516L will be a Paris Air Show ID code. Unless you had a pre-booked slot you would not be allowed to land at Le Bourget during the period of the air show. Each successful request was issued with a Paris Show ID code which was required to be applied to the aircraft.
As I recall the additional letter ‘L’ stands for Liaison – a company comms liaison flight – and not an exhibition aircraft.
Checking through colour slides of DH Herons, I photographed Ferranti’s G-APMV on 11 June 1969. At the time it was wearing Paris ID code 526L.
The colour scheme of G-APMV matches the same layout as the other Heron nose in the opening thread message. So my guess is both aircraft ‘may’ have been photographed in June 1969
My records of the Paris Air Show show that there was only one Heron at a time, 1961 G-AVTU (516L) and 1969 G-AMPV (526L)
I want to add the whole pic so that you can see – G-APMV at this time has no ID code.
Thanks a lot for clarifying 🙂
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