Piece of trivia: wot woz last scheduled piston into LHR? I’ll offer, either, AF/LH Capitol-leased C-46F, or AF Duck Pond, both, I think, into 1970.[/QUOTE]

Kar Air’s DC6BF, OH-KDA, operated its last service on 25-9-81.

I went out to Ringway specially in June 1978 to photograph this aircraft, because I knew its days were numbered. Here is one of the photos I took that day: http://tinyurl.com/yc9qkeo

Memories…….

IAF museum

I visited the museum in March 2008-fantastic!

Some practical info for anyone wanting to go there: I was staying in Tel Aviv and caught a bus from near our hotel, to one of the city’s railway stations. From there, a quick, modern and direct train (not v expensive either iirc) took me to Beersheva. Bus station was next door to rail station and bus no 31 (I think) went to the museum fairly soon after I arrived-20 minute journey. You pass one of the Kfirs on the roundabout.

One or two important matters: you need photo id to get in and it’s closed Friday pm and all day Saturday-Jewish sabbath; and don’t photo any aircraft flying into neighbouring air base of Hatzerim-you’d probably be arrested if they saw you doing this, but 100% free to photo a/c in museum. It’s on the edge of a desert and was 82F on the day of my visit: no doubt 100+F in summer, so take a big bottle of water and a large sun hat, especially if you’re bald, like me. Poor shop, tho managed to get some lunch there.

I think I counted eight(!) Meteors, tho why the IAF have kept so many is a mystery, as, from the (excellent, in English/Hebrew) info boards in front of nearly all the a/c, it wasn’t a significant type for them.

Not mentioned above: good collection of about ten captured Arab air force a/c: Mig 15, 17, 21, 23, Vampires, Hunter. Some Vautours, a simply beautiful Mustang, Ouragans, Mysteres, Super Mysteres, an F15, a Lavi (a still-born home-grown advanced fighter of the 1980s), an E2C, a 707 with full passenger interior, a C97 with an exhibition inside, two C47s (the one on display is unfortunately not in good condition, but another, in a storage area, is, from one side at least, in better condition and incidentally bristles with aerials), another C97 in this area (in v poor condition) plus two more 707s here.

There were four entrances to the storage area with the C97 etc in it, three of them with chains across, saying “No entry,” but the fourth one didn’t, so I chanced my arm, went in with my camera and was able to photograph all the aircraft in it, tho I did get shooed away from photographing a derelict Noratlas and Ouragan in another storage area.

Also: another Noratlas, a Harvard, a Stearman, a Fokker S11, a Sikorsky 55 and a 58 (piston-engined, the latter), a CH53, a Super Frelon, a Hughes 500, an Alouette 2 (plus a captured Syrian Alouette 3), a Huey Cobra, Mirage IIIs, an Arava, etc etc; one of the world’s great (and little known, as yet) aircraft museums-well worth a visit. Let me know if you want to see any of my photos.

AA Open day on July 28th

I was at the Open day-great flight in the Prentice and lovely foreign lady pilot!:)

It’s only the Shack that’s going to Newquay-Classic Flight will remain at CVT “for foreseeable future.”

Beverleys

I visited Paull on 5-9-06, almost solely to see the Beverley. Internal access was freely available and the aircraft is in great condition internally-or seemed to be to my non-engineer’s eye. No access to cockpit though. Not bad condition externally at all, bar some algae growth on one small area. They’d moved the Portaloo………. See photo attached and also one of XH124 which I unearthed to my great surprise and pleasure the other day.

Also, a bit of Beverley trivia: some time in the late 1960s, I remember seeing a brief clip on TV of Sandy Shaw (I think) standing on the undercarriage of a Beverley and calling up (a long way of course) to the crew in the cockpit. Anyone else remember this or, even better, know where to find that clip?

“Quick time movie” of Carvair taking off

Hi there fellow Carvair and propliner fans. Two points: in September 2005 I visited Brooks at Fairbanks and had the extreme good fortune to see their “beast” start up and take off. I took a one minute long QTM of this on my digital camera, so if anyone wants to see it, email me and I’ll send it to you. Be warned however, file is 11MB in size, so make sure your Inbox is up to the task, tho I have successfully emailed it in the past. A QTM is a low grade video clip, but you get quite reasonable image quality in small format and the sound quality is good.

Secondly, there is an existing and excellent book about the Carvair and that is “Air Bridge 2. The design, development and service use of the ATL98 Carvair conversions and their effect on the civilian vehicle air ferry era,” by Paul Doyle. Again, email me if you would like me to send you Paul’s contact details.

Lastly, Patrick, please put me down for a copy of your book.