I hope the bolts used to attach the slippers were to Hawker Siddely( :confused: ) standard and not modern spec. We cant have the purists moaning can we?! 😉
Seriuosly I can’t wait to see it fly ,I do have a soft spot for the Gnat, even if I am not sure of its manufacturers spelling!
Cheers, Alan.

Yes, we woke up some former machinist who used to work at Folland’s Hamble factory, and asked him to cut a gross of the bolts, designed to the exact same blueprints, with hand-carved threads and fitted with a spanner from the original Folland toolkits. :p

Double-checked that the slippers didn’t need any decals, and then breathed a sigh of relief…although I am sure that some pigmentation purist will come down with a spectographic analyser to ensure that the exact tone, pantone code and light diffraction and resonance standard of the Signal Red paint on the slippers matches the plane …. even though they were painted by he same company, using the same mix and applied in the same method.

We might even go back to hand-cranking the fuel in – to complete the authenticity – after all, who needs these new fangled bowsers with fast-delivery pumps when you can easily spend an hour or two refuelling between air show schedules?? 😉

And as to changing the lightbulbs…. we are earnestly seeking out the Edison Bulb Company in the States, to see if they still make the originals… 😀

Tales of woe, and flagpoles, and cabbages and kings..

(snip)

How about this for a simple idea. Each and every one of us go out and buy a National Flag and display it outside our homes. It doesn’t matter what nationality you are as we all live in a cosmopolitan, multi-cultural society, and I for one am pretty impressed with how well most of us get along with each other.

(PS I am not British, but the above reflects my experiences here in the UK over the last 35 years).

Two problems come to mind here.

One: try and find someone selling them
Two: see how long you can fly them before someone from the local Council tells you to pull it down as it can be seen to be inciting something in an over-reacting, introverted Counciller’s head. You may laugh at this but it has happened a number of times over the last ten years or so.

Any takers?

I put up a flag pole to display a St. George’s flag two years ago. I’m not a xenophobic right-wing BNP supporter, but I thought it might be nice to support the country for once. In fact, my mother is Scottish, my father English, my mat-Grandad Irish, and my Grandma Welsh…along with G-G-ancestors of Jersey, Isle of Man heritage…so I’m about as mongrel ‘British’ as they come. When it comes to any home nations playing, I’ll always root for them (as long as they are not playing England)…unlike the majority of some home nation supporters I could mention…

Anyway, I digress…Guess what. Letter from some knob-head officer (unelected civil servant, mind!) from the local Planning Department who obviously had sweet FA else to do that day.

“Dear Sir, …It has come to our attention …yadda, yadda, nag, nag, nag, …might offend those from ethnic minorities…blah, blah, waffle, waffle…. and you have 7 days in which to deconstruct the said pole, and apply through the normal process to this office…
Signed, Richard (Dick) Head,
Chief Flag-Pole Monitor on about 80k a year for acting a complete to*ser”

My reply (and I swear this is my actual letter, pasted in):
“Dear Department of Over-Officious Muppets,

You may, with all respect, go stuff your Planning Rules, very firmly up your own ar*e, and that of your over-politically-correct Planning department.

I was not brought into this World, as a free citizen of this democratic England (at least it was the last time I looked), to be dictated to by some jumped-up little tos*pot who thinks he can tell me whether or not I wish to follow my national and religious beliefs.

As to any threat that legal action may be taken should I fail to comply, then my only retort is to say, “yes please, bring it on” – in fact, “please bring it on, you bullying little ar*ehole.”

Any attempt to deny my religious freedom (in the same vein that you feel that I might offend some bunch of ethnic-minority religious zealots who still, after an amazing 800 year gap, believe that I am trying to rub in the Crusades will be countered very easily. Bearing in mind that the Crusades eventually ended in disaster and withdrawal, and that certain middle-east leaders of the time equally butchered prisoners without compassion (recorded, by the way, by his own chronicles), I don’t even give rat’s ar*e if they do, although this wasn’t my intention anyway.

By the same token that you have cited religious intolerance by your (as yet unnamed) objectors, I will also remind you of the very same legislation that you seem to be invoking. Under the Human Rights Act 1988, I have the undeniable right to worship, manifest my religious belief in any way shape or form, without persecution or oppression by any authority, unless, in the wider aspects of national security, such a belief would be harmful to the majority of citizens.

As a Member of the Royal Society of St. George, and a member of the ***, any suppression of my right to display this flag, will be deemed an oppression of my religious belief. My wish to manifest that belief in a non-threatening, peaceful and fully sincere manner cannot be steam-rollered by any State authority, in the same way that I cannot make a complaint about any other religious symbol adorning the places of worship of other religions, be it the Christian Cross, the Star of David, the Muslim crescent, etc.

For your information, my Society enjoys the patronage of Her Majesty, and I believe that when not in residence, and on other occasions, the cross of St. George adorns No. 1, The Mall. I notice also that many churches in the area, such as Ringwood Priory, Christchurch Priory, Wimborne Minster, etc., also display the same flag. When you can provide me with a copy of their planning applications, and subsequent approval for flying what you have considered a token of religious intolerance, then I might reappraise the situation. In fact, I might even write to Her Majesty, to inform her that her local Council might, equally, take such pathetic action.

