Apparently, 558 did something approaching aerobatics at Waddo this year.

Really? It certainly wasn’t on the Saturday. I was distinctly underwhelmed by watching it trundle up and down.

There is already a two-tier pricing structure in place for Spitfires. Just look at Platinum Fighter Sales’ website. They are offering an older restoration of a Mk IX Spitfire, done 25 years ago and with some 350 hours on both engine and airframe since restoration, for $3.4m. Around $2.2m will get you a recently-restored Mk XVIII, with less than 5 years and 50 hours since restoration.

Less than 2/3 the price for arguably a better airframe/engine combination, but without the cachet of being a wartime Mk IX with combat history.

Just look at all the ‘data-plate specials’ being knocked out these days, they are almost all Merlin-engined marks, and yet quite a few Griffon-engined projects have been lying fallow for decades.

Evidently there is even ‘Spitfire snobbery’ within the Spitfire community.

Well, seeing that the only place that an ex-BOAC VC-10 survives is Duxford, that isn’t very likely with their present, somewhat bizarre, curatorial policy.

It has been here for more than a decade now AMB, well over ‘a couple of years’. It did make sporadic appearances at events at Old Warden and West Tisted, although not for a couple of years now, and its permit does seen to have lapsed recently.

The S-38 has been back at the builders in Owatonna, Minnesota since Kermit Weeks had it shipped back from Europe earlier this year. I’ve not read anything about it flying again since then.

There was a story posted on Facebook a couple of weeks ago that the Vixen was due to fly, then later that it didn’t fly because the pilot was stuck in traffic, only for us to be told later that there had been no intention to fly that day, as the aircraft’s paperwork had yet to be signed off by the CAA. Most bizarre!

Ah, silly me, THAT Charles Lindbergh.

And there was me thinking that he had some connection to Britain that justified his inclusion in the RAF Museum. Other, of course, from accepting our hospitality for a few years after he fled the US, and then advocating selling us up the river to the Nazis (after, of course, he’d moved back to the safety of the US)

The Canadian Whitney Straight is listed (c/n 509) J Boyle, but hasn’t flown in quite a few years now.

C/n 307 (G-AERV) is now airworthy

When you cross all the airframes that are no longer extant, that is a remarkably short list. 🙁