Well there’s five on there at the moment, but atleast three have sold in the last six months and there’s plenty of movement in the trade of other types on the site.

Hi Kev,

I’m no expert on Luftwaffe night bombing strategy, but I would discount the Ju88C’s of NJG2 as being responsible for dropping bombs. The Ju88C was a Zerstorer/Nightfighter model, rather than a bomber, and NJG2 were probably carrying out night intruder sorties against allied aircraft. If your information is correct, then it was most likely a He111 responsible for the Walsall bombing.

The problem I have with this thread is not with the paint on the aircraft, or the people pointing out historical truths and so on. The fact is that this thread shows how passionate we all are about historic aircraft, that surely is a positive thing. The tragedy here is to take that positive enthusiasm and turn it into a negative, it’s completely unproductive and undermines the spirit that should exist between the owners, operators and enthusiasts (some of whom are all three).

I would ask the enthusiasts with thier points about paint finishes etc, to make thier points carefully and considerately (some have, some haven’t, here and elsewhere), and I would ask the operators and maintainers to try and take the ‘criticism’ in a positive light.

The picture as it appears to stand at the moment:

Volunteers have worked thier backsides off, spent alot of money, and have alot of passion for what they do (quite rightly). Understandably, they don’t take kindly to criticisms from people who haven’t been involved.

The enthusiasts, on the other side, have a point to make about the colour of the aircraft, and whether it was ever finished this way in service. It appears not to have been as far as the historical record goes.

Both groups have perfectly valid points, neither of which should cause argument. Discussion, yes, argument, no. Can we please keep it civil? Have a bit of a chuckle about it? Try not to take it so seriously we forget the whole point? It’s reminding me of the People’s Front of Judea! (Life of Brian)

I think a good past example to draw inspiration from is another pink aeroplane, the Mk.XI Spitfire that was based at Breighton for a while. It was painted in what was supposed to be tactical-recce pink, but it came out rather brighter than intended and also looked odd in certain lights because of the PR Blue that was still underneath. The owner took it on the chin, the aircraft was still pretty much historically accurate, and it was a striking performer at shows. A few years down the line, she’s back in PR Blue. No fuss, no offence taken (there weren’t so many forums back then!) and now it’s back to how it was before.

Let’s not cause rifts that are far more damaging than anything that has been done with the aircraft.

If you have no luck here you could try the WIX (Warbird Information Exchange) board, it’s US based and they have a huge knowledge base on there. Worth a try…

http://www.warbirdinformationexchange.org/phpBB3/index.php?sid=996847c8b9500a0ffbecb2487744d8ff

I can confirm he’s wearing the uniform of a Captain in the 9th Air Force, I’m sorry I can’t add any more than that.

Well I’m going to buck the trend here somewhat and wish them well. So the French have kept one in good condition with a view to an eventual return to flight, and perhaps they kept back a few spares for the purpose too. The fact that BA didn’t do this shouldn’t, IMHO, mean that we bash the French for having the foresight to do so.

If a Concorde were to be made airworthy once more, it makes sense that it should be a French example. At the time of retirement, the Air France examples were several thousand hours younger than the BA examples. If I remember rightly, the gap between the oldest BA airframe and the youngest Air France example is something like 10,000 hours! This makes an Air France example a much better long-term prospect- none of this Vulcanesque ‘it’ll only fly another 8 years’ malarky.

No, none of it left with RNHF; all went for scrapping (although many small items purporting to be from TF956 were still being sold by private individuals at aerojumbled up and down the land well into the late 1990s at least). One properller blade is still in the Yeovil area, but that’s about it. None of the remains were used in the rebuild of VR930 as a:) they were too badly corroded, and b:) it is MoD policy not to use crashed aircraft items in other aircraft.

Thanks for the correction Lee, I’ve deleted my post accordingly.