I’m looking forward to it, personally 🙂

Thank you Daz, I feel there is hope! 🙂

I distinctly remember being on holiday in Cornwall as a much younger Roobarb than I am today (maybe a young pup!) and we were staying at a farm when this happened. We all crowded round the small b+w TV with the farmer and his family and watched a really poor quality set of live pictures coming through and my old Dad telling me that this was “history in the making” and how right he was. For me as a kid growing up during the Space Race there was nothing more gripping than rushing home from school to watch James Buerk live from mission control in Houston giving you an update on the days events. What a bunch of Heroes those Astronauts were to us young lads. For those of us that saw it live it was the “Where were you when Kennedy was shot” moment of our generation. 🙂

“Are they actually going to have a stripped down Spitfire, or is it just some sort of metaphor?”

Spitfire Mk.22 PK664 (formerly gate guard at RAF Binbrook) has been taken out of storage at RAFM Cosford and is now being worked on by Historic Flying Ltd at Duxford in preparation for the display.

As usual your info is rather astray of the mark. HFL do not do third-party work. The display preparation is being done next door at ARC. I do believe it says so in Flypast and Aeroplane this month.

Lovely pictures Tim, I’m glad to see your plastering skills are still as sharp as ever. I certainly had a very rewarding day, the staff seemed very friendly and approachable and very well informed. It was also very satisfying that everyone (well apart from a couple of people) was respectful to the aeroplanes despite the lack of barriers, ropes etc, and the placing of ladders etc for photography was handy for the likes of yourself! Being so close to the Spitfires, T28, T33 etc when they started up was far superior to the “Flightline Walk” experience at Legends. I look forward to seeing TA805 make its first flight soon. 😉

I don’t think he will be plastering his pictures! After the last one there seems to have been a little bit of displeasure about pictures of the project aircraft getting into the press! Bizarre arrangement but look in AM a few months ago!

I sincerely hope he WILL put up his excellent pictures for all to see. If it was “NO PHOTOGRAPHY” doesn’t it strike you that it might just say that in the advert? My understanding is that the pictures put into “Aircraft I**ustrated” were done without the knowledge of the resident companies and without their permission. They also wrote innaccurate copy of what was going on at HFL/ARC and what the intentions were with some of the projects. If the person concerned was so “up on the gen” then why did the said magazine publish a retraction and appology the next issue? Surely the advert is quite clear that it is an open day with behind the scenes views and a chance to get close up, and talk to the pilots, engineers etc? They would hardly be saying “would all enthusiasts please leave their cameras at home and don’t ask us about anything you haven’t already read on the Forum, in Flypaper, A*roplane, AI, etc etc etc. People wanting that sort of treatment would be better off visiting Hawkinge, wouldn’t they?

I seem to remember a few years ago there was an Airworthiness Directive issued regarding these outer wing attachment bolts. A U.S. parts supplier found that a large batch of these bolts were in ciculation made of an incorrect specification material which would fail under certain loading conditions, with fatal consequences. All aircraft should have been checked long ago though- a simple process of using a magnet on them to see if they were magnetic (correct) or not (very bad!). It became apparent that these bolts were indeed in circulation and had been fitted to some restorations on this side of the pond. They have, of course, been replaced with the correct item now.

Lovely 🙂

Little known fact: at one point, during the filming of everyone’s favourite war movie, Pearl Harbor, it was rumoured that this Messerschmitt would take part in filming dogfights with Planes of Fame’s Spitfire XIV, NH904 (the former G-FIRE!)!! 😮

Anyway, back on topic! 😀 Got any more, MerlinMagic?

Didn’t someone round here used to do a bit of flying in G-FIRE, and I believe they have shoe-horned themselves into the 109, eh MM? 😉

The Spitfire was refitted with wingtips and in your desired colour scheme for it’s initial post-rebuild (after its u/c incident) flying in June 2001 but by July the clipped tips had been refitted. I have some pictures in front of me, 3/4 shots plus a rear view but my scanner is t*ts-up at the moment…sorry! It definitely had tips on 21/06/01 but they were off on 05/07/01 if that’s any help.