If it helps, there was a seemingly complete and no doubt runnable Hirth inverted inline piston engine for sale at the Beaulieu autojumble last weekend. Think Bücker and Klemm, etc.

Yours for £4,500 o.n.o.

One of the few bits of aeroplane I saw all weekend! 🙁

But I thought the Notam regarding flight testing had been cancelled. Wouldn’t we see a new one issued before any flights?

Just back from watching it at Cineworld, Ashton-Under-Lyne.

Not a bad turn out – about 60 or so.

Impressed by the quality of the film apart from it being slightly out of synch with regards audio and video tracks. This might have been the cinema’s fault.

Also, in the scene where Gibson sits in his hangar office, staring at the recently departed Nigger’s lead, his facial profile was “wobbling” in a strange manner – never noticed that on the VHS tape or DVD!

All in all though, well worth making the effort to see it on the big screen. The last time for me was at least forty years ago – and that version turned out to be the American release – complete with the shooting down and crashing of a B17 Flying Fortress – bizarre!

Peter Jackson’s remake is going to struggle to capture the realism of the flying scenes. It will have to be a far higher order of C.G.I. than any I have seen so far.

I wish him luck.

p.s. The cinema showed a trailer for the new film Atonement, starring amongst others, James McAvoy (perhaps best known for his role as boyfriend Steve in the early episodes of Shameless). I’ve seen rumours that he might be cast as the next Gibson. The right make up would make him a dead ringer for it.

I recall a Finningley display when XH558 performed it’s final steep climb into solid cloud. Just as it entered the cloud, the pilot must have reduced the power sharply because the noise ended abruptly, too.

One moment, the sight and sound of that huge Delta climbing away, the next, nothing…as if it had just disappeared. Best ending to a Vulcan display I ever saw!

Surely we will all hear the news we have been waiting for in the next week or two?

Hats off to them all, five trips within a fortnight, including Peenemunde, Berlin and Nuremburg!

What a fabulous piece of family history, I’m sure it’s treasured.

Thanks for sharing it with us.

It’s the air pressure gauge, from the auto pilot system.

Here’s an idea of what it looks like:-