Its pie in the sky!

People like you said exactly the same when the restoration to flight was first mooted. They were wrong then and there is no evidence that anything about that kind of attitude has changed.

Ill-informed? Definitely.

I think that last post proves it beyond doubt – another long meandering post stuffed full of sweeping statements with not a shred of real solid evidence to back any of them up (just the same as every other thread you have posted in).

People with your kind of negative attitude are the reason why so many things fail in this country.

Had she gone to Brunters or Elvington, at least she would have been able to wow the crowds with the odd fast taxi.

One problem when 558 was at Bruntingthorpe was a lack of access for fund raising activities – due principally to the uses that the airfield is put to. Back there now, access would be restricted to Sundays and CWJ days only, and (there being no hangar space) would also mean it being exposed to all weathers, and little likelihood of money becoming available to put a hangar up. Doncaster will at least see it under cover.

Elvington has the same problem.

At Doncaster, she will rarely see the light of day, and there are no facilities to allow large groups of people to watch her taxiing.

XH558 is to be housed in an airport where the public isn’t going to be allowed access to see it move.

Are these just ill-informed sweeping statements or do you actually have any solid evidence on which to base such certainty?

As the owners of DSA/Finningley are one of the partners in the scheme, I would say it is highly likely that facilities/access will have been taken into account by them – I would suggest that access to see 558 might well be more possible in the proposed academy than it is in the current hangar.

Some people also seem to be missing the point (as stated in the press announcement regarding the Academy) is that XH558 and the VTTST will be an integral part of it and it will be used to generate income to fund future maintenance of XH558, not that XH558 will be an add-on to be “removed so that the space can be used more profitably” 😉

I honestly cannot see that the future of Bruntingthorpe or of Elvington is necessarily any more or less secure than Finningley. Wherever any grounded aeroplane ends up it cannot be taken as necessarily secure (as is becoming apparent at Wellesborne).

“It was an old plane and it certainly has paid its dues,” Wolfe said of the flying boat. “Everybody was very sad about it but it was what it was.”

The production crew had most of the shots they needed for the film and will green-screen the rest,

So that’s all OK then :stupid:

However, before we all get the knives too deeply into the film company, I would ask if it was the film company or the owners of the Catalina (or their insurance company?) who arranged/oversaw the attempt at ‘recovery’? I would have expected the latter?

Where do these stories come from?

The same place that all the rest of the rubbish on this forum comes from I expect – incorrect information given in what appears to be an otherwise comprehensive and reliable source. I am happy to be corrected.

I am amazed that there appears to be no single easily available fully comprehensive source of accurate/reliable information on PA474 – you would think someone would have prepared a full chronicle of it, right down to the last rivet, but if such a thing exists (either online or in hard copy), I can’t find it. Even the history given on the BBMF web page seems to me to be very sketchy.

The history of PA474 given on the BBMF website (http://www.raf.mod.uk/bbmf/theaircraft/lancasterpa474.cfm) says that it came off the assembly line at the Vickers-Armstrong factory at Broughton near Chester on 31st May 1945, as a B.1 and was converted to a Mk VII for use by the Tiger Force, but the war in the Far East ended before it was needed. It was then converted for photo reconnaissance about 1947/8 which involved the removal and fairing over of all the gun turrets, and stripping the exterior back to a bare metal finish.

When it went to Cranfield for the wing testing it was still minus all turrets. If you have not already seen them, there are some details and pics to be found here: http://www.raf.mod.uk/bbmf/news/index.cfm?storyid=0E209E46-5056-A318-A847984A94BF9C84, and further photos here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/m0nuz/with/6844987884/ (scroll almost to the bottom of the page). There is a further in flight photo of PA474 wing testing on this Dutch site: http://www.strijdbewijs.nl/birds/lancaster/p5.htm, as well as a photo of it towards the end of the KM-B period, still without the mid-upper turret, but having the City of Lincoln crest on the port side.

Now, when were the Lincoln-like extended rudder trims installed? And wasn’t the aircraft used for trials with a vertical wing or similar stuck on its back and at that time lacked the nid-upper turret. Later, in the mists of mental fog I think a mid-upper turret was obtained from Argentina where they had stopped operating Lancs not long before.

The later type of rudder with the extension was used on all the later Lancasters, as well as the Lincolns – not sure when the rudder extensions first appeared on the Lancasters – probably late 1944 (after the Lancaster IV/Lincoln prototype first flew??). PA474 was built with this type to start with.

To be fair to Shuttleworth; I think they realised at the start that this Sunday was going to be full. They made it clear from the start on their tickets page that (with the exception of SVAS members) entry for the 5th July display would be by pre-booked ticket only. It isn’t something that has just popped up because it is now sold out.

I would concur with that – definitely an Ascona (Opel equivalent of the Mk1 Vauxhall Cavalier, but with a different front end), not that it will help much, they were sold all over western Europe. Not sure why it would limit the pic to France or Romania if it had been a Renault 12 though; they were sold all over Western Europe too 😉