Yes, it’s currently airworthy and the new scheme may well be around for a little while.
I believe the intention is that Miss Kenya will fly in the advert (weather permitting).

And Yrs, that’s the 504 in the background.
A.

If my memory serves, it has a bite out of the lip.

I don’t often write anything here these days but I’m one too.
I have an ’03 Harley Softail Fatboy and a Yamaha XVS650 (otherwise known as a Draaaaaaag Staaaaar).

I’ve been riding on and off since I seventeen and I’m now 47.

Last month (June) I completed 1950 miles in seven days riding the 650 from Dunstable to John O’Groats, then onto Lands End, then back to Dunstable.
The Jog2LE bit took three days and was about 900 miles.
Not bad for a 13 year old bike which a year ago was rescued from a dark shed smelling of cats p*ss.
It also raised 1500 Quid for the East Anglian Air Ambulance.

Here’s a couple of pictures of the rider and old girl at the start and finish (and yes, I am being held up by my mate John at lands End!!)

Try it sometime, it hurts a bit but is a great adventure.

Andy.

Apparently, Andy in Beds, you have decided that the group who were proposing the recovery are nasty, unprincipled, filthy money-chasers who didn’t give a d@mn about any remains… and refuse to accept the facts that disprove your view.

Fair enough… but you also seem to be nearly as derisive towards the servicemen and their families.

Ruyard Kipling would be quite familiar with your and the MOD’s attitude towards deceased servicemen… he expressed it quite well in his 1892 poem Tommy.

Obviously you don’t know me and my views on the treatment of ex-service personnel.
If you did, you’d keep quiet.
You’re obviously too slow witted to see that I believe the families would be better served by being left alone and that I happen to think that after this distance in time, matters should be left to rest.
It’s not the majority view here but if you were intelligent enough to have read the previous posts, I would have hoped you might have spotted that.

Please don’t quote Kipling at me either, I’m very aware of what he said in Tommy Atkins and his views on service people.
Perhaps you are also aware of the work he did after the Great War for The Imperial War Graves Commission and that he lost his only son at Loos in 1915 after wangling him a commission in the 2nd Batt Irish Guards. Perhaps also, you could at some point visit Batemans, his house at Burwash in Sussex, which is beautifully preserved and maintained by the National Trust.

If you do however want a slanging match about both my patriotism and my support for our service personnel and what I may have done historically to help them, please don’t hesitate to PM me.
I’ll happily give you an argument you won’t forget privately, as it’s fair to say that I’m somewhat irritated by your ignorant assertions–I won’t say angered because you’re probably not worth the effort.

Many thanks.
Andy Jones..

So Andy,
Am I therefore correct in making the assumption that as the priorities of the organisers of this recovery project had the feelings of the families so high up their list of priorities when making this bid, that they went to some efforts to trace and consult with the people involved..??

Or were they conveniently forgotten by them as they are apparently by the MOD and the state of Maine??
Just interested to know, because it seems to me that they have been rather forgotten in both the ongoing Governmental love of saving a quid and the race to make a Buck.

I’m still happy to stand by leaving them alone.

Andy.

“The Historic Aircraft Corporation have been up-front about their aims and would clearly need to invest a great deal of money to recover – let alone restore – either of the Corsairs. However, they are also clear as regards to their obligations to the two pilots and are intent on working to ensure their proper and reverent recovery, identification and eventual burial.”

Sorry Andy and by all means call me the bleak cynic but that’s the sort of hogwash you get the lawyer to spout to win the case.

Next I’ll be told that they’re going to recover them because it’s a vocation.
Sorry, doesn’t wash here.
Andy.