Its a shame that the Daily Mail didnt get caption right on photo of the guy stood by spit with arms crossed !! That is not Martin Phillips ! Probably pilot Bill Perrin !!

Steve”P”

It is the pilot, Bill Perrins, The grey haired chap leaning over the engine is Pete Dean one of the engineers from The Aerial Museum Filton, where the aircraft was finished to flying condition under the watchfull eye of Chief Engineer John Hart.

Merry Christmas & a great new year to you all! Thanks to all who came through the gates at various shows during the year & Bah Humbug to you that stand outside the gates to watch! without gate money there is no money for fuel etc!

And yes, It is CHRISTMAS, not xmas or seasons greetings 😉

Neither the Mustang (still in bits)or MkIIX Spitfire will be there this year as far as I know. :rolleyes:

Seems It flew yesterday!……………………………..:eek:

That would be nice!

At the end of the day who really cares how original an airframe is? The main reason we are here is to keep the memory flying!
If folk want to count rivets thats fine but that won’t really keep the old birds flying!
Just remember the old saying about Henry IIX’s broom, Its had 12 new handles & 16 new brushes but its still his broom! :D:D

I contacted the Roll-Royce Heritage Trust for an update on this aircraft the other day. Ian Craighead, who has taken over the restoration of RM689/G-ALGT kindly responded yesterday:

Maybe I can clarify a little here, your header here is a little misleading, Ian Craighead has replaced the previous boss of the Corporate Heritage dept in R-R, the same team is still working the rebuild of G-ALGT, and yes, the engine is slaved onto the beams but only to allow work to be done to the likes of the engine cover rails to be fabricated it is not ‘installed’ as such.
Hope this clears a few points up.
Rivet

So, what are you saying about lessons to be learned from this weekends fiasco ? that there are none, that it was just all bad luck, that nothing can be done to mitigate the risk of this type of thing happening again ? or at the very least reduce the impact ?

I quite agree with the lessons learned bit but it is double sided, the folks who were let down also have some lessons to look at, like always keep in the back of your minds that this type of thing can happen anywhere, after all, It does tend to rain here doesn’t It?? There are many outside events in this country that have been cancelled due to the weather. Had the event gone ahead would we not now be discussing the merits of damage to cars etc being towed out of the parking area? Remember this is a weekend show the rest of the year the parking area is just fields if those areas were re modelled for hard standing parking the already high ticket price would be out of our reach to most of us due to the cost of the reworking. Sure there are lessons but really everyone should be in school for this one!
Can I also add that if the show IS cancelled, we in the airshow aircraft industry don’t get paid even if the aircraft is on its way there! We had three hotel rooms plus support crew booked in for Fri till Sunday that still has to be paid for, so you see, it’s not just the public that loose out!