Di-electrics cannot be painted and light beigy ‘orrible grey is the colour of the raw material they are made of. That is why if you ever see a Tornado in inverted flight, the most striking thing is the Doppler panel under the nose. This was especially the case with the original dark grey/dark green paint scheme (except if the radar had leaked and streaked hydraulic oil trails across it).

With regard to the state of the oil in your worn cam engine, filters are great but won’t catch everything. Have you got any magnetic collector/detector facility? Most modern aeroengines have Magnetic Chip Detector Plugs fitted in the scavenge oil lines to catch the really small stuff for analysis.

If you have nothing magnetic in the system, have you thought about magnetising a tank drain plug? I suppose as you aren’t going flying anytime soon, even a big bar magnet dropped into the tank on a long bit of lockwire may help.

Just a thought!

Interesting replies, chaps, thanks!

I’m a bit sceptical of the bombing element, because unless proper bomb racks are fitted, rolling out the back is lamentably inaccurate.
Thanks again,

I really have to take issue with that statement, we flew, and as far as I am aware crews are still flying, highly accurate air drop missions in Afghanistan where loads are dropped within 15 feet of the DZ marker. I am not talking harness packs here, but 1 ton pallets of food and ammo to troops where there were enemy positions close enough to benefit from maldropped loads. I have seen double MSP drops with similar accuracy (an MSP is a platform which could contain for instance a LWB Land Rover).

Replace stores with ordnance and the Nav, Loady and Air Despatch Crew would make sure that the package was still received by the recipient with the same accuracy.

The Daisy Cutters used recently and MOAB both used GPS guidance to target, so their accuracy at release is not really relevant as the weapon will correct all the way down to the Impact Point

Far from being a tub thumping nay sayer, my comments were aimed at drawing the debate on preservation/conversation of an airframe which is iconic and in relatively short supply.

There is no doubt in my mind it will be a commercial triumph and will attract huge visitor numbers. It doesn’t involve my money, either donated or PAYE, so I don’t have a say in what happens. I just wanted to chuck in my two pennorth on an open forum about airframe conservation.

Anything which promotes British aviation achievement gets a big thumbs up from me, especially if preservation for the future has been considered and built into plans.

The 135s had a hose adaptor fitted to the boom to allow probe equipped aircraft to use them.

Commonly known as a donkey d1ck, most of the drivers airframe I know who have used them, actually prefer them as they are much more stable and of course Boom Ops could bend the rules and ‘help’ with positioning.

While we all love the Spit we should remember that March 5th is also the anniversary of other significant events:

5 Mar 1912 – First use of an airship for military means (Italian recce mission over Turkey)

5 Mar 1943 – First flight of the Gloster Meteor

5 Mar 1962 – Mrs Baloffski’s eldest boy was born!

I remember being on a Det up at Leuchars in 92/93 and the writing was on the wall then. 22 Sqn had just lost their detachment there and the hot word on the street was that as the cold war had ended Northern QRA would be held by a Leeming det at Stornoway and/or Lossie. No need for Leuchars.

It was all effectively stamped on by the AOSNI at the time who was a big golfer and enjoyed meeting the stars as they jetted in for St Andrews. I believe the Army want it for pretty much the same reasons now!

There will be a fearful outcry if they shut Lossie on top of handing Kinloss over to the Army, and realistically it would be a bit daft to take XV Sqn and whatever is left of the Tornado fleet away from the best training areas in the UK – Garvie and Tain with all that uninhabited low level routing to get there.

Northern QRA could be held at Lossie by a very small det from Coningsby.

The real question is will they shut Marham and move it to Lossie, thus ending all mil flying in Norfolk?

The Lockheed C5 Galaxy routinely carries two operating Flight Engineers, augmented crews can carry four. I guess that an augmented crew getting routechecked could theoretically carry five, but obviously only two at a time operating plus one checker.