Hi,

if you want info about the Princess – then the bloke to find is Dick Stratton – he was the flight engineer on most of the flights. He does give lectures to aviation societies about his time working for Saunders Roe and is very good. His next talk to a local group (South Hants Historical Aviation Society http://www.shhas.co.uk) is on the 6th September (Wedmesday) in Romsey, Hants and will be worth going to.

just a word of warning – Italy and Rome in particular takes a very dim view of people showing any sort of interest in photographing aircraft. Transited Rome a couple of years ago and felt uneasy just using a pair of bino’s even though I was out of sight.

Skymonster,

agree 100% with what you are saying – a knee jerk reaction so typical of this government. How conveinient that his tonyness avoided the chaos.

Having banned hand luggage will the airside shopping malls that pretend to be an airports (like Heathrow / Gatwick etc) be closed so you cannot buy anything to take onto the plane. How does the hand luggage ban effect people buying glass bottles of spirits – are these still allowed onboard? Could somebody go into an airside camera / electrical shop and totally requip with digital camera / lens / laptop – expensive but possible. (BAA would not mind though – more money for them)

If people are serious about security then all non food outlets airside should also be closed. This will never happen as BAA would lose a fortune. I know 100% that my camera / laptop is not a threat but cannot be 100% sure about items bought airside. Are items for airside shops given a more stringent screening? if yes then why not have hand luggage processed in that manner and returned to the passenger.

Fortunately my USA trip was a couple of weeks ago but unless things return to normal I will have to think very hard about my future photographic trips this year as my camera gear is (like a lot of people on the forum) expensive and no way would I trust it to the normal treatment that hold luggage normally gets. The only way it would ever go into the hold would be if I could put it there myself in a secure lockable container with my own padlock on it.

GASML,

come to Popham on the 17 September – you might find a selection of nice Lucsombe’s to look at (wx permitting)

I remember a film called ‘Snowbeast’ (I think) which I saw while on a caravan holiday many years ago. Mountain / snowy scenery – monster chasing and feeding on skiers etc. Only saw the whole creature during the final moments but the shadow / claws seen were bad enough.

Does as a 1929 vintage Ford Trimotor count ? – had a go on one of those last week 🙂
and a Bell 47 🙂

Had a very interesting talk yesterday by one of the crew members – the flight went very well and no major problems with the aircraft. The only negative aspect was on arriving at Orange County the crew were basically told to ‘clear out their gear asap because we are playing golf later’ – not so much as a thank you or a well done for getting an old aircraft some 5000 miles in a very short space of time with no snags.
I think that this lack of gratitude is very poor and is not what I would expect from Americans in general.