I don’t check in to this site very often (very much a lapsed enthusiast) but this item has revived memories.

It must be about 50 years ago that I attended an Air Britain meeting in London that had a panel of four test pilots, one of whom was Eric Brown.

Then, last year, I noticed that he was doing a presentation at the Chalke Valley History Festival. It happened to be just after a short air display, so my wife and I made an afternoon of it. She had not heard of Winkle Brown before but was mightily impressed by the man – 95, clear, articulate, speaking without notes and with stories to tell well beyond aviation matters.

Afterwards, we had to move sharply on to another presentation, so did not have the honour of actually meeting him. The interesting thing is that, at the CVHF last year, there was a BBC tent and one of the people there was the presenter, James Holland. I suspect that he had not heard of Eric Brown before but recognised that there was a TV programme in it – just a guess on my part, but quite likely.

James Holland stayed out of the main body of the programme, leaving it to Eric Brown, in effect, to narrate his own story – and the programme was all the better for that. Contrast it with the programmes in which Dan Snow (also at the CVHF last year) presents his programmes – almost as much Dan Snow as the rest of content.

Like many here, I muttered Kondor when it appeared on-screen, only to have Winkle say “Kurier”. I’m not sure if it reduced my credibility with my wife.

If I were to criticise this programme, it would be on the grounds of brevity. Knowing the way things work, there must be much more footage of Winkle than was shown on the TV. Maybe even more archive footage that they sourced but didn’t use. Does anyone here have contacts at the BBC?

Thanks for the link to the old thread with Channel Airways’ fleet list.

My first ever flight was from Southend to Jersey in a Channel Airways Viking. I don’t know the year but most likely 1958 (possibly 1959) and, as I can recall the Battle of the Flowers, most likely in August. We missed our return flight and got put on the next flight back, which happened to be on a Bristol Wayfarer. I no longer have a note of which aircraft I flew on but the listing narrows it down.

I can recall a Rapide of Air Caen at Jersey when we left (I think).

Yes, connie freak, it is very likely that our paths crossed at the WLAG meetings at the White Hart.

On some nights there, I used to operate the epidiascope that was used in the aircraft recognition competitions. It was a rather basic and cumbersome beast but served its purpose. It was also used to illustrate talks, especially showing photos of recent LAP visitors or taken at airshows and on (what I might term) field trips.

Indeed, I have a vague recollection of someone who went off to Schipol to view the KLM Connies and brought back some photos. Was that you and were they shown at a WLAG meeting on that ancient bit of kit?

Connie freak, I think I used to know you. Did you once work for an insurance broker near the North Feltham trading estate, opposite the Crown & Sceptre?

I was around LAP from about 1958 to 1963, latterly spending most of my time on the south side, near Cains Lane, Bedfont.

I was also a member of the West London Aviation Group and still have some old WLAG newsletters somewhere or other.

Re flights in Vanguards. I’m not sure if I’ll have a written note of this anywhere but, towards the end of the 1960s, I several times used a very late flight back from Glasgow Renfrew to Heathrow, invariably in a BEA Vanguard. My future wife was in Glasgow and the tickets were quite cheap. I always wondered why they put on a flight so late and, one day, I asked and was told that it was used by Royal Mail to fly post down to London. I guess the Vanguard was suitable because its freight hold was pretty capacious, wasn’t it?

Thanks for the various replies.

I did go to Wisley a couple of times (I think it was the days when I went to Ripley for the helicopter rally or garden party or something similar). There wasn’t much to see at Wisley – maybe the odd Valiant parked there. I certainly went on a tour of the Weybridge factory several times, so i suspect that was where I saw the TCA Vanguards and the Austrian Viscounts. For those interested in the ground travel aspects, that would have been a bike ride

As for the day before, Croydon is a definite possibility, though I went there rarely. I went there by bus, I think, and that was a long journey from the LAP area. I didn’t realise that Croydon had closed as early as 1959, which might also explain why my visits were so few. I looked some of the civil aircraft on G-INFO and a couple, at least, have Croydon connections. G-APLI was a Tiger Moth registered with Rollasons that went to Sweden in June 1960 and G-APBM was a Rapide that went abroad in July 1960. Not all the others I checked were so clear.

I looked again at what I’d written about the Rapide wing and it looks as though I wrote a “W” and then overwrote a “V”, so VP-KCV it was. Thanks. But, if it was Croydon and Croydon closed in October 1959, how come I noted a French-registered Viking and an American-registered Aero Commander there in April 1960? Is there something I’m missing?

As a “lapsed” spotter and aviation enthuiast (say, 1958 – 1963), I only visit this forum occasionally but have found this thread particularly fascinating.

Someone mentioned duplicated, mimeographed or roneo’d “magazines” from the past. From memory, I still have a few copies of the West London Aviation Group” publication and slightly fewer of the equivalent from Prestwick Airport. Having moved house a while back, much of this stuff is still boxed and not easy to retrieve.

What has come out of storage are my pocket diaries from 1960 to 1963, which have lots of little notes about aircraft seen (“spotted”) at various airfields here and there – mostly LAP but also Northolt, White Waltham, Redhill, Gatwick, Stapleford, North Weald (an airshow), Bovingdon, Fairoaks, Southampton (visit of USS Essex), Christchurch, Hurn, Panshanger, Shoreham etc etc. The amount of detail and the legibility of my writing varies greatly.

My Mum worked for BEA, so I saved up my pocket and odd-job money and took day trips on staff tickets to the continent – the 17 Feb 62 Schipol trip (out on ‘OYG and back on ‘PIM) lists the ‘planes I spotted but the one to the Paris air show on 28 May 1961 (in the days when BEA flew to Le Bourget) simply says “See list” but I now have no list. I also took the odd trip to Renfrew and caught the train down to Prestwick.

Someone mentioned Canadian Vanguards. I manged to wangle a few tours of Weybridge (they did tours in those days, as part of their P.R., I guess). On 5 January 1961, I recorded G-APEF for BEA, 11 airframes for Trans Canada Airlines (I’ve noted them as “1-11”) and 10 (what I’ve called “provisional”) Viscounts (including SU-AKW for Misrair). Is it possible that Vickers, lacking firm orders, were building airframes against provisional orders at that time to keep the workforce together?

I think I saw more Canadian Vanguards on another visit (possibly in 1961) but I haven’t found that page yet.

On 27 October 1962, I noted several VC10s, namely ‘RVA, ‘RVB and the 3rd to the 9th VC10 for BOAC. We also got taken across the airfield to an area where the TSR-2 was being built. I noted: “Did not see. Behind a security screen”.