I’m not sure if it is relevant to your question, but the Moscow Aviation Institute has the remains of an F-111 escape module in its structures faculty.

I photographed it there in 2006……

I have more pics – showing some stencilling.

The pilot’s name is faded out, but the WSO is Maj. D. Primas…… the Crew Chief stencil says … SSGT Het*ick and the serial looks like 67-06**

Ken

Interestingly that cockpit section looks very like something that was at the eastern end of the Tupolev OKB ramp at Zhukovsky in 1993. I have a photograph of one of the Tu-144 taken from where the taxiway round the back joins the apron near where the Il-86 fuselage was and it shows something which I always thought looked like a F-111 capsule. Needless to say the photo is currently in a box in storage.

Do you remember seeing this at Zhuk Ken?

Chox,

I presume that you’ve never seen a HLF Contract, let alone signed one!

Before you ask, yes I have [on both counts] and ironically it was with the same HLF Team that is [was] running the Vulcan Project. They are a very supportive team of people, hence my disappointment at your earlier negative comments about them.

With a successful HLF application the performance targets and reporting requirements [about how you are achieving the stated aims of the Bid] typically go on for the duration of the contract; they can be onerous and can include the reclamation of some or the entire grant if you do not meet your targets.

One interesting statement from the HLF at the BAPC 40th Anniversary event in 2007, related to their main involvement and success of the project being “to get the aircraft airborne”; the same person also stated that HLF was extremely unlikely to ever support another ‘flying project’.

I note from the trust annual accounts that the HLF retain a charge over XH558 to the value of their grant and I suspect the HLF might have the final say on whether she went across the Atlantic.

Wonderful, almost worthy of one of the late lamented Lord Denning’s judgements

We had one at our school (George Heriots – Edinburgh) which lived in the tractor shed down at our playing fields at Goldenacre in the late sixties early seventies but I can’t remember what the serial was.

Don’t know if it was ever used in the years I was there…

In the past such exercises have been explained away as necessary training in shifting airframes from one side of the world to the other. I think this one might have been in Iraq before being decommissioned.

At the outset, let me say that I have no particular axe to grind on the XH558 saga and I’m simply amazed that the people working on XH558 have achieved what they have.

However, on reading the accounts (and no, I’m not an accountant although I have done basic solicitor’s accounts along the way) I have a couple of questions which I hope the more knowledgeable amongst you may be able answer.

I found reading the trustee’s commentary a little confusing as much of the text describes the very laudable achievements of 2008 whilst the numbers (and the remainder of the text) related to events in 2007. I wonder what they will put in the next set of accounts although I would surmise that we will not see them until 2009.

The questions.

1) Page 16 notes that the parent company achieved a surplus of £565,043. Who is the parent company and does the figure appear elsewhere?
2) Is it only me who is surprised that support costs of generating funds (page 17) rose from £2,628 in 2006 to £100,012 in 2007?
3) Or that the £31,483 administration expenses of the trading subsidiary (page 17) was over three times the turnover of £9,516 leading the subsidiary to make a loss of £34,948.
4) Looking at the breakdown of this £100,012 on page 18 reveals that £62,445 of this figure is depreciation. What is being depreciated here and why has this increased from £12,411 in 2006.
5) The hoary issue of salaries has been raised and I note that although the average number of staff employed (23) remained the same in 2007 as 2006 (page 19) the Trustee’s notes (page 2) refer to 17. It also states on page 2 that there are now more part time and less full time employees than before. As such, the substantial rise in salaries (page 19) from £486K to £735K is noteworthy.

Anybody care to make some reasonable comments?

A nice picture of one in camouflage can be found here
http://www.airsceneuk.org.uk/scene/syerston/081203/g-jenc.htm

I wonder what it was doing at Syerston. Makes a change from the gliders I suppose…;)

And the T-28/Fennecs and ex-Belgian Pembrokes. Those WERE the days 🙂

http://brianelliott.fotopic.net/p55206210.html