I am not too enamoured with the Seller’s rating of 7, all from sellers, I’d like to see a bit more provenance before I bid a 100th of that money!

Yeh, but how many unlimited racers have you seen for sale on ebay?????

Roger Smith.

PS I wonder what the reserve price is?

Dave
The main difference is that the vampire/venom’s main load bearing structures, ie. the wings, tailplane and booms are all aluminium. The vampire/venoms wooden fuselage/cockpit is essentially a large fairing that is fixed to the front of the wing spar, housing the pilot, nav, and/or radar, depending on Mark. The fuselages do suffer from delamination, if not maintained properly, just like the mosquito. The difference is that the delamination suffered by Mosquitos and Hornets was mainly in the wing, which is the main load bearing structure.

Are you right about the wooden fuselage being non-load bearing?

The times that I have “played” with Vampires I don’t recall the wing spar running through the fuselage but bolted to brackets mounted on each side.

Roger Smith.

Aah, yes, the old ‘look for information before blurting out a reply’ strategy. I knew I had forgotten something! 😀

By the way, is it just me or does the railing that can be seen between the truck and the white van on the right indicate a low bridge up ahead? When I noticed it I did feel as if the ‘after’ shot might be a sorry sight, but I’m sure Andy would have rather posted that photo, if that had happened.

Not yet come across a M-way with a low bridge!

Brings back bad memories of 1973 (I think) moving Meteor F.4 EE531 from Lasham to Weston Park, Shrops. – the first of it’s many temporary homes.
We had “surveyed” the route and gave instructions to the lorry driver who decided he knew a better one. Unfortunately his route had a low bridge and he damaged the rear of one of the engine nacelles. It was subsequently repaired and looking at it today at MAM you can’t see the join.
By coincidence a similar thing happened years later whilst moving the F-101 Voodoo to Baginton – I think that got a replacement tail.

Roger Smith.

Once he attained TV fame he had his own private aircraft – not sure what, but possibly something like a Bonanza or a Piper Apache.

Travelling to a gig in Berlin (early 60s?) he fell foul of the Russians and was buzzed by fighters and instructed to land.

From memory, he ignored them.

Moggy

I’m pretty sure there was an article in “Flying Review” (Maybe even the earlier “RAF Flying Review”) in the early 1960’s about this incident. I used to buy this mag each month as a teenager and have kept them – will try and find it.

However my memory tells me it was a conventional twin (Apache or C.310?) rather than a push-me-pull-you C.336 or C.337.

Roger Smith.

What about the Whitley that’s under restoration… now that would be a great complement at East Kirkby too. Richard

I believe there are TWO seperate groups trying to recreate a Whitley (one in the London area, one in Scotland?) from parts/sections from various crash sites.
Seems a shame there may be duplicated effort going on.
As for location for a Whitley Hendon, Duxford, East Kirby but my vote would be Baginton – where they were all built (excepting the prototype) but then, being a Coventry Kid I’m biased.

Roger Smith.

Anyone know what they are asking for it?

Roger Smith.

Nice idea to recreate a third Wellington. However are the wings at East Kirby complete? I got the impression they were from the engines to tip.

Roger Smith.

Yep, I had heard/read there were two seperate organisations – one of them exhibited at the DH Moth Rally, Woburn in August.

Roger Smith.