Sorry no Rapides up from us today – must have been from The Moth Club Rally at RAF Halton not far down the road. 🙂

Thanks for the quick plug Anthony. I should just say though that tickets are limited to 40 and must be brought in advance, tickets sales close at the end of office hours Friday (i.e. tomorrow). This is due to the fact that we will be having no fencing etc erected on the airfield so each visitor will need to be escourted by a volunteer. The theme of the event is a rare oppertunity to take pictures of female models in period clothing posing in front of suitable aircraft, currently there are 10 models booked. Hope to see some of you on Saturday.

As Will says Bob, we are not in the best position to comment on these situations being just the hard working volunteers who help to keep these old girls up in the sky. Suffice to say that the situation is and was far more complicated than can easily be discussed on here, for instance the statement from which you quote fails to mention that the aircraft to which exemptions were granted had to be modified in order to meet the new requirements and that they all have a seating capacity under 20 seats. As far as stopping popular flights is concerned, I believe it would be correct to say that the DC3’s have never covered the costs of there operation since the various member companies of the former Air Atlantique group were sold off, as before there was much cross subsidy and usage of the aircraft.

Will you’re a cruel man!! But having seen said Canberra ‘in the flesh’ so to speak I can say shes a beauty. I doubt you’ll let me have ago though will you as last time I flew one of your models I seem to recall it nearly ended up on the roof of Hanger 5!! 😮

cometguymk1 – why not try one of our open days, plenty of other de Havilland delights to see as well. 🙂

No problem. 🙂

The gear was indeed locked down for the ferry.

where does this misconception that CAA won’t allow Lightnings to fly, come from?!.:confused:(

A very interesting post MJR and one that does bring hope after many years. As to where the misconception comes from all I can say on the subject is that around 10 years ago I had a very interesting chat with 2 of the 7 people who at the time sat on the team who processed and signed of the appropriate paperwork to approve aircraft like the Lightning to fly. They were both adamant that none of the team would be prepared to sign any paperwork allowing a Lightning to fly in the UK due to the amount of ‘evidence’ that exists that the type is unsafe to operate (crash record / fire history etc) and the potential for any manslaughter cases etc to be brought against them in light of it should an aircraft crash killing innocent people. The people involved are well known in aviation circules and its a small community so word gets around, I believe it was also pretty much the same as what the potential Lightning operator at the time had been saying. Hope this helps.

I don’t know more time that the crew are going to be forced to spend in Amsterdam………..;):D

Bad weather can last a long time……..:diablo: