I was quite interested to see the remains of the Corsair, the blurb states that it came off the Illustrious in 1944, my late uncle was a Corsair armourer on Illustrious at that time and his periscope used for checking the guns sits on the desk next to me. It’s quite wierd to think that this small piece of brass was possibly used to check out this particular a/c.

When I was a kid, Biggles books were classics, everyone was into them.
I’ve always been surprised that no-one has ever produced a truly classic Biggles film, yes, I know why, doesn’t appeal to Hollywood backing, however money was sunk into the embarrasing Biggles film that was eventually produced.
Perhaps Michael Palin may have the will to try and do something about it.
If I win the Eurolottery I promise to finance Biggles and the Cruise of the Condor.
Incidentally, I published an earlier thread about pilots flying in both WW1 and WW2 and forgot to mention Biggles or Von Stalheim, shame on me.

Hello Pete

Having seen this statue about 15 years ago I don’t think the shiny condition was because of people sitting on his private parts !! 🙂 The Leonardo da Vinci museum in the town is also well worth a visit, having models of some of his designs, and I agree about the Tank Museum as well.

When I was in Saumur despatch riders were training for a sort of Royal Tournament event (pity I missed the tank display year!!)

cheers

Allan

I think that you will find that it was, my young son took great delight in doing this and telling his friends about it for weeks afterwards. I have a very embarressing video taken in a restaurant in Amboise, where I asked everyone what their favourite bit of the day was and my son replied ‘ Sitting on Leonardo’s willy ‘.When he comes back from Uni next week I shall show the video to his girlfriend tee hee.
It was 15 years ago when I was at that tournament and the despatch riders tried to do their stuff but kept falling off, to the hilarity of the crowd, most of whom were their families and fellow soldiers. One ridiculous act was a race around the arena between a dispatch rider and an officer on a horse, the horse was absolutely terrified.
Sorry, no mention of aircraft, will this get moved?

Try taking acid then looking at it again.

My god, the lunatics have finally taken over the asylum.
I’ll get me coat.

Thank you very much everybody, especially Pete, for going to so much trouble. Yes of course I know about La Ferte Alais and have been there many times, but the Saumur stuff especially sounds very interesting.

If you are interested in collecting French Solido military toy vehicles, then the stuff on sale in the tank museum is quite amazing, don’t forget the local Saumur wines either.
Another place is Amboise, very pleasant town and where Leonardo Da Vinci ended up and inserted his famous helical staircases into the local Chateux.
There is a very large recumbant statue of him on the banks of the river at Amboise, you will notice by it’s shiney condition that the tourists like to sit on the statues prominent private parts.
You must also try and get to the beaches on the coast ie St John de Montes, or preferably further south, they are quite stunning.

It was on the recent Dambusters remake thread.