Great photo and an interesting juxtaposition of types. Any idea of how many B-17s were shot down by Me-262s and vice versa? Whatever the answer, both sides’ sacrifices have given us 60 years of peace on a world scale I suppose. Sorry to hear about the M-S by the way.

I spoke to one of the pilots at last year’s Marham Open Day and he was salivating at the thought of bringing back the Tornado which will be the gate guardian. Stripped of all non-essential kit, tidied up airframe for display and a “nod and a wink” for a low-level blast down the North Sea back from Lossiemouth…lucky lad.

Good stuff hashdef. The shot of the Humming Bird and the Moth looks as though it was taken above cloud…very evocative. Good to see Jemima the Gemini flying. The cloud makes it look as though she’s trailing smoke. Her previous owner reckoned she’d only been out in the rain twice in her existence, hence no worries over the glue problem that can wooden aircraft.

Just a thought on the finances of the Legends show. I must say that I have no inside knowledge of how it works but try this for size. 20,000 paying visitors at £25 brings in £500,000. Assume a cost of £5,000 per hour for operating a warbird, bearing in mind that insurance alone can cost £20,000 per annum. Allow for an hour’s flying to include practice, the displays and the Balbo. So with 60 warbirds that’s £300,000. If the take is shared 50/50 with the IWM then the TFC get £100,000 which is just about the cost of a Merlin re-build and wouldn’t go anywhere near the cost of the P-39. So I don’t think anybody is getting very rich from this show. And before all the know-alls tell me it doesn’t cost £5,000 per hour to runa Jungmeister it sure as hell costs a lot more to run a Super-Connie, especially if you blow a tyre.

Just a detail point but not all Harrier displays are the same. Up to last year at least, the RAF Harrier was not allowed to do the very steep climb from the hover that the RN Sea Harrier has been doing for some years. I gather the Sea Harrier has slightly more thrust (for operation of carriers perhaps) and the RAF were wary of emulating this.

Stretching things a bit but I seem to remember reading somewhere that the Russians were working on one of their B-29 copies. Whether it was to fly or for static display I’m not sure but they do seem to be featuring in the restoration world these days.

Because Bassingbourn is an active Army base security appears to be quite tight. However from an old pamphlet the contacts appear to be Steve Pena (Curator) Tel/Fax 01462-835787 and [email]AN6530@aol.com[/email] and Vic Lawson (Museum Admistrator) 01763-242842. All visits by appointment. Hope this helps.