Hi Schwartz Wald The “proboard” reference was the third one in your initial post.

Nice shots chaps. Is there any news on the DH 9 that was being rebuilt to fly?

I’m a bit late to this thread but perhaps I could add a little anecdote which might be of interest. My aunt was a nurse at Lytham Hospital during the war and was out for a walk on the promenade when a German aircraft was shot down. Apparently when a crew member, who had swum ashore, was trying to get out of the water the Home Guard kept shoving him back in. This didn’t appeal to my aunt, who was quite a formidable lady, and she eventually persuaded them to desist and she got him off to hospital. Thinking that was the last she’d hear of him, she was most surprised to receive, after the war, a very nice stamp collection with thanks for saving his life. It’s on my shelf as I write.

The UK VAC count anything over 40 years as “Vintage” and over 25 as “Classic”.
Sensible if you think about it as the airframes are all getting older so doing it on a rolling basis makes sense. Put an early Cherokee like the one in the picture against a Cirrus SR22 and you’ll see what they mean.

Which is why the Breitling Fighters were such a great “act”. Four dissimilar aircraft with different aerodynamics. I remember Lee telling me that the Mustang used to accelerate in a dive much quicker than the others, which made matching speeds tricky. The Corsair on the other hand had so much power it was easy to balance the speeds required plus it’s aerodynamics let it slow down quickly when required. I think what might be an upcoming problem is the lack of practice time available due to the increasing costs of operating a warbird. We shall see.

Halcyonman, if it was Tom Walkinshaw’s aircraft you saw, it was c/n NC-23 and registered N39TW, formerly N8244S. I hope that helps.

I think the late Tom Walkinshaw had one in connection with his motor racing team. I saw it a couple of times at Oxford and it was an “N” reg but I didn’t get the number. All the remaining Starships were bought back by Beech and scrapped to avoid warranty issues, possibly helping to contribute to their recent bankruptcy issues.