Couldn’t TIGHAR apply some of That Old Black Magic here and try and locate the wreck? Maybe they just aren’t In The Mood? I’m sure being taken out by a bomb from a Lancaster was not Glenn’s idea of a Moonlight Serenade? Apparently he was heard to comment on The Nearness of You, to the Lancaster crews, as the bombs reigned down on his aircraft prior to a loud Boom Shot was reported. Maybe he should have been flying a Catalina instead, or some other form of American Patrol aircraft.

Alright I’m done here.

Wrecking two engines when they ingested silica gel packets, and then sort-of-blaming it on Rolls Royce, was definitely more than a hiccup. ‘Rollgate’ is another hiccup.

“Supporters of the last airworthy Vulcan bomber…”

Two years too late! Desperate times for Vulcan To The Skip.

To be fair to John, advertising standards were as abysmal as they were lax in the ’30s:

If you don’t see anything even slightly dubious about flogging this wreckage for money then so be it. I suppose there is an area of the historic aviation sphere that is perfectly happy to desecrate crash sites for personal gain (either the exclusivity factor or from flogging parts at Aerojumbles). This is dark history within living memory of a lot of aviation enthusiasts. I’ve seen a good number of eyewitness accounts from people who were unfortunate enough to watch the P-38 go in. Flogging one of the more readily identifiable pieces of the wreckage for £5k seems a bit ghoulish. I doubt it will help return another P-38 to the skies, if nothing else. I also wonder how Proudfoot’s family feel about the whole thing, unless of course they have sanctioned the sale.

Where do you personally draw the line with this sort of thing? If I went to Lockerbie next weekend with a metal detector and then tried to sell 747 relics on Ebay, purely for personal gain, for example?

Largely off topic, but I was a bit surprised this morning to see a photograph of what was apparently the battered wing tip of Hoof Proudfoot’s P-38 for sale recently at ‘The War and Peace Show’ (Revival?). Whatever this relic might have actually been, it is was marked “P38 Lightning, Duxford (indecipherable), £4,800”.

Apparently the wreckage was stored at Duxford, so selling pieces of it seems astonishingly distasteful if true.

Like all hobbies there is a fringe group of people who let the hobby take over in a big way. Not an aviation phenomenon or a photography one, fortunately or unfortunately. I was speaking to a bloke at work who wanted a big colour printer. When I asked why, he said it was because he was into photography. When I probed further it transpired that he was really into photographing show jumping events. From having an ex girlfriend who was training to be a vet, there are plenty of weird individuals in the horse sphere as well.

Likewise I was at a corporate function at the zoo a few months ago, and there was a crazy animal woman there, who totally monopolised a ‘handling’ event and insisted on being the only one who could hold the animals. She photographed each one, and insisted on knowing their “names”. Most of these animals were so small and insignificant that their names were basically serial numbers. The giant millipede is called X132/45b, but she had to know this and write it down!

There are people who lack even basic social skills, and who have to do the thing. In your case it is photograph aircraft, or “bagsy” the best spot for photographing aircraft. For the woman at the zoo it was being able to handle and hold every animal, because she just loves animals, even if it means kids miss out on the same experience.

********s, in other words.