In the meantime, go and find some other mug to try your bully-boy threats on, because they won’t work on me. Should you even consider to continue this pathetic attempt to suppress my Human Rights, then I will seek the Court’s leave to have you legally admonished for harassment, and causing unnecessary stress and anxiety for myself and my family.

On that note, I am entitled under the same Act to enjoy a normal family life, and by causing such stress and worry about the potential threat to our household – when you know full well that you haven’t a leg to stand on – is deemed oppressive, vindictive and an example of vexatious litigation.

Or, to put it another way, you may politely go and f**k yourself.

Bye, bye, you irritating little s**t, and have a nice day.

Yours, etc.”

As I had also faxed the letter, two days later, they asked the Police (President Blair’s Politically-Correct Brown Shirts) to serve a Notice to Desist on me for using “profane and vulgar language” and anything further might (note, might) deem me liable for committing an offence under the Telecommunications Act. When the Old Bill gave me the letter, I promptly tore it into pieces, put the bits in an envelope and tried to hand it back. They marched off with a flee in their ear, because they can’t actually do anything else about it.

In the meantime, the Council have sent letter after letter (all at taxpayers’ expense, of course) following up their threats.

However, nothing has happened, and my brief is happy to take them to Court on no-win, no-fee…but still they prattle on.

In the meantime, I have registered the domain name power-corruption-and-lies.com, where I am going to start documenting cases like this, where elected and unelected kn*b-heads try it on, and the stories that I have collated from others about this particular Council, and some of its member councillors, would make your hair stand on end.

In the meantime, I know another local Council that, allegedly, won’t even entertain planning applications to rebuild derelict hangars, unless the correct light-brown envelope is attached with a sufficiently thick wad of our Finest English Pounds contained therein, or flying lessons for one planning officer’s son are provided!! 😮

P.S. As to buying them, HoF are a good supplier, at http://www.flags.co.uk – they even have the two-piece aluminium 6m flagpoles – well worth 99 of our finest – and the cheapest entertainment I’ve had in years, when comparing how long this looney debacle has gone on for now! 😀

P.P.S. If they trya nd get heavy, also involve your local paper – they just love writing up stories about pompous over-officialdom like these type of knob-heads, and the Daily Mail is even better at it!

In the meantime, would you trust this nation’s air industry to the Good-God man, The Bad, and the Fat Ugly One???… (or is ‘fat’ now banned under crony (fat lard-ar*e bloater) Falconer’s new list of “bad and demeaning words”?)

Have you seen these people? Wanted in connection of allegations
of being totally inept, pompous, and refusing to live up to the
normal standards of public life, namely that if you f**k up, you go.

(snip)you all do a fantastic job in the face of such overwhelming oppression from higher powers and the purists.

Saying that, I have to take my hat off to the RAF, who really are very keen to see these birds fly… it is, after all, their proud heritage too, and the overwhelming majority of serving staff, even the ones with scrambled-egg uniforms, do want to retain preservation aircraft… but the pi*s-poor budgets that they’re given, means that they have to, reluctantly (and sometimes tearfully!) say goodbye to these magnificent kites.

I remember one very senior Officer at an airshow, where XH558 was nearing her last tour, almost cry when he saw her take-off, and explained that it’s always the pressure of slashing budgets from the Whitehall mandarins that forces them to have to give the chop. They would love to have an historic arm of the forces, like the US do, but there isn’t the money.

On this project, the RAF have been superb, as they know what it means to this country’s airshow crowds what the RAF stand for… and have stood for done in the past, whether flying in formation in peacetime, or gunning down V2s or Heinkels that were trying to kill us.

New Labour have carried on that fine tradition of chopping history, and then ten-folded it in earnest, in their quest to try and bury our history.

I am fortunate to have many of the original letters and documents from the Gnat’s design days, including original letters signed by Folland himself, and as you say, the innovation, blood, sweat and tears that went into these things was astounding. You only have to read the letters to see what they went through, and the sheer-bloody-minded attitude of succeed at all costs… the same attitude that made people like Brunel staple bridges to the very Earth’s core, and succeed.

In total contrast to the actual RAF who flew them, Governments know the price of everything, but the value of nothing. 😡

The Comedy Club

Who needs more comedians, when we’ve got the likes of Prezzer and Clarke!! 😀

Could you do a display at the Bournemouth seafront displays?
Cant wait for her too fly and see her at airshows.
Is it cheap to run a Gnat.
James

1) Watch this space! 😉
2) No – is any aircraft ‘cheap’ to run? 😮

The only sad thing is that the people who need to take this on board probably won’t, or they will have forgotten it all the next time a newly-restored aircraft is wheeled out of the paint-shop for its first flight.

Well said, that man!

