The aircraft is housed in a lovely purpose built hangar on Bravo Dispersal and is maintained by skilled former BBMF personnel.

How do you get to build a private hangar on an RAF base then?

..and look what happened when someone followed up rumours of a buried WW1 tank in France

http://www.tank-cambrai.com/english/home.php

never say never – but always have some sort of confirmation from the archives if you can find it!

surprised at this news, after all the expense, waiting and delight at her long awaited return to flight 2012! If this is true lets really hope that she does indeed come to England. I can’t think of another type that would be so well received. What price for a zero timed better then new airworthy Mosquito?????

Would the CAA allow it to fly in the UK with a UK registration?

funny thing preconceptions – for reasons unknown I had assumed there would be ruddy great tanks in the polytunnels – into which the components would be submerged for treatment. Obviously not.

can I just say that this was in no way intended to be a criticism of the preservation technique adopted or an attempt to suggest to the RAFM how they should preserve the airframe – it was simply a comment about how I had anticipated they would address the issue based on previous recoveries such as the Hunley:

http://dspace.rubicon-foundation.org/xmlui/bitstream/handle/123456789/9012/AAUS_2005_6.pdf?sequence=1

Blame Vickers-Supermarine, they designed it…. Not very pretty, which is why Nick Grace developed the “lowered” version used on ML407 and PV202.

Thought it was the Russians who first used the “two standard canopies joined by a clear section” set-up on the Spitfire IX UTI – although IIRC in a slightly different position along the length of the fuselage

Before diving the deep for Stirlings, have the potential dry recoveries in Russia and Egypt been completely discounted/discredited yet?

I will always remember waddling out to the aircraft wearing the parachute.

That brings back memories – CCF 1947 pattern RAF battledress in the early 1970’s with 7AEF at RAF Newton. The harness pulled the crotch up so the trousers went half-mast – which added to the general feeling of looking like a complete idiot when you tried to nonchalantly walk out to the Chippie doing a passable impression of the Hunchback of Notre Dame -and then you had to climb up onto the wing root….