As an archaeologist and historian I have found that everytime I reply in one of these threads that I get howled down for being either elitest or rude.

However here goes – I side with James regarding composite restorations as there is no “individual” historic identity to preserve. If it is a good restoration then I think one should go for broke and do a crowd drawing colour/markings scheme of some particularly famous aircraft. Friday the 13th is an example [I]par excellence[I].

But if it is a genuine intact historic aircraft complete with its own unique identity e.g. the Ryan Spirit of St Louis for example or a Spitfire etc. with a war record or usage record of its own then I err on the side of keeping it as such. A resourceful museum would then be able to fill in type history and variants with photos or models.

The important thing here is that the historic validity of the object, if it exists, is preserved. I am impressed by the way in which that FAA Corsair was restored (or actually unrestored 🙂 ) to show its own marking history.

My 2 cents worth

Well the nose wheel must have been a joy. Probably easy to land and control on the ground

According to one account I read this was a mixed blessing. On the RAF grass airfields the moisture would get into the brake linings and render them useless. Resulting in rather long landing runs.

Hi all,
Can anyone out there offer an I.D. or info to the attached photo, looks to be of 1930s vintage.
Structual testing of a wing, judging by the roundel a French type of some sort. Looks like ply-wood skinning, a one piece wing with a fair degree of dihedral, gun cut outs in L/E??

Cheers, Chumpy.

Interesting, however to me the roundel appears to have a outer ring which given the tonal value suggests it might be yellow and therefore probably post war.

But apart from that I can’t offer any other suggestions.

Sir Charles James Napier

Peccavi

Can someone in the know let me know the starting sequence for a Gnat, please?

I’d be interested in knowing the cockpit actions for getting the engine going, preferably as written in the pilot’s notes/manual etc.

(Yes, this is for Bluebird again!)

Cheers! 🙂

Starting sequence for a Gnat.

1. Get its attention,

2. If it is still asleep, tweak its starboard antenna,

3. If that fails, shout loudly “WAKE UP YOU LAZY INSECT”,

4. Once the insect is properly awake say in a calm voice “Shoo”.

5. It should then fly away.

6. If all of that fails then it is probably dead, so move on to the next one.

Sorry, couldn’t help myself 😀

Not memorial related but in similar vein regarding metal theft – out here (Melbourne, Victoria, Australia) early this year we had part of our suburban rail system shut down because some idiot pinched a section of the overhead electric wires. Seems the price of copper is such as to make even that suicidal effort attractive.

Oh Goshh…
Spitfires again. I was asked for Hurricanes and did not intend to begin another discussion about Spitfires. There is clearly visible difference between both types. Can’t you see?

Is there? 😀

Actually I suspect that the Germans had a few early Hurricanes to play with after the fall of France. The Italians got a MkI from the Greek campaign – flew in standard Italian three colour camo.

I wonder also how much of the captured Hurricane material was passed on to the Finns for spares.

BL628 – Gavin Conroy

Wow!!

One question, though. What’s the red square on the rear fuselage? I’ve seen it a couple of times on different Spits and it’s always intrigued me :confused:

IIRC it is a doped patch over the flare chute.