Grey fabric, full of fag ash and bits of baccy.
This clogs up mice with monotonous regularity so I’ve now got an optical cordless one as well.

Nice hangar – shame they filled it with Mustangs.

Nothing to do with this one but one appeared at Panshanger sometime in the late 60s/early 70s. I’m fairly sure it was eventually broken up where it stood. For those that don’t know, Panshanger is a very small grass airfield near Welwyn Garden City. Anybody any idea what, why, when and more to the point, HOW?
The more I think of it, I’m pretty sure it would be 60s.

Re: First Airshows

Originally posted by Spey111
My first airshow was to Yeovilton Navy Day Sep 1975 when there was the unfortunate incident when the pilot of the Harrier was killed when the ejector seat jettisoned when he was climbing out of the aircraft.

I hadn’t heard of it until a few weeks ago. The landlady of my local was a Wren at Yeovilton at the time and was involved in the aftermath.

Far be it for me to argue with an obvious expert, but I’m sure that all Merlins and Griffons had a reduction ratio around 1:2 or 0.5
I’ve got a Rolls-Royce Heritage Trust book around written by A Rubbra and that talks about varying between something like 0.45 and 0.52, from memory.

A chap in my local was RAF groundcrew in the far east, (Singapore – and I can never remember which base), in the early 50s. He says that running the engines up on a Hornet was pretty terrifying. Sounds like classic British understatement to me.

As an aside, he was used to Vampires and the first time he tried to start a Venom, which apparently uses a cartridge starter, he was out of the cockpit and heading for the horizon at great speed.

Bassingbourn, 1957 or ’58. That’s a guess, anybody sure of the year?
Aged 5 or 6, remember what I’ve always thought was a Lanc, Vulcan (in anti-flash white) Mossie I think.

My Dad was learning to fly at Panshanger with the Hertfordshire Plod Flying Club until he had to spend all his money on two kids so I may have seen a smal show earlier but don’t remember.
Tiger Moth G-ANOH, BTW. It was then blue and silver. I’ve still got a bit of brown leathercloth around from when they retrimmed it.

Comet, if you’re not rich, or a cheapskate like me, you could try AVG6 from http://www.grisoft.com
It’s free!
Regular updates, (just remembered and doing it now) and I’ve been using it for a year or so now with no problems.

Just checked to make sure the link worked and it seems that AVG7 is out now.

Originally posted by Snowman
One of the things one would do well to ponder is how the world went from a state of huge and genuine sympathy after 9/11 to the current state of tension, and resentment on all sides bewteen the US, its allies and the rest of the world.

I would have thought with arrogant know-alls like USagent it was bl**dy obvious.
The US has managed to unite the world. Everybody hates them (except Blair).