Nice Fiat G-91 instrument panel. A bit pricey though it does look complete.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Aircraft-panel-Fiat-G-91/132618439250?hash=item1ee0acca52:g:bCkAAOSwtJha9WQg

I have “wasted” many an evening just sitting down with a mug of tea after work then one plane video leads to another. Having said that I still buy one or two magazines a month (aircraft, cars or mountain bikes) as I still like having something I can pick up and read.

Maybe it’s just me but I like having something in print. I still like books but sadly the number of book shops appears to be diminishing in the Amazon/ebay age. Notably the Transport sections that used to contain all the aircraft stuff have now been reduced to a shelf or two with not much more than the Haynes manual on the Spitfire, Lancaster and maybe the Hurricane.

FFW I still don’t have complete faith in “cloud” type internet storage of data.

Back in the 80’s when I was a sprog engineering student one of our lecturers asked if anyone wanted to work on a restoration. I volunteer along with some friends on my course. We were given a name & address around the corner and told to be there at a certain time on Saturday morning. We turned up at the appointed hour in a suburban street thinking we would get a lift to the airfield where the A/C was kept.

Wrong, he had the Aero 145 in the back garden with the wings off ! it was a very tight fit. His neighbour gave a sigh of resignation when he came out of his house as myself and one of my friends were getting a fuel tank out of one of the wing sections on the drive. Not enough space in the garden you see. Here are some photos that I posted on the forum ages ago of the restoration.

Given the description above I now believe the engine block in the photos is from WS mentioned above as we were told that it had come from another Aero 145 that had crashed killing all four occupants. Part of the story was that one of the rear passengers was a test pilot who it was thought had tried to save the situation by pushing the control column forward but was to late.

As to the identity of the aircraft we were working on I think it came from Elstree as we were shown photos of it being towed backwards on it’s main gear around the M25 with the tail wheel lashed into a small trailer towed by a Volvo 240 estate. A number plate and light bar were hanging off the nose. Bet you wouldn’t get away with that now. Outer wings removed of course. One clue to it’s identity was that the owner/restorer it wanted to paint the Pink Panther on it. I saw it up for auction some time later in a magazine with this emblem on it. This would have been early/mid 90’s.

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A while back someone on the forum was chasing up stories of Wyverns buried at Daedulas/Lee-On-Solent. Does anyone know if anything came of this?

A wing spar still exists in a German museum. Quite an impressive bit of metalwork.

http://axis.classicwings.com/Luftwaffe/relics/images/Me323_mainspar.jpg

Imaged linked from this article.

http://www.businessinsider.com/hitlers-giant-plane-2015-8?IR=T

Blakehill farm near Swindon used to be mildly interesting.

I last went to Wroughton in 2004. The hangars that were open, whilst containing a decent amount of artifacts didn’t seem “cramped”, likewise the hangars themselves looked in decent shape. Has it deteriorated that much in 13 year or had significantly more items added ?

As a museum would it not be good to preserve the existing “failing 1940s infrastructure” or are we looking at an excuse to flog off some real estate for houses to make a bit of cash? It was nice to see the airfield as I imagine it would have looked in it’s early years.

Anyway, for reference here is a Youtube I did with photos of that visit showing how exhibits were arranged and how the hangar structure looked inside, which seemed pretty good to me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_DzW-g-r7s