A Chinook following the Thames around the Isle of Dogs today around 1:15pm, then a pair of Pumas going in the opposite direction (towards central London) around 4:55pm 🙂

Regards,

Dan

Interesting, that evening ( 6:00 ish ) I saw what I assume to be the same pair of Pumas heading north west around Braintree, following the Blackwater over Bocking and so low that they were at treetop level and lower. The ground rises at that point so being out on the Dorewards Hall footpath must have given a very close encounter indeed, sadly, I was just about to take the dogs out, half an hour earlier and I would have had a terrific view.
There has been a lot of military helicopter activity over here last week, Chinooks and a Lynx that unusually flew very low over the house heading south.
I’m preparing myself for the inevitable flybys on their way to Southend for the airshow this weekend. I was hoping to go for once, but the weather forecast is really bad for Sunday and Monday, it inevitably is at this weekend of the year, but lets hope that they’ve got it wrong. The last stunningly hot Spring Bank was 1997, who can forget the awsome Air Fete that year.

Tangmere, don’t accuse me of sneering, thats objectionable, I’m not knocking what she did, just the way she got there, and yes I agree, she could have bogged off to some safe island in the Carribean and lived the life of Riley, but didn’t, but I’m sure many that could have helped the war effort did in fact do that, certain members of the Royal Family spring to mind, however much you believe they were forced into pointless exile.
The 20’s and 30’s were very turbulent times, split between the very rich and the very poor, unfortunately, the very rich attempted to scupper the General Strike by attempting to take things over, like the sad incidence of driving buses and trains, and didn’t want to understand the reasons why this had happened, why should they, it was their family fortunes and lifestyle at risk. They were understandably too frightened over what had occured in Russia, in some ways I can’t blame them, the threat of Communism throughout Europe and what had happened to the Romanovs must have been an awful thought for these people, particularly the De Beers who had made their fortune on the legal slavery of black South Africans, forced to work down the diamond mines for a pittance.
Sorry, I’m not a lefty, socialist saddoe, I’m interested in social history and the effect that the class system has had on this country, I still think that as in the past, this country is still split by ridiculous class differences, I’m trying to sit on the fence here, and it doesn’t look good from there at the moment, Livingstone to Boris in charge of London, don’t make me laugh.
Following my diatribe, I was interested to read a letter in Flypast about W/C Darley, obviously a ‘working class’ boy made good, but shunted off because he didn’t fit into Leigh Mallories old boy network, it makes brilliant reading.
My old man came from a wealthy background, we’re not talking about De Beers millions here, just a few quid earned from small print shops.
He was orphaned at a young age and was brought up by an aunt, he decided to make his own way in life and began a printers apprentiship.
When the war started, his wealthy cousin Noel, was commisioned in the RAF, became a pilot officer, flew Blenheims and was eventually awarded the DFC.
When my old man tried to go along the same route, he was shunted off into the Royal Artillery, loads of excuses about no places available, but I can’t accept that, bearing in mind the situation in 1940, and we’re talking about a young, athletic bloke here with the sight and hearing of a hawk.
Later in his army career he volunteered to become a glider pilot, but was refused on the grounds of being too valuable to the RA, maybe this was true, who knows, he’s gone now, his acts of bravery gone unrewarded by the cowardly antics of wealthy career officers, whose lives he saved, but thats another story.
Do you want more.

F2’s were active well before 1990.

229 OCU got its first F.2′ in about ’84 or ’85. I remember seeing a 9 x F.2 mass take-off during the 1986 RAF Coningsby Open Day Airshow which was for the flypast for the Trooping the Colour on that same day.

