If you look at the white panel on the nose of the Rapide, you will see the title of Scottish Airways who I believe worked in close association with Railway Air Services providing scheduled services during the war. There’s a picture on Page 77 of the Railway Air Sevices book of a lineup of 5 Rapides taken at Renfrew in 1944, all in this colour scheme and all with civilian registrations. However all the passenger windows are painted over for “security reasons”.

Thanks for the update on the Po-2. Must be tricky for Shuttleworth on how best to deploy their resources. I hope I’ll have an update on the Seafire early in the New Year. Like you I’d love to see one flying again. I remember seeing a row of them at Stretton many years ago. What would they be worth now?

Tim Manna’s Seafire? And the Shuttleworth Polyfilla Mark 2 biplane or whatever it was called perhaps?

That might annoy John Towers and his colleagues at MG Rover I would suggest.

One is still rotting at Duxford and looking very shabby.

Oh dear, do I detect a touch of the “green eye of the little yellow god” appearing over Brendan O’B? The point is that he has a “presence” in front of the cameras which a lot of the other experts don’t have to the same degree. Also he’s a good bloke. I was doing a corporate day at Redhill with a Tiger Moth which wouldn’t restart after a stop for fuel. 32 swings later and an anxious guest in the cockpit, up stepped the man in question complete with crocodile boots and scarf and said “this is the technique”. Mags off, 4 winds forward, 16 winds back and “bingo” off she went. I’ll be first in the queue when he writes his biography.

That’s a pity. might be worth a quiet word though to see what your planners think. I’m sure there are days when you don’t get through 80 movements.