And what a coincidence, one is for sale on E-Bay!

http://cgi.ebay.com/1-72-AIRFRAME-HESTON-TYPE-5-NAPIER-RACER-AIRCRAFT-KIT_W0QQitemZ320146152962QQihZ011QQcategoryZ2587QQcmdZViewItem

Here is a lot more info. about N707QJ.

Norman King, QFM Flight Operations Administrator, reported from Sydney: The dust, literally, may have settled on the airframe, but there is one last chapter, perhaps two, in the story of XBA’s recovery. These last few words are written with much pride, but I hasten to add, not of the personal one which cometh before the fall. The pride is in the combined achievement of the bunch of mostly retired Aussie engineers who, in achieving what was said to be the impossible, are anxious to hear that they have passed on the baton shaped and crafted by Arthur Baird. Down through the generations, this tradition of integrity, as it has been called, has been handed onto the younger men and women who have embarked on a noble pursuit, that of aircraft maintenance engineering. In our time at Southend, we took under our wing one such young person, Shaun Bonnett. On a stint of work experience with ATC Lasham Ltd, we “borrowed” him to perform some airframe structure inspection tasks in an area that we dinosaurs would have had great difficulty accessing in the aft cargo hold behind the potable water tanks. Flexibility in the way our own frames could adapt to in our youth had now been transformed into the way we were able to take a mental approach to things, leaving the physical ability a little lacking. You win some, you lose some. The way Shaun deported himself in all aspects of this, his thoroughness, his attitude to the job, his inquisitiveness and notably his excellent manners, all those things you look for in an engineer, impressed us all no end. Knowing his passion to join the profession, we unanimously agreed that if Shaun were lost to the industry, the industry would be poorer for it. Our decision was immediately to take up his cause and do all we could to ensure his application for his long-held ambition to commence an apprenticeship succeeded. We wrote a reference for him, purchased some tools to start off his tool kit and passed on all the wisdom we could, based on our own beginnings over 40 years ago. He did us all the great honour of making a point of dropping into the Longreach Embassy on his last day of that particular assignment, bringing some afternoon tea with him for us to share, and with that, his thanks for the opportunity to work on XBA.

That was way back in mid-2006, with Shaun not then through his secondary school education which needed to be completed to a high standard before he could entertain the prospects of an apprenticeship interview.

Almost a year has passed and with that, we are delighted to tell you that he has done more than required of his school studies, with very high levels achieved in all the subjects that he needs to have to become that engineer he believes he is called to be.

In the last few weeks, he has attended two interviews, with ATC Lasham Ltd’s Base Manager, Ian Dorling, heading the interview Panel. The competition has been strong for the 4 positions on offer. The selection process for these precious places has been very thorough and Ian’s deliberation most intense. We should have the verdict on this very shortly.

While on the subject of UK supporters, another 707 experience was had by a small group of XBA engineers and one pilot during the first half of June, 2007. You will recall our engine diffuser case crack on #1 and failure to start problems on #2 and the man whose company came to our rescue. Tom Vaughan is his name, Turbine Motor Works his business, and while he was at Southend to witness XBA’s first test flight, we learnt of his plans to purchase one of the RAAF 707s for his own personal use. Negotiations were moving at a similar pace to those of XBA’s ownership wrangle, and he quite accurately estimated it to be many months off settling. In early June, Tom came down to Australia to attend the Longreach arrival ceremony and to wrap up the last of the purchase details with A20-261, as his 707 was then registered with the RAAF. We had vowed at Southend to return the favour Tom had done us, and to lend him a hand when it came to the work 261 needed to allow its delivery to Tom’s abode in the UK. Not long after he had returned home after the Longreach arrival, Tom was back in the country again to work on his aeroplane at RAAF Amberley, so a ring around soon saw 8 of us ensconced at a motel near Ipswich, from where we travelled each day for the next week or so to progress the work to get 261 flying again. This was mostly centred on the transformation of 261 from glider to powered aeroplane, as Tom had purchased an engine-less 707. No problem for a man with around a dozen JT3s from which to choose a ship set in his inventory back in Bury, Cambridgeshire, and it wasn’t long before we were engine running and making smoke as do all good 707s. To cut a long story short, Denis Martin, Robert Phillips, Norm Mackay, Jeff Craike, Roy Finney, Bill Hill, Paul Hockey, Mike Horneman and I spannered while Roger Walter spent some time doing some pilot conversion/refresher training with Tom, flying the test flight with him. The aeroplane departed for Kent International Airport (aka Manston) on Monday, 16 June, operated by Tom and a couple of hired Omega crew, arriving there a few days later after routing Amberley-Darwin-Male-Cairo-Manston faultlessly. For those of us who were part of that exercise, the Spirit of Southend reverberated in our hall of memories and we were grateful to have been able to make some small contribution to another historical 707s survival. In a neat bookend, we were pleased to discover that 261, or N707QJ as she was when she left these shores, is the most recently built commercial 707 surviving, the 5th last off the production line. The 4 built after her are all defunct. So with XBA and Tom’s 707 in our portfolio, we can say we have covered the 707 production from A to Z, so to speak.

And the news to cap all this off?

Ian Dorling announced today that Shaun Bonnett was successful in his bid for an apprenticeship in aircraft engineering with ATC Lasham Ltd at Southend.

We like to think that we had some good Qantas influence in this and leave it to Shaun to continue Arthur Baird’s legacy on our behalf, maintaining the tradition for which Qantas engineering was to become legend. And in the Mother country, too.

http://www.707.adastron.com/flyhome/diary-3.htm

Surely BAA doesn’t need any extra help in disrupting passenegers do they?:D

napolis grounding is a shame to the MSC company ive sailed behind thier vessels and been on board most of thier ships were in better condition than the one i was on, MSC maintians thier fleet well but guess its one of those things.

Am unable to comment on the condition of their fleet but can mention that there are official concerns on the quality of the crews they employ, without casting any dispersions on yourself. The fact that they employ multi-lingual crews on the same ship does create an uncomfortable situation in the event of an emergency where immediate clear communciations may be a matter of life or death.

As far as the Napoli is concerned, it was grounded in 2001 and there are suspicions that this may have weakened the hull which necessitated the urgent grounding of the ship this year to prevent a massive oil spill if the ship had sunk in the English Channel.

Another incident concerning MSC was the collision on 13th June 2000 when the MSC Sabrina hit the Concordia off the Netherlands coast and fifteen minutes also collided with the Wintertide ship.

How many of these things where built? Just the one?

403. If you mean the RB variant, the answer is 87. If you mean the WB-57F, only two, both of which are in service with NASA.

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/B-57_Canberra

You are right, G-CVIX as it should be seen!

http://www.caa.co.uk/applicationmodules/ginfo/ginfo_photo.aspx?regmark=G-CVIX&imgname=G-CVIX004&imgtype=jpg

I am baffled, why is such a rare aircraft as A DH Drover rotting outside ?
I remember when it was safely stored dismantled in the back of the Air Navigation and Trading hanger at Blackpool.

All the fuss about a Hunter in Hull and a Vulcan scrapped at Blackpool, surely the only Drover in the Northern Hemisphere can be properly preserved?

Museum is open Sundays and public holidays, looks as though it is open anytime. Why is the Drover outside? Because nobody cares. Imagine the reverse scene of a forgotten Mosquito outside in Australia.