M’seur Boyle, I will have a look and see if there’s anything in my book for 1939-40 at Stodmarsh. Do PM me if you don’t hear anything – head like a sieve…

Must have been interesting running agricultural machinery on aviation fuel!

Adrian

Might the small aeroplane with the G on the tail be Swedish? It looks like it could be a Swedish roundel on the fuselage.

Adrian

I would suspect that the replacement didn’t happen on the Finnish aeroplanes, as they were well out of the way!

However it seems at least some Hurricanes in the UK actually had the older fabric-covered wings refitted. V6742, crashed 30th April 1941 whilst on the books of 52 OTU at Debden, was fitted at the time of the crash with a set of wings built in 1937, some three years prior to the rest of the aircraft. Presumably the original wings were damaged, and there was a shortage of metal ones, but there just happened to be a handy pile of old wings lying around…
Source: Essex Aviation Group Information Book, 3rd edition.

I do declare a vested interest here – as a plane-mad 7 year old, I watched her come out of the ground and I was hooked. Still got a valve, somewhere…

Adrian

I think (personal opinion) it’s better overall to place this one near Reculver.

That would certainly be fitting. I suspect, though, the council took into count the fact that there is ****** all at Reculver (actually, that’s one of the reasons I used to love it when I lived in HB), and they didn’t fancy spending all that money on a statue that no-one would see! He’s not in too bad a spot now – a little off the end of town, but I can’t see how he’d fit in the middle of the seafront without either looking silly or being in a car park.

Adrian

At risk of thread creep (and early revival of a Zombie!), Pete, are you aware that the Braintree Old Contemptible’s Association standard was paraded at Ypres this year?

I can provide a link if anyone is interested, but I suspect you’ll need to register if you are not already a member of the Great War Forum.

Adrian

Ah, the joys of Pareidolia!

See also spirit orbs, the gunman on the grassy knoll and the underground bit in Edinburgh which they sell as “the scene of the biggest paranormal experiment in Britain”, but keep mighty schtumm about the results.
(OK, the last one isn’t pareidolia, but it’s at the same level and works the same way)

Adrian

The Devil’s Dyke is a huge Anglo-Saxon ditch, up to four metres deep (relative to modern ground surface) and the associated bank up to 6 metres high by the same standard. I’m not sure what the heights/depths are on the approach/departure to the old Newmarket runway, but a mile or so away it[‘s big enough to be breathtaking. The article is right – you hit that, you die, it’s that simple.

Apart from being a bloody awful obstacle to have nearby, when you have heavily-laden aircraft staggering into the sky, one has to wonder how many otherwise survivable accidents turned into carnage against the bank…:( Or how many clipped it, when otherwise they might have bellied-in straight ahead, or made it into the air.

Adrian