… Have you been taking shameless plug tips from Twin Otter, Mr Saunders?! 😉

Growing up in Hornsea was always brightened up by the now closed RAF Cowden being just down the road. All sorts of NATO hardware would use the range for bombing and gunnery practice, all of which was visible from my bedroom window! I clearly remember Tornado, Phantom, F15, F111, Harrier, Jaguar etc visiting. But most clearly I remember seeing and hearing the A10’s loosing off their gatling guns! Happy days.

And Scott, remember mate it takes 2 to tango. Sounds like ‘GF1’ is just as bad and just as much of a backstabbing, er, individual, specially if it seems pre-planned… There’s nothing much you can do about it except be there as a friend for the members of this unhappy group still worthy of your time and attention mate 🙁

……leapt off the wardrobe?

said moggy, which due to its claws rejoices in the name Velcro, had already woken me by patting my eyelids gently. Quite sweet till the claws came out! At which point I sent him on his way. He objected to this, waited till I was again asleep(ish) then took a kamikaze run and banzai leap in the air followed by a screaming Stuka dive at my face. Fortunately using me as a runway sort-of alerted me to the imminent danger…! Needless to say girlfriend found it hilarious…

My girlfriend’s cat got a severe dose of swearing at over the weekend, when it decided to pounce on me from altitude while I was asleep and awaken me by giving my face a good scratch.
Close behind in the weekend’s sworn-at stakes was the pillock who decided to drive into my MG on Saturday night when it was parked outside the house, and leave nothing but much scuffage and dentedness. Because, of course, MGB front wings are really really cheap and easy to come by…
😡

Update, 7/11/2010

Nice pics Scott, add and share as many more as you like mate! What painting do you mean?

Sven pretty much covered it for yesterday. We scrubbed lots of very old, very flaky silver paint from the Artouste bay, and ended up with most of it in our hair and eyes. (and in Sven’s case, beard too). We ended up looking like we had bizarre silver dandruff!

We also removed the wing root walkway panels. This was partly to make sure the Artouste bay looked as it should from up top, ie no hidden nasty corrosion, and also to make sure the fixings for all the panels were free and could recieve a good greasing up. This will make life easier for if/when we have to access these areas in the future, and I’ll be doing all the upper panels over time. That old feeling of making a rod for my own back’s resurfacing…!

The Artouste itself is looking really good now. Shame nobody’ll see it or the repainted bay when all’s done! But at least we’ll know it’s right.

Below, Sven and Nik hard at work. And Ruth doing the laundry it seems…

We were entertained by the Nimrod doing her best Biplane impression. If you look very closely as the photo below, you’ll see a certain Nimrod Mate sneaking into the shot…

As the sun set, the cold got the better of us, and warm places where alcohol could be acquired looked more promising than a cold airfield.

More of the same next week I suspect. If it’s drier than today that is!

It wasn’t Dad’s – so it didn’t have that extra satisfaction that comes with stealing cake from him! It was still pretty good though.

Always tastes sweeter when its stolen! 🙂