I had been told that the late Robert Rudhall’s excellent books were to be reprinted this year, but that seems to have gone quiet. An updated version with additional chapters on the disposals of Connie Edwards aircraft plus the movements of the other Buchons, CASA’s, Spitfires and Hurricanes as well as the surviving fibreglass replicas and radio control models is long overdue. Also the rise in the “collectables” market could be covered as Mark 12 did in Britain at War. The development of the book and it’s landscape photo album sequel is exactly what Robert would have wanted and had he lived I am sure we would be on volume 4 by now.

Red nose Spitfires continued; SL721 when Doug Arnold had her at Blackbushe…

Any more?

Don’t hold your breath on that one…

Beautiful display by RG on arrival in the Fury ISS G-CBEL this afternoon with a lovely “Ray Hanna” low pass at the end. I thought “December 19th and I’m watching a Sea Fury displaying!!!” Absolutely fantastic and then to see Yellow 7 depart the other way back to Sywell – A Buchon flying mid-winter. Awesome – I’m all for these knock-on effects of so called Global Warming… 😎

Isn’t R4118 entitled to air his or her views like any other member of this forum? Just because an opinion is expressed that you don’t agree with why do you see it necessary to make such a strong retort? I looked after a privately owned Pembroke some years ago and that was restricted on the number of passengers it could carry by the regulations of the Permit to Fly that it operated on, (being an ex military aeroplane) and could easily have filled the many seats it still had fitted when in RAF service (all with the relevant seat lapstraps etc in place) it just wan’t allowed to. In the end this restriction made it less appealing for the owner to operate as he couldn’t take his group of friends with him to airshows, fly-ins etc and was a strong factor on his decision to dispose of the aeroplane. What makes you think a Lancaster, Shackleton, B17 etc would have a more lenient attitude from the CAA when they don’t even have the approved seats fitted and would require a structural fitment modification to be stress approved, design approved and the seats and their materials and harness/lapstrap to be of an approved design and material specification. Even if all this was carried out they still would be unlikely to allow more than two or four passengers to be carried. Would this justify the operational costs for a four engined aeroplane, I doubt it myself. Personally I agree with R4118 in that I am doubtful that I will see that particular Lancaster fly again. That’s nothing against the owners or the engineers (many of whom I know personally and have worked with at Duxford and I highly respect), it’s just my opinion as an enthusiast and a professional Aircraft Engineer for the last 35 years. And yes I have worked on an airworthy Lancaster in the past, and many other large four engined aircraft. Forums are for discussion and debate not for attacking someone for their different opinion. That’s just being rude and arrogant.

And I thought that the view out of a Griffon Spitfire was challenging!

Here’s a link to a site which shows what I’m on about: http://napoleon130.tripod.com/northamericanb25mitchell/id68.html I can remember Hawke borrowing the nosewheel from the Historic Aircraft Museum B25 at Southend to ferry what became the IWM B25 to Shoreham. Amazingly he gave it back! Even more spooky is his connection with all three B25’s which were all camera ships, though he was flying alongside and being filmed by the Southend example for 633 Sqn, rather than flying it. I wonder how many B25’s, CASA 352’s, Dakotas and of course the Beech 18 became derelict and abandoned after his involvement?

Trumper, didn’t you know “page 3” went pc sometime ago and got covered up… :highly_amused: