Flying from Dallas to Chicago on an American DC10, this went tech and were rebooked onto a later flight a 757. Boarded this plane and sat towards the rear on the left and noticed a few people gathered around the over wing exit. Returned to looking out the window when ‘whooshh’ the over wing evac slide deployed – opps !! and as these take several hours to repack we all had to get off the plane to wait for the next flight.
The cause of this was that the 757 had been brought out from maintenance and a seat belt had been shut in the o/w exit. Obviously the passenger could not use it so a mechanic was called to free it and the only way this could be done was to open the door, unfortunately the slide mechanism had not been isolated and so it deployed.

Eventually got booked onto another American DC10 which after pushing back from the gate had to return because we still had groundstaff onboard.

Stieglitz,

well done for finding the article – I could not remember the date at all, despite being in one of the photographs featured 😉
We have since moved to another hangar on the airfield as the roof was a bit leaky and in danger of collapse.

Snapper,

minor correction our euro mp’s are elected – it is the eu commission that is not, either way we would be better off without them.

Neither of those shown are the ones at Lee-on-Solent.

The left one has a nose turret which the Lee one’s do not.

The complete one look as if it is having blister windows installed so is not N423RS and the window layout + nose hatch is different on VP-BPS.

Could be Nanaimo ? with the ‘new’ ps machine being prepared or maybe North Weald

We did not join the EU – the UK in 1974 (I think) voted to join the EEC or ‘common market’ and that was the last time the population had a vote on how far the UK should integrate with continental europe. This means that anybody who was not of voting age in 1974 has not had a chance to reject the corrupt organisation that the eu has become and that is a lot of people.
(anybody born after 1956 if voting age in 1974 was 18 or 1953 if it was 21)

Just look at who the British eu representatives are
a) Neil Kinnock, a man who was rejected twice by the country in a general election,
b) Leon Britton, ex gov minister who resigned about some helicopters
c) Chris Patten, ex MP rejected by his constituency

The proposal to add Peter Mandleson to this select bunch is about par for the course.

Why do we not like the eu – it is about trust, we do not trust the french or germans to stick to rules set by the eu/ecb. French transport stikes cause a lot of disruption, yet little compensation is paid to those whose business has been affected, British beef was declared safe by the eu some 3 years before the french allowed to go on sale. The source of the UK BSE problem was (i think) traced back to some feed bought from France. Corruption is widespread and has been for many years yet nothing seems to get done, eu accounts are a joke, not have been audited / signed off properly for 5+ years now.

The eu has always been biased towards france and germany at the expense of the other countries and nothing is going to change that.

I also do not trust Bliar to look after the best interests of the UK – he is only interested in becoming the first ‘president of europe’ to get his name in the history books and he is prepared to give this country away to get it.

N423RS was the PBY painted in Greenpeace colours and flew to Lee-on-Solent where she remains. (parked next to 2 DC3’s)

The ex Plane Sailing machine is also in a hangar at Lee-on-Solent being restored (slowly) An artical on the restoration appeared in Flypast (Out of the Cold I think it was called) not sure of the date though (mid 2000 maybe)

As I am a volunteer helping on both planes – visits can be arranged if people are interested.

Geforce,

I think you will find that the UK pays more than any other country (apart from Germany) into the eu, yet gets less back. The eu does not work with the present 15 members – there is no accountability, the level of corruption is frightening and those that constantly break the laws made by the eu get away with it . How this constitution will improve things is beyond me and the fact that 10 more countries are going to join will only make matters worse.

As for a ‘president of europe’ – blair is so desperate to have that job to get his name in the history books he would do anything to get it – including selling the country out. If he does that without letting the population have a say then he is (imo) guilty of treason.

Try the Confederate Air Force show at Midland (tx) – the reinactments of various aerial elements of WW2 starting with Pearl Harbour and ending with Hiroshima are well worth seeing.