good report Ken, I did a trip to Russia last year (with another company) and had similar weather ! – although the MAKS show at Zhukovsky was a sunny day.
Chernoye is very interesting – loads of AN2 & Mil2 awaiting overhaul. Shame to hear that the AN2 ekranoplane is in storage there – it raised a few comments when it was at the 2003 show

If we are talking about first flights as well then I can just about remember coming back from Palma on a Comet, presumably Dan Air, in Jan 1970. We had suffered a 7 hour delay at Palma because of fog (i think) and can recall the torn hessian type material below the window and seeing the lights of Palma receed as we departed – I then fell asleep. (i was only 4)

Todd,

I visited the Langley museum in 1999, good to see the Hampden in a much better condition now – keep up the good work

How about the Beriev WA114 Bertolini – pics on airliners.net

How about Richard E Grant or Ewan Mcgregor

dcfly,

try http://www.kempinski-airport.de/ or email [email]info@kempinski-airport.de[/email]

hope this helps

I have been lucky enough to hear a gentleman by the name of **** Straton talk about his time at Saunder’s Roe – he was the development flight engineer on the Princess and mentioned a few interesting facts i.e. the prop blades were bent on the first flight by water hitting them and as the replacement blades took a while to get, it flew with the bent ones for a while. I also seem to remember being told that the control surfaces were moved by a very simple ‘electro-hydraulic’ system – a early and successful attempe at ‘fly-by’wire’