The reference to Henty and Constable of Chichester rings a bell, yes: the brewery long since gone.

I guess this form of beer delivery would be termed by CAMRA as “gravity dispense”?

Spitfire MK 9 TA805 out and about today, saw her heading back to Biggin Hill around 3PM ish. Weather has been great today!!!

?Would have departed Biggin about 11.15 that morning? I was just walking in the footsteps of Charles Darwin in the grounds at Downe House, lovely morning, just got better on hearing the throaty roar of a merlin abouth that time! I could ID the aircraft from that distance, but definitely a single-seater…

[QUOTE=Pete Truman;1380748] At least they had Batemans Bitter in the beer tent on the day, I bet that soon sold out.

Ahh, “Bateman’s Good Honest Ales”. I recall being with a chartered trainload of beer monsters “up from town” on foggy and drizzly day in Feb some 15 years ago, greeted on Wainfleet’s single platform by a Jazz band and Mr George, (the Head Brewer) in top hat and tails….what a bizarre sight. But a great visit, including quaffing in the Windmill-cum-brewery tap.

Sorry, way off thread, but that sparked a pleasant memory!

I guess they could have chosen the e-type jag (but no doubt someone will correct me and say a non-Englishmen designed it? Or maybe the Austin Allegro, pure British **** 🙂

Dave

Don’t think any Aircobra ever flew with that kind of prop, a pic of this
aircraft in flypast iirc last years showed it with a P39 prop but this looks
to be a mock up German prop
Nice airframe anyway
Cheers

Cees

It looks a bit like the prop blades used on the Junkers-engined version that flew with the ?Yugoslav (or was it Hungarian?) airforce after the war, some of which found their way into Israeli service. Probably off the mark – but if they were going to fabricate a ‘109 prop, why not fabricate closer to the original pattern?

The Camouflaged cockpit was on display at the Biggin Hill airshow about (?6-7) years back, I think.

Visited Brooklands for the first time last month – what a great museum. R-Robert is quite spectacular close-up, and although some of the airframes are replicas, they are very very good ones (esp. the Camel). On the day I was there with my family, they were giving rides up the hill-climb, round the top of the hill (where the outfit that has obtained the rights to AC Cars is going to set up a small propduction facility), and on the surviving section of the famous embankment. Topped 40 mph which felt fast enough in the dicky seat at the back – apparently the top racers went up to 120mph – talk about nerves of steel! Sitting in their Concorde I felt quite nostalgic for the flight I’ll never have in that great aeroplane….

The link to the Valiant is right. A further thought; how robust was the Victor itself at low level? Given the move from high-level to low-level penetration tactics for the V-Force, probably the Vulcan was more able to absorb the stresses and buffeting associated with ultra-low level. That, and the contortions involved in uploading a blue steel into the Victor airframe probably made the Vulcan the preferred choice in the bombing role. At the same time, the Victor remained suitable in the Strategic Reconnaisance role.

However, a Victor in the conventional bombing role might have been an interesting resource to hand during Gulf War I… (and of course would have handled the Black Buck missions, where the ironware was delivered from medium altitude).

Ok, here goes.

Title is (unsurprisingly) “Spifire” Subtitled “The story of the World’s most famous fighter plane”. Written by Brian Johnson. Produced by Garry Pownall.

DD Distribution

Weintraub Entertainment Group

Code No. DD 241

The address on the tape is:

DD Distribution,
5 Churchill Court,
Station Rd.
North Harrow,
Middlesex HA2 7SA
UK
(44)020 8863-8819

Don’t know if DD are still there, but worth a try, either by ‘phone or googling them.

Happy watching!

Nev.