Actually, the Navy man said…

“Sea Vixen? I see no Sea Vixen”, as he lowered his telescope to his side.

And we replied, “Neither will any other ****er… unless someone comes up with one hundred and twenty thousand of your finest English pounds”.

“Well, we’ve got a few barrels of ships biscuits”, said he. “Will they do?”

“Hmmmm…how about a gross of those fine navy uniform shirt buttons”, said we. :rolleyes:

okay…okay… taking the wee-wee, I know…but now some great news for the Honourable Fellows of the National Association for the Proper and Correct Representation of Service Markings on Decommisioned and Mothballed Military Aircraft that No One In the UK Would Otherwise Give a Rat’s Ar*e About…
… AKA NAPCRSMDMMANOUKGRAA

I spoke to one of the famous-marque injected plastic model companies this afternoon, and they have agreed to release a Red-Bull-markings version of G-CVIX. It will be called the Air-Fixed De Havilland Sea Vixen model and straplined on the box with “Amazing choice of Naval-gazing yellow ‘n’ red Utopian Design or Practical Red Bull decals”.
The box cover will show the naval design with wheels down (and includes a small sachet of hangar dust to sprinkle), whilst the Red Bull design will show… unless I’m very much mistaken from the drafts they sent… the aircraft with wheels up…obviously in flight. 😉

They are also going to look into producing a special new Gnat T1 model with tomatoey-orange paintwork (to give it that authentic special faded paint effect through being left in a hangar and nearly broken up for bits) with decomposed-charge ejector seats, special spider-infested fan blades, and realistic life-like perished tyres… oh yes, and the obligatory sachet of hangar dust.

The headline title on the Gnat box will be “Genuine part of British Jet heritage” with the strapline of “As seen exclusively by a few lucky museum visitors.”

The Gnat model will also come with authentic looking shipping container with choice of various US State decals, so you can choose where she would otherwise end up. 😮
:p

_____________________________________________________
“Oh! I have stripped the curly fronds of ashphalt, by starting up on the non-jet pan…
Pulled back the stick, and torched a brace of God-knows-what… lapwings, I think they were…just a smell of roast game and a weird jolt through the airframe!” 😮

Well proud, indeed…

well done XR537 I shall now go a bash my thoroughly ill informed source repeatedly round the head for giving me duff jen. Your boys at De Havillands should be proud of XR537 she looked fantastic when I last saw her

Thanks…we’re very proud of the jet … but, also, the engineers who have slogged to get her to this state.

By the way, if you want to know the definitive history of the plane… as there are other lumps of bulls**t stuck to postings on other threads 😡 – then it’s probably best to read Victor Bingham’s book, or consult someone like Adrian Balch, who knows a thing or two about the history of the plane. Saying that, we have made additional extensive enquiries to establish her exact logbook entries with those in the Reds (sorry, Arrows) who flew her, and she was, definitely, in the squadron from Autumn 1975, not from 1978 onwards as originally thought.

Just to dispel some of the ill-informed rumours …

…as there seems to be more than a generous helping of bovine scatological deposits, being flung around here…

1) All aircraft flown under civilian ownership wishing to use original military markings must apply to the RAF. In 537s case, she is the ONLY genuine Red Arrows Gnat that will be airworthy (i.e. one that actually served in the squadron… 537 even took the Red 1’s kite position for part of 1976) – the others have borrowed the registrations. Therefore, the RAF obviously felt that this did warrant consideration when making their decision.

2) The RAF would (understandably) be concerned about any ‘civilian’ team dressed as red, as the public perception would be that they are the ‘Red Arrows’. If you showed the average Joe Public a display of (e.g.) 5 red Gnats, they wouldn’t know the difference between them and the real thing. Any problems/incidents/accidents (God forbid) would then bring immediate and damaging attention to the real deal team, and at a time when certain elements of the Civil Service see the Reds as an “overhead”. We all know that given half a chance, our illustrious Britishness-identity-bashing luvvies in the cabinet (and their army of faceless wonders) would grab any opportunity to get the red pen out. 😮
The RAF have, it would seem, taken the sensible decision to ensure that any historic Reds aircraft are represented in the absolute correct manner (e.g. publicity, naming, etc.) and displayed accordingly – i.e. not in formation teams. – and will probably ask all owners to respond accordingly, us included.

3) XR537 (G-NATY) will be flown as an ex-military jet – all this talk of PLCs and commercial tie-ups is total nonsense and just the usual murmurs from those who don’t actually really know. 😡 If you want anymore specific details, then you can email me directly, or wait until the actual launch date press release, or watch the BBC documentary. 😉
Additionally, 537 will be flown to help promote the RAF’s heritage and that of the British aircraft industry – the days when we could build a jet or two.
Finally on this point, the nonsense about vast sums of money being made are the usual preposterous tosh that does seem to going around the World via the jet-stream. If you had any idea about how much it costs to get this thing in the air, and the ongoing maintenance costs, then you’d realise that it’s not a money-making “commercial” venture.

4) The redarrows.com website is NOT a commercial venture, but was setup many years ago to help promote the team in a positive light (the former owners of the domain name had set it up as a porn site!) and help promote various displays that were raising money for good causes, in particular the Bournemouth seafront displays. Since 1996, just over £100,200 has been raised for charities including the RAFBF, Macmillan Fund, Julia’s House, and the country’s ONLY dedicated autism care centre in the UK.
In addition, the site helps raise money through online auctions and competitions, and serious amounts of money have been presented to the team at RAF Scampton for their nominated charities (photos of these handovers available upon request).
RAFAT gave their blessing to the site when first setup, and we continue to have a good relationship with them.
The site is currently being completely overhauled to incorporate how the Gnat will continue that fund-raising side of things, and given a new design on the other pages. There will also be an extensive section covering her history and photographs from the teams past. The old pages exist until such times as the launch.

5) The new operating company that is being formed to keep 537 flying, will also operate a registered charitable Trust into which a proportion of any fees will go (e.g. airshow payments, etc.). The trustees will be formed of the owners of the company, lay members of the public, and two former Arrows pilots (now retired from the RAF) with the sole remit to choose eligible charities annually and allocate the funds accordingly.
The talk of a “PLC” from “reliable” sources is a nonsense.

6) 954 won’t fly again (I think that’s fairly obvious! :rolleyes: ) but we are hoping to convert the airframe into a working Gnat simulator, so that she still lives in spirit. The viability of that project will be looked into when 537 is airborne. Again, 954 would have just rotted away and been skipped, if we hadn’t have intervened.

If anyone wants any further info, then please raise the questions here, or email me directly.

Hopefully, that will put an end to some of the sillies that have been doing the rounds. 🙂

Finally, why is it that this country is so damn good at self-bashing anything constructive??? :confused: This jet could have (easily) been sent to US for spares and then we’d have no end of harping on here about nobody in the UK being bothered about saving our jet heritage.
Yet, as soon as we do something positive to reverse that trend, we get all sorts of inane comments about special RAF privilege, yadda, yadda, yap, yap, nag….

Just be thankful you’ll get to see one of these superb jets back in the air, be it in ‘official’ 70s decals or not – and if it is (with the RAF’s blessing).. it might just help reverse this apathy about restoring a bit of pride into what was once a bluddy good (and proud) nation of aircraft designers, builders, flyers and engineers… and still is, in some quarters!