TSR-2 was designed to operate off grass although I don’t think it ever proved that. I have a de Havilland (ah de havilland!) video which shows the Jet Dragon, better known as the DH 125 exec jet landing on the grass at Hatfield…very odd.

Amusing watching the sparring twixt Trinny and Skybolt but to say any criticism should be directed to the PFA is plainly laughable. Their inability to accept any form of comment is legendary, my letters go unheeded. AOPA on the other hand do seem to be making progress off a small base.
As for FFF05 where were Cessna, Cirrus, Piper, Socata and all the other GA manufacturers? Where were the gliders, hang-gliders, parachutists, model aircraft and gliders all of which are on parade at Friedrichshafen? They were promised in the blurb and they didn’t appear. As a fly-in it was fine, as a GA show it was a non-starter and if you don’t believe me Skybolt, have a look at some other forums (fora?)

Anybody know why the Icelandic DC-3 didn’t join the formation?

I picked up a pamphlet at FFF2005 for a new GA event at Wycombe next year which has the look of a mini-Friedrichshafen in that some of it will be under cover. This might give the purveyors of the more up-market GA stuff reason to attend along with the kit builders. It must be hard to sell a £150,000 aircraft out of a tent on soggy grass.
And on the subject of the number-crunchers, when we got back to our 182 about a dozen of them had set up camp under the wing to avoid the rain and looked quite peeved when we got ready to go. And which bit of “Clear Starting” is hard to understand? Mind you some of them looked so old they were probably deaf, not their fault of course, but I thought self-preservation might have kicked in.

LS, the laws of libel being what they are I didn’t want to mention the “rocker’s” name but I wasn’t referring to Martyn even though he may have put on a bit of weight. Are you doing Legends?

I worked in Libya from 1966-68 and subscribe to the view that Libya is the a…hole of Africa and Misurata, where I worked, is 130 miles up it. There wasn’t much air activity other than overflying Canberras from El Adem (?) but a demo Islander arrived at the huge ex-USAAF strip at Misurata one day. I don’t know who was more surprised, me to see an Islander in the middle of nowhere or the pilot to find an Englishman. Prior to the discovery of oil the export of scrap metal, i.e tanks and other war material, was one of the main foreign currency earners so I guess a lot of the aircraft got swept up in that. I hope crazymainer is right but I won’t hold my breath.