Patently you have never been to Old Warden then? Moggy

Old Warden is the one place I do still go on a regular basis. I love the atmosphere. The only minor complaint is that you have to dodge all the speaker poles when taking photos but there isn’t a great deal that the collection can do to get round that problem.

I must admit that one of the reasons I don’t go to airshows anymore is because the display line is so far from the crowd. It was entirely sensible to manage the dangers with simple measures such as banning aircraft from actually flying over the crowd during their display but the aircraft are now so far away from the crowd line that much of the atmosphere is lost.
By the same token most motor racing circuits now have huge debris fences all the way round, even in places where the likelihood of an accident and associated debris is almost nil. One of the reasons fo going to motorsport events was to take photos – something which is impossible now so I keep my money on my pocket and stay away because the health and safety police have all but ruined my day out by forcing me to watch my motorpsort from the outside of a cage.
I accept that none of us want to get killed or injured and equally I don’t want to see participants get killed or injured but we should all be prepared to accept that attending motorsport and aviation events carries some risk and the nanny state really does need to back down a little on some aspects of Health and Safety.

I suppose the inference is that southerners are not always that easy to deal with! :dev2:

I think the truth is that many Southerners would have told him to *** off the moment he made the offer!

In a similar vein I advertised a model of a single seater race car on my website. It was a promotional model made for the car’s sponsors almost 25 years ago by Western Models who many here may know for their 1/200 aircraft range. I have only ever seen one other offered for sale and that was one I sold and the collector then sold it on later to another dealer. I happen to have 3 or 4 of them as I got them in an exchange with a good friend who has since passed away. He took them in lieu of a debt but preferred to sell plastic kits and diecasts. I thought my price was fair (£65) which was probably what the sponsor paid for them all those years ago and gave me a reasonable profit on my exchange deal.
I got an email from a “gent” saying that he owned and was restoring the real car so he wanted the model and was prepared to offer me £35 for it!
I replied stating that if he could afford to restore the real car he was almost certainly in a better financial position to be able to pay the full price than I was to offer such a big discount.
I didn’t get a reply!

Unfortunately I won’t be at Shoreham as I don’t have enough aviation stuff to sell to be able to justify the cost of the stall and travel but hope it all goes well as I appreciate the amount of work that goes into organising such events.

To quote the sellers item description:-

“off of the very first spitfire ever made, and belived to be off the prototype”

and there was me thinking that generally speaking the first one ever made was the prototype.

There is just a possibility that this seller has little knowledge of aviation collectables and has purchased a collection from somewhere and taken the previous owners descriptions at face value. If this is the case then he should definitely done his research before parting with his money.
Of course there are other possibilities most of which have already been comprehensively explored here.

The Canvey Island B-17 would have been the one which crashed off Canvey Point after a mid air collision with another B-17.
The museum at Southend recovered an undercarriage leg and various other parts in the 70’s. I remeber those who went on the dig, which included Stan and David Brett saying that they found a lot of live rounds during the dig.
I believe other parts were recovered at various times by a museum at Tilbury and possibly Blake Hall museum as well.
The mud and sand out there shifts constantly so parts get uncovered and then disappear again. Canvey Point area can be a very dangerous place with strong currents when the tide is in and mud and sand which can be bottomless in places when the tide is out.

There is nothing wrong with storing airframes for future restoration providing that they are stored securely in a building where deterioration will be minimal. There are many examples of cases where this hasn’t been possible – the problems with some of the aircraft for the Brussels museum which are in “storage” is a recent example and had TangoMike not rescued the first of his Swedish Proctors it may well have got finished off by vandals who had already broken in and caused substantial damage
From what I can gather the Canadian Mosquito and Huricane have suffered for years from storage in less than ideal conditions. If they are to be stored for a further period while funds are raised then let’s hope steps are taken to ensure that they don’t deteriorate to the point where there is little or nothing left to restore. If that were to happen then everyone would lose out.

Sorry Didn’t get back to this thread until now. Although I have never actually got around to flying RC I have built free flight models and as a lad spent all my Sunday mornings at the local RC flying field until I got involved with restoring full size at what was then our local museum.
I have often fancied the idea of electric RC so I have done a fair bit of reading and research over the past few years and having been involved in the model trade for nearly 30 years I have picked up a lot of advice from people within the trade as well which was how I was able to offer some advice.
I see Robbo has suggested the Hobbyzone Super Cub, an ideal choice along with some of the high wingers from the Parkzone range. The great thing about both ranges is that you can buy spare parts from most local radio control shops or from the internet. Just steer clear of the Mustangs and Spitfires as anything low wing will be fast and very responsive (just like the real thing) – not what a beginner needs.
Anything half decent is probably going to cost around £100 or more new but £100 spent on something durable with good spares back up will, in a matter of weeks, be far less expensive then something cheaper which you have to throw away the first time you have a serious accident. Many of the cheaper models have cheap rc gear which is encapsulated inside the fuselage and can’t be reused. The better quality models have RC gear with better build quality and it is removable so it can be transplanted into a more advanced model as your skills improve.
If you can’t afford new then you can usually find a few on Ebay. Avoid the badly bent ones as hard crashes can damage the RC gear, especially the receiver, but you will find a few which are lightly used and haven’t been abused. Just research new prices on the web to get an idea of what anything secondhand is worth and be prepared to walk away if it gets too expensive.

According to my ancient copy or Wrecks and Relics the Farnborough Valiant nose was XD860. I am pretty sure it was over by the trees on the far side of the runway at one of the SBAC shows but I think scrap airfarmes tended to get moved around at Farnborough over the years.