped result I have used Paint Shop Pro to colour balance and remove the colour ‘caste’ usually blue/violet. Contrast to taste with a tendency to embolden the image, a pinch of colour saturation adjustment if they all looking a little washed out and finally a little sharpening using the ‘unsharp mask’ facility.

Just basic stuff compared to what I know can be done by the professionals, but it is amazing what 21st century technology can do to quite modest and mundane 1970’s slide images.

Again my special thanks to Ray Wood for making these shots available.

Mark

Best thread ever!! Fantastic stuff and thanks for taking the time to scan these wonderful images – very much appreciated 😉 Could I ask what scanner/software you use and how much time it takes to scan an “average” slide? I have plenty of my fathers and uncles slides that I would like to share with you of similar subjects…

It may well have had L8032 plastered all over it, but this is incorrect for a 72 Sqn Gladiator. K8032, however, was used by 72 Sqn hence the 72 Sqn colour scheme and initially correct K8032 for the scheme. The change to L8032 on discovery of its true serial should have brought about a change of squadron colours, to be strictly accurate. I suppose the cost of changing it may have been prohibitive at the time. I would be interested to know which units L8032 served with? It did not with 72.

Loved the pics of the ‘Whistling Wheelbarrow’. Stirred some memories for me of the days when they operated from Benson. Hadn’t realised until now just how large the flaps on a Firefly are. Those shots show them to good effect.

James,
I actually think that set of steps still exists at Old Warden.
Perhaps we should have a plaque screwed to them with ‘Wally Berry once stood here’ on it.

Wally is still fondly remembered by the older generation at Old Warden and rightly so.
He was the font of knowledge on rotary engines for many years.
I’m wallowing in nostalgia for the seventies as I view these.
I do remember OW being a bit ramshackle in those days and very informal.
Since I’ve been involved with the SVAS I’ve heard some corking stories about those days. One could write a book!!!

Mark 12–Keep ’em coming.
Andy

If you could write a book about it I say go for it. I reckon there’d be plenty of takers for a copy

Early wingwalker

I just could not resist this addition because it was my first ever sight of a wingwalker …Helen Tempest at sywell

Sorry Albert, but DB is right, G-AVPJ in this one. Barnstormers had two tigers in that Scheme, VPJ and PVT. As you quite rightly say PVT was written off in a mid air at Tollerton in 1973, familly friend Barry Shaw sadly lost his life in the incident when the Rollason Beta flew into him as he was joining the cicuit to land for a Barnstormers Display. I remember it well, i was there that day 🙁

I stand corrected – too lazy to click and enlarge the photo to check reg! 😮
Forget they painted two in identical schemes.i

This is G-APVT again and can be no later than 1973 as that was the year she was written off in a mid-air collision.

Sorry Albert, but DB is right, G-AVPJ in this one. Barnstormers had two tigers in that Scheme, VPJ and PVT. As you quite rightly say PVT was written off in a mid air at Tollerton in 1973, familly friend Barry Shaw sadly lost his life in the incident when the Rollason Beta flew into him as he was joining the cicuit to land for a Barnstormers Display. I remember it well, i was there that day 🙁

And heres another Tiger moth SOW, my sister with Skybolt at the controls!!! Sywell mid seventies at a guess.

This is G-APVT again and can be no later than 1973 as that was the year she was written off in a mid-air collision.

And heres another Tiger moth SOW, my sister with Skybolt at the controls!!! Sywell mid seventies at a guess.

Heres a few from Sywell early 70’s Rothmans Stampes and Pitts S2a’s and some of the American Aerobatic team that were there in 1970 for there work up for the World Champs at hullavington.

525 – the first Tiger Moth, G-APVT, was part of The Barnstormers Flying Circus and was written-off the following year after this shot was taken, being totally destroyed in a mid-air collision with Rollason Beta G-ATLY on 29th September 1973.

Vulcan

I have only just started scanning my slides so here is my first contribution.sorry no details on this one but it looks nice !

I’d love to know the exact date the picture of ADAA was taken at Old Warden with the girl on the wing.
Andy

Andy,

By virtue of being a Kodachrome slide it is process dated – in this case September 1972.

Mark

The Tiger registration was G-AOAA named ‘The Deacon’ and was one of four conversions to ‘Super Tiger’ done by the Tiger Club.

Yes, I’m going blind.

The Tiger registration was G-AOAA named ‘The Deacon’ and was one of four conversions to ‘Super Tiger’ done by the Tiger Club.

I’d love to know the exact date the picture of ADAA was taken at Old Warden with the girl on the wing.

I remember ‘The Tiger Club’ turning up there one time with the girl on the Tiger holding strings with a Turbilent on each string.
I wonder if this picture (526) is that very occasion.

Also was G-ADAA the Tiger named ‘The Deacon’?

Andy

The S.5 replica is being promoted by Bill Hosie’s son for a rebuild to flight again. The sums involved are however quite hight.

Andy IS right! G-AMRK was painted as “K8032” at Filton in the mid ’50s, but when Shuttleworth stripped her down and examined the framework, they found “L8032” stencilled throughout and consequently restored her to those beautiful 72 Squadron Flight Commander’s markings with the yellow fin and correct serial and flew as such in 1975. It’s about time we saw “L8032” painted back on this machine in RAF colours. :rolleyes:

Thanks chaps – the result of working from memory rather than checking sources. There a minor tail though; reading Albert’s post one might assume that the L8032 ‘revealed’ was a surprise and related to the whole framework – neither being true. At least one wing was Sea Gladiator in origin, and a number of other parts were cannibalized/swapped with the airframe now being rebuilt by TFC to fly, while the serials of G-AMRK were not a mystery then or now. There are some gaps in the aircraft’s history, which would be nice to fill, but the ‘K’ / ‘L’ saga wasn’t news.

526 looks like one of the Tiger Club’s ‘Super Tigers’ – I’m sure someone can add chapter and verse from memory, so I won’t bother looking it up… 😉

A final sweep up of the Old Warden images as best as I can tell. Starting with a couple of wing walking Tiger Moths, a few more of the Tomtit and Tutor, the Magister, Hind frame and the Comet, and finally three shots of Neil Williams with the Rothmans Stampes.

Mark

525

526

529

532

533

534

535

537

538

542

543

545

547

548

549