I seem to remember a former O/C of the BoBmf describing it ( the 109 ) as a wonderful aircraft to fly but a tricky one to get in the air, an even harder one to land and a very difficult machine to ‘fight’ due to the poor view. was it Paul Day ?

No one will begrudge Ray his eventual retirement but lets hope all this talk is a tad premature and he gives us just a few more golden years. From the Arrows in Gnats to the present day, we have been very blessed to see him ply his undoubted craft.
Cheers to you Sir !

I like the “Thanks in advance” bit, this is a tad more tricky I feel.

Difficult to judge without something to reference the actual size against.

From a purely engineering standpoint the larger object in the foreground if you were to stand it upright resembles hydraulically some sort of master cylinder.

It is very reminicent of a car brake master cylinder from the 1960’s, it certainly looks to me like a double acting device. i.e. it has two cylinders the smaller primary one (now underneath) feeding the larger secondary (uppermost). To work it would require an external power input, from the pilot perhaps ?

The large union at 90 degrees on the left hand end is the output, the hole roughly in the middle could be where the filler/level plug used to reside and the drillings in the casting at the right hand end and the lug behind just visible with a single drilling could be where and input shaft pivoited or was located. The small hole between the output end and the filler hole probably had a smaller output union to a guage or a bleed valve a some point.

The long cylinder above it has a pair of banjo unions, both with bleed nipples and an interconnecting pipe to one end. Suggesting that it is also hydraulic but probably some sort of two way actuator, U/C cover or flaps perhaps ?

Pure speculation but based on an engineering background of course.

There are some nice photos and tribute to Mark here
http://www.jfs.no/album.html

And on the same site you will find amongst lots of other goodies Mark flying the Buchon and a cracking display in MH434 here, its a big file about 4 megs but it really is well worth it if you have not seen it already ( when the page has loaded right click and save target, its worth keeping )
http://www.jfs.no/film_english.html

Like most people I only met him a couple of times but he was always happy to chat if he had the time, he was always so enthusiastic about everything and well, that winning smile just about said it all.
For most of us it said there’s a chap who loves his work, as for the wife it made her go quite weak at the knees !
For the pleasure he gave to us all God bless him.

Allow me some slack gentlemen (and any Ladies) I have just returned from the Chappel beer festival in a state of mellowness.

To quote my late Grandfather who was Capt Ball V.C. 56Sqn armorour/fitter in the 1914/18 war.
As his rule of thumb.
“Any Rolls Royce engine always rotates the right way. Anything else even if it’s Wright, rotates the wrong way.”

Regarding the B26 Marauders passing overhead Colchester outbound from Boxted “By God they were brave lads Boy, sounded like a sack of rusty spanners in formation”.