What have the above two posts to do with the Duxford Diary, or am I missing something?

Brian

Read the address label on the Hellcat nose 😉

I am told that Beaulieu want to get at least one of the Matabele’s (On the rack behind the 350 hp Sunbeam) running. Manpower and money are the restricting factors.

As I said in post #11 above
This is what happened last time with the Manitou necessitating the rebuild
[ATTACH=CONFIG]225116[/ATTACH]

This one is still a hole filled with water (although smaller), there is one to the west and one to the east of this one, both filled in now.
[ATTACH=CONFIG]224898[/ATTACH]
From google earth you can still see all 3, with the Submarine pens the clump of overgrowth
[ATTACH=CONFIG]224900[/ATTACH]

Out of interest, can anyone recognise the device on the end of the diggers arm? looks more like a concrete breaking claw used in demolition than an digging bucket to me?

Yes it is a concrete breaking claw. I am surprised at the relative lack of damage to the digger for the size of the bomb, considering it is right next to the blast crater even if as others have said the force of the explosion seems to have gone straight up.

I was looking at the 3 engines at Beaulieu a couple of weeks ago. I was told the Manitou is now running nicely after a few problems. The 2 Matabele’s are out of the LSR car and in the workshop to get into running condition, I will be back down at Beaulieu in the workshop over Xmas if you would like any detailed pics/info of any of the engines.

OK, a 99% result ! not quite identical

Early F-84 seat


Further to my earlier suggestion of it being similar to a Heinkel 162 seat, I was way off mark, or maybe not……………
From the http://www.ejectionsite.com/p84seat.htm site
“This seat is an example of a 1st Generation ejection seat. This seat used a gun catapult system and used manual lap belts, and manually operated seat pack parachutes.
This seat was the first US-production ejection seat used. It bears more than a slight resemblance to the Heinkel 162 seat that was captured in the late part of World War II and brought back to the United States for development. The headrest and backpad shapes are nearly identical although the armrests and foot rests are clearly different. The firing mechanism used a two stage system where one lever is raised to arm the seat and the second raised to fire it.

So is it rare = ££££ ?

German WWII ? the headrest & back pad are very similar to the Heinkel 162’s