You’re spot on, I remember the day well, it was very very hot, my Cortina estate overheated qeueing to get in because the centrifugal cooling fan jammed. I recall meeting my brother and my old man, who spent the day sitting half naked in a folding chair, wearing a white sun hat, smoking his pipe constantly and chucking down pints of Batemans, ( imagine that, a decent beer at an airshow), ‘The only way to avoid sunstroke’, he reckoned, and it worked. My pal didn’t indulge and got serious sunstroke and became delerious on the way home. I made an emergency diversion to my mates house in Market Deeping, he wasn’t in, so we settled for a pint of Marstons Pedigree in the local pub and that sorted him out.
My confusion of dates related to my memory of every flyable Spitfire (7?) being assembled at Coningsby for which I thought was for the 50th anniversary of the BoB, which was obviously 1990, or have I got that wrong as well, was it the same year as the F-2 flypast, it must have been, thinking about it, Braintree to Coningsby is a pig of a journey, I reckon I only did it once, thats why I didn’t make my Hungarian visitor go and watch the Vulcan land last week, he would have loved that, but not the trip.
Sorry to digress, I do get carried away with my little tales.

C’mon then, it must be the Tonka, whats happened to you keen types, too hot to reply.

F3 Tonka?

Can’t be that, or can it. I remember seeing the first active squadron of F2’s at Coningsby Airshow in 1990, though I recall seeing the prototype fly through the fog at Coltishall in 1980. Split the difference, and a bit, and we could be right, assuming we’re talking 25 years here.

Wouldn’t cross the street to see it if you paid me!!

I take it that you didn’t like any of the original films then, strange, as you are always sticking up posters on here from incredibly naff horror films from the 50’s and 60’s. Same genre isn’t it, a good old bit of old fashioned fun, thats what Indie films are all about, presumably the critics were expecting some cerebral masterpiece, but that ain’t what Indie is all about.
I have to admit to not going to the cinema for a long time. Most of the reason for this was living out in the stix for many years and not being prepared to drive miles to put up with having the inevitable extremely tall person sitting in front, noisy b#####s, uncomfortable seats, expensive food and drink, crap sound system, etc etc.
It’s much easier to crash on the settee with your wide screen TV, surround sound system and have the ability to pause it when you want to pee.
My son got ‘I am Legend’ on DVD for his birthday last week, great, I knicked it the other night and watched it, magic, all the home comforts and the ability to pause when I wanted to nip over to the fridge and get another cold beer, you can’t beat it.
Having said all that, we’ve been looking forward to this film for a while, we know it’s going to be no doubt the usual stuff, but we are determined to go to our local multiplex and watch it, despite the tall people and the rip off pop corn, oh, and expecting to be frisked for bogus bars of chocolate.
Oops, I’m trying to put myself off going here, thats the trouble, in the old days, you had no choice, now I can even watch films on my laptop while sitting on the toilet if I really want to.
Just out of interest, my only concern is who’s replacing the late, great Denholm Elliot, that man was a genius, former WW2 bomber crew as well, we’ll have to see won’t we.

I’m not sure you can really blame Hungarians for being anti-Soviet! :diablo:

That I can understand, it’s the anti everyone else that gets me, I’m just off to find out who’s new on the list, probably the Burmese, I’ve never come across a race like it, I daren’t even mention the vitriol that was expressed at any one who didn’t speak english while having a ‘pleasant’ walk through Cambridge yesterday, it was a nightmare.
As for the comments at the American Cemetery, well, I can’t repeat them here, they desperately wanted to go there, for what reason I don’t know, possibly for a good old Hungarian moan, lot’s of respect for white, English/American Anglo Saxons, despite us being ‘the enemy’ since WW1, but quite frankly, I’ve never met such a bunch of rascists in my life, think of me at the barbie tonight, I already have a headache just thinking about it.

Pete

You were part right Humbrol paints are made in China now but Humbrol is owned by Hornby.

Scott C

By Gum, thaa’s reet, just shows you how specialist model forums can be wrong in comparison to the superior knowledge on here.
I just looked on the Hornby website for more info and was astonished at the detail shown on the locomotive models illustrated on their home page, makes my old Hornby Dublo stuff look very sad by comparison. If they are that keen, then it can only be a good thing for the future of Airfix kits.
I was going to attempt a paint tin calculation but I’ve had an unexpected visit by our Hungarian branch of the family and have to go over to sirs house shortly for a barbie, that’ll be me out of circulation for a bit then.