In the magazine one of the transits is between North Weald and Leiston passing North Ipswich, i wash just wondering if anyone can say if they will fly over/past Martlesham Heath and if so some would anyone be able to say an approximate time they may fly bye please ???

Sadly I won’t be around, and Stansted might get in the way, but I do hope they recognise the Eagle squadron that flew from Great Sampford!

Adrian

I seem to recall that the Loch Ness Wimpy eventually came up in three “lumps” because the original frame to lift in one go failed. Hope this doesn’t happen this time.

My video of the documentary has crumbled into unwatchability, but I’m sure I recall that they got the frame down only to find that, since the survey, R-Robert’s had been damaged by neds dragging anchors across her for souvenirs. Whether that had anything to do with the frame failure I don’t know, but I’m guessing that with her fuselage structure torn up she’d be much weaker (incidentally, that reminds me of a Tony Dudgeon article for The Other Mag where his brother rescued a trapped man from a burning Wellington by attaching a hook to the fuselage frame and using the fire truck to pull it apart a few members at a time).

Adrian

I am sure they have taken expert advice. It is better to have tried and lost than to have never tried at all. They are not idiots.

+1, Tony.

If it’s left, it will crumble to Daz eventually whatever ,or be souveneired apart – do I recall right that R-Robert was badly damaged in Loch Ness by Neds dragging with anchors to try to retrieve souveneirs? – or the Goodwins will shift in the next storm, and it will vanish again.

If they’re right, and this aircraft was lost on the 26th of August, that’s the day my father remembers parachutes everywhere, stubble fires started by oil dropped by a burning bomber, and his 4th cousin (!) up the road apprehending a German airman at 12-bore-point. That’s the day the unfortunate German broke his leg when, irony of ironys, he hit Finchingfield’s war memorial as he landed. If I’m not mixing my Debden raids (I may well be!), a friend of my father’ retrieved Maurice Mounsdon’s helmet and returned it to his squadron, whilst Mounsdon went on to hospital alongside Richard Hillary in “The Last Enemy”.How much more tangible a link with that day could you want? Unlike certain other relics I could mention, I may even be able to photograph these!

Here’s hoping…

Adrian
(I think I may be getting a little emotional about this…:o)

PS Incidentally – I recognise that skyline in the Spitfire footage! Been to DX too many times…

Time to start crossing fingers !

Stuff fingers, EVERYTHING crossed! I very badly want to see this succeed…

Adrian

Unusual for me to pop down here, but I spotted the thread and had a look.

My granny’s uncle Jo was at Anzac, having the luck to arrive in early September just after the last of the set-piece attacks. That luck seems to have stayed with him as, despite being a Private, he seems to have managed to be at HQ at any time something dangerous was going on – how, I don’t know! Granny had a photo of him looking very smart and manly in his uniform with his slouch hat and sunburst badge, and was quite sure that he’s been murdered for his demob money when he returned to Australia after the war. In 2001 I found a very different story – he’d decided to make a clean break from his family, and start a new life. It turns out that the big, bronzed, manly Aussie I’d imagined was 5’6″, slightly built, bright ginger, and never lost his Scots accent or his love of a p***-up and a punch-up!

If WW1 is your thing, take a look at http://www.oldshep.co.uk/ – one village’s memories. I will confess to having a vested interest, I scanned 13 albums-worth of the photos! Shepreth seems to feature heavily in the realms of WW1 stories making the news, one of the joys of having a journalist involved.

Adrian

I’m fairly certain that I remember the Messerschmitt in question’s wings propped up against a wall in said museum when I visited last which I think was after 1997, perhaps circa 2000 – they were moth-eaten but considerably less so than, for example, the Lashenden B17 spar.

If you rummage far enough on the forum you might do better than me (though the search has improved!) and find my photo of the chap from RN EOD carrying an SC50 in his arms like a baby, back in 1992, so there is a hope that any bombs there can be banged at a safe distance.

What the article at Imperial mentions is a point that I think has been missed here. As I understand it, the aircraft has been in open water for a relatively short time compared to the 73 years it has spent on the bottom – the Goodwins are infamously mobile, it was one of the reasons they were so dangerous, and may shift dramatically in a big storm. A lot of the aircraft has probably been in anaerobic conditions, slowing corrosion down dramatically, and the various changes of the seabed will have exposed different parts at different times, which probably explains why it’s not a broken-up mess. How much of the aircraft has escaped serious corrosion by being buried remains to be seen – I suspect there will prove to be some very interesting “tide marks” on it!

Probably a good job there wasn’t a big storm – say 1978 or 1987 magnitude – this last winter, or it might have vanished again!

Andy, am I talking spheroids there? From reading various stuff over the years, that’s my understanding…

Incidentally, I’m intrigued by the outline in the car park – if only there was one in St Giles, Oxford, so I could visualise the Ju88 assembled on its wheels there!

Adrian

Are you sure it is Brass ?

Not until I have a go at polishing it – which won’t be tonight!

I have, however, just learnt what a fly press is, so I’ve learnt something already.

Adrian

Oooh, saucer of milk for MoggyC!:p

Actually I meant that a low wing monoplane hitting a high wing monoplane is probably not a bad recipe for wingtips and the like missing vital bits like occupants (though anyone in the Cessna at the time might have had their hairstyle, and underpants colour, changed)…

…but I take your point!

Adrian