RE: Boeing Straroliner crash

From what I believe it was a ‘textbook’ forced landing in the bay off Seattle from which the crew escaped with minor injuries.
Hopefully by now she has been recovered.

RE: Noorduyn Norseman

Several in Europe-Norway has one at Gardermoen(or maybe Bodo now!) -Le Ferte Alais-derelict example-one in Sweden from memory .
The land of their birth (Canada) has no end and finally I believe the is a fuselage at Hatzerim ,Israel.

RE: Why on earth……….?

The conversion of the Shackleton powerplant to power the PR.XIX was carried out by R.R at Filton from memory and cost a fabulous amount of money to achieve. Needless to say a lot of this work was carried out as a PR exercise and not a commercial job.
I will be interested to see how the weight and balance works out with the contra prop unit on the XIX – maybe we will see more operators trying out this arrangement.

RE: Are warbirds in need of protection

I have to agree with you on this one. Too many aircraft are being modified for the purposes of gaining an extra dollar. My pet hate is the conversion of ‘low back’ Spitfire LF.XVI’s into ‘high back’ machines – it’s completely unnecessary . Too many rare or one-off’s are being lost. Another prime example is the conversion of NAA A-36’s to P-51B’s – why bother ?
A forum member noted that it’s very much up to the owners and indeed it is but in reality we are only passing these items on to the next generation – what would anyone think if I bought a ‘Constable’ of a water mill and added a ‘McDonalds’ in the background to update it a bit !
Most aircraft are designed by skilled engineeers for a purpose – let’s try and avoid re-writing history for the sake of it.
By the way Tony Haig-Thomas has a TBM-3R in the U.K flying sans turret – lets hope she stays that way!

RE: Duxford American Air Museum Moves

Becka – it will be a sad day if they end up cutting her down to just a fuselage or something of that sort.
Unfortunately when she arrived at the museum the Shackleton MR.3/3 was fairly common. With the passage of time she has remained relatively intact whereas her sisters havn’t stood the test .
What we have now is the only surviving Shackleton MR.3 in the U.K which hasn’t been taken apart for road transport and the inevitable compromises that get taken to enable this to happen.
Sadly she doesn’t have the glamour of the Sunderland or Lancaster but she is a significant airframe that deserves to survive.

RE: Duxford American Air Museum Moves

Luckily for me Ashley I have been an enthusiast for twenty six years.
I spent eight years in the R.A.F working on Harrier GR.3/T.4/GR.5/GR.7/T.10 and then the Tornado Gr.1 and Wessex.
I have carried out maintainance on Chipmunks-Cessna’s-Stearman’s-Stampe’s-Auster’s-Beagle’s- and numerous other types of aircraft.
I support the work of maybe five or six museums actively in the U.K and a host of other projects . I am an active member of the BAPC and also a correspondent for FlyPast.
As an example of some of the work I do have a look at your cherished Harrier GR.3 in the museum ( Duxford) – I carried out a mod to her nose leg about four years ago to stop it discharging and lowering.
I do have a ‘rough’ idea of the constraint’s of operating a museum and the need to preserve your exhibits but I think the provision of barriers and signs asking people to respect the aeroplane’s is laudable is something entirely different to hoisting aircraft up in the air as a means of ‘preserving them’.
Quite simply if this was meant to be the would be provision for hoisting points built into these aircraft – the is not. Hanging them from the ceiling imposes new stress paths through these machines which would ordinarily be transmitted through the undercarriage. This doesn’t auger well for their long term preservation. As regards the ‘damage’ done by the public – a sensible balance can be achieved as is the case with the Sunderland and Beverly cockpit. Some aircraft can stand this and others cannot – I am not suggesting in any way that all the cockpits are opened to the public but machines that have
been scrapped at Duxford in the last ten years could have quite
easily have been modified to this role – Convair and Varsity for example but it was not to be.
Luckily we have the opportunity for free speach in this country
so we will either see overwelming support for the changes or the
opposite – either way I shall try and visit without prejudice.

RE: Airshow prices…

I think it’s excessive considering the bases used are paid for by the
tax payer – the visiting aircraft from foreign airforces are doing it either for free or for fuel and in reality a large amount of money from the entrance fee is being used to accomodate and entertain these aircrew for the night.
Duxford and Shuttleworth are able to put on entertaining airshows without charging a fortune to get in – maybe it’s time the RIAT people looked at what they provide and the entrance fee’s and decide to be bit more modest.