Hello everybody. Congratulations have to be given to the team who restored the liberator as when you take into account the amount of work needed and the timescale it was carried out in it is astonishing. Even more so when you think about the young apprentices from Luton airport who were let loose on large sections of the outer wings 😮 I still cringe when i walk under them!! 🙂 (Yes i was one of appo’s)

Not warbird pilots as such but don’t forget about the Duchess of Bedford, (Woburn Abbey, famous moth pilot) and Delfine Graye-Fiske (sp?) so far the Shuttleworth Collection’s only female pilot and one of very few people to take the English-Electric Wren for circuits of the airfield.

XB259’s ‘orange bits’ used to be ‘dayglo’ until about 1969, when it kept fading, so they repainted them just plain matt orange. However, the most bizarre scheme was during the early ’60s when it was painted with black/yellow target-tug stripes under the wings. Now can you imagine a Beverley towing a target…well here is the proof of that scheme, so perhaps someone can explain it?

Hello Mr Ross, i imagine the black and yellow stripes are used to warn of possible drops from the aircraft as the Horsa glider trainers in WW2 carried them and as far as I know never towed a target. With the floor loading space of a Beverly a retractable target for slow speed attacks may not have been a bad idea 😉
The stripes do look red to me though 😉 :diablo:

Hello, just a quick note to say the ‘Old Warden’ jeep will be available after a morning in the wind and rain yesterday trying to figure out why a perfectly serviceable machine that was put to bed over winter refused to work in the spring. :confused: No preferences for either day, just for dry skys, hope to see you all at another of our fine local museums.