All I can say to those sad “disbelievers” is that they obviously don’t want to come to the launch party – because it’s against their principles to be even near the very hangar where Vixxy sits in her Bully livery!! Or they’re too busy painting their 1:72s (and sprinkling the sachet of ‘really authentic’ hangar dust over them before tying them onto a cotton loop and attaching to an eye-hook in artex of spare room ceiling)…

or, they’ll be too busy on the Internet booking their tickets for Biggin, Fairford, etc. (hypocrites), and snorting in disgust when they see the “Flying Exhibits” list on the website and note the slighty misplaced ‘Warning – Ejector Seat’ decal… 6.4mm too far to the left on the port side…

…the funny thing is, XR537 had all her original RAF paint scheme drawings in her paperwork folders… yes, the very documents from the very people who actually designed the scheme, and KNOW how she was painted whilst in service… and the paintshop followed them precisely, to the millimetre..dammit!

And another thing…the drawings contained her paint schemas for the slipper tanks… for those (admittedly) rare occasions when the Arrows did actually fly with them…. contrary to the conspiracy theorists’ belief

So, that’ll be 3-sets-to-love to us then :p and they can get their coats, then!

I think the paint job is excellent – better Red Bull in the air than Royal Navy on the ground. Long may she fly?

Why knock the HLF though? They’ve sunk millions into aircraft heritage in the past 10 years, probably more than any other organisation. It may not be for flying aircraft but preservation of heritage is what they’re about and they feel they best achieve that by putting money into hangars and museums.

Precisely my point… who decided to have an HLF policy NOT to restore aircraft to flight status? To make such a blanket policy is just ridicuous and too sweeping. Who gave them the power to decide, on behalf of the British public, to make such a policy? They’ve only swayed it, EVER, for one aircraft.

I think the HLF is run by a bunch of New Labour yes-men (and women) who get paid a highly disproportionate salary to decide what to do with money that, in reality, should be decided by a more representative section of the over-taxed citizens of this country.

Instead, we get all sorts of weird and wacky minority groups getting grants for some really idiotic causes. The well-known and documented looney decisions (like awarding money to a ‘charity'(???) who aid illegal immigrants who want to come back into this country after they’ve been deported) is madness in the first degree.

Another group (Vulcan 1st refusal week) was granted £17,000 to paint grafitti-type ‘art’ representations of their ethnic origins on a wall in the middle of a housing estate in the East End. And that was the first phase of funding…another £63,000 was promised to build more walls on which to daub further ‘art’. :confused:

The HLF decision-making committee is made up of New Labour cronies (like just about every other agency, committee, policy unit in this God-forsaken country) and needs far more independent membership.

It’s all very well building museums (a few cheap girder’n’glass hangars and gift-shop buildings over a load of static aircraft), but more people get to appreciate these things when they fly. And, by the way… it’s also been documented time and time again, who gets these building contracts… you guessed it… construction companies that happen to donate fat unethical cheques to a certain political party… now would that be New Labour?…. oh yes, no sh*t Sherlock…and a few peerages thrown in for good measure. Sixteen peerages have been awarded to construction firm bosses since 1997, all of whom have also received huge grants to build for Lottery projects.

Whilst I also appreciate that aviation isn’t everyone’s cup of tea… or can of pick-me-up tonic drink :p … aviation projects have received a fraction of the Lottery grants given, in comparison to the total number of people who attend airshows in the UK. I think it’s fair to include attendance at an airshow as a pretty good indication of a more-than-normal interest in aviation – and, by the way, those figures don’t include child tickets!

When this Govt. gets out of its ridiculous, and downright damaging, mentality of destroying anything that alludes to Britishness (which just about knackers most of the aircraft lying in their cosy Lottery-built new museums), we might actually encourage youngsters to go into design, engineering, etc. and have a future in these fields.

Roy Hattersley (Labour – now Lord Hattersley, now there’s a hypocrisy, if ever you saw one) once said that he saw no future in a country that was destroying its heritage industries, as we would all just end up selling each other hamburgers and insurance policies. Well Roy, looks like Princess Tony doesn’t take on any logical advice like that and is far more interested in paying off Labour’s overdraft and dodgy loans, or bending over backwards to Europe and Dubbya.

Lord Kinnock (yes, the same ‘Lord’ Kinnock who once stated that he would get rid of the House of Lords if he became PM! – LMFAO) was approached about the Vulcan appeal – in the interests of gaining all-party support – and said that old aircraft were safer on the ground, being viewed by the public that way. So Neil, that’ll be the same on-the-ground 1960/70s-built aircraft that used to fly you to Brussels each week (First Class) at UK taxpayers’ expense to collect your £306,000 pa salary for doing sweet FA, plus your expenses account of over £1.8 million (total) in the years that you were an unelected Eurocrat, would it?

I’m afraid that this Govt.’s present anti-British policy will kill aviation and the associated engineering side, and a lot more besides. And at the rate they tax fuel…we’ll be lucky if anything gets off the ground at all in a few years time. 😡

And yes, I am a fully-paid up member of my local Labour Party :rolleyes: and have He-Is-The-People’s-PM signed framed photo on my wall…