This is all great advice, thanks to everyone for posting. It seems like one of the prosumer range would be within my budget, even though my old mum used to say “if you buy cheap you buy twice”…

Anyway, two further questions-

How useful is image stabilization to getting good shots of aircraft in flight? Will this help in keeping the object in focus or will it end up spoiling any sense of speed? Also what is its effect on prop blur?

What about software for dealing with the results- are the programs that come with the bundle any good? I suppose there is no point buying at the top of my budget if I don’t have software that will do the results justice. But if the shots are good in the first place then they shouldn’t need any b*ggering about with, yes?

Considering the location they look looked after! Nice to see a TU95 on display

Nice to find out that one can (and did) turn all the props by hand too…

A pair of Sukhoi.

Also, at the Koltsovo airport, there is a replica of the first Russian rocket powered airplane, the BI-1, mounted on a plinth. This airplane made its first flight from the same airport in 1941.

…and is mounted a little too high for for my lo-res snapper to get a good close up unfortunately but you get the idea.

I used to dispatch and one of the places I went to was the airfield near Chester where GMP fly their helicopter from. There was at least one MIG, and maybe two, parked up there. That was 5 years ago and I dont know if it/they are still there. From memory the engines had been run but the plane/s hadnt been flown since its/their arrival

We were having a bit of a chat about that a while ago-

http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/showthread.php?t=61446

A bit of a sorry tale by the sounds of it unfortunately.

I have a book called Cockpits of the Cold War written by Donald Nijboer, it illustrates a number of cockpits from cold war aircraft including American machines. Look through the illustrations it appears that this type of Mach meter was fitted to the F86 Sabre. But please bear the following in mind.
1) Most instruments were standard fitted to a variety of aircraft and I doubt if this was exclusive to the F86, its highley likely to have been fitted to other types in that particular era.
Hope this helps.

Thats a great help, thank you for going to the trouble to look it up. The fact that it could have been fitted to quite a few different aircraft just adds to its appeal for me.