As a result of the Proctor rebuilds i have met a gentlemen who wishes to remain nameless until such time he reveals his project, suffice to say and adding to the East Anglian Percival restorations in hand (two Proctors and 1 x Q6) he has an advanced airworthy Mew Gull replica in his shop. We were talking colours earlier this year and yes you have guessed, it will be red and gold! Not for me to reveal more, but i do know that the fuselage is completed and the wings well advanced. Our contribution is a spare Proctor spade grip which we collected from Sweden with the Mk 3.

That’s all right then. He’s got plenty of red paint left over from his other aeroplane!! 😉

They were, what would be called today “an expendable target drone”.

Radio controlled, they were launched by catapult, then radio controlled using pulse signals from (honest) an old-style telephone dial.

Dialing nine or ……… gave you a dive.
Six or …… gave you climb
Five or ….. left turn
Three or … right turn

At the end of a flight, if the aeroplane was still intact, it either was ditched and recovered, landed on floats, or on rare occaisions, landed back, at which point when a long antenna touched the surface, the mags were cut off and up elevator selected.

Three survive. One under restoration in the USA. The Salisbury Hall static exhibit (front cockpit showing test dial etc shown below) and the sole flying example which lives at RAF Henlow, owned by the ‘Beekeepers’ syndicate.

If you need to know more – I can recommend a very good Haynes Tiger Moth Manual !!! 😉

Correspondence has been forwarded to “Rusty Tack” for further investigation!

Also, does anyone know anything about the book entitled “Bring Back My Stringbag”? I was thinking of giving it a try if it’s a good read.

Despite the cheesy (and contentious) title inflicted on the book by its publishers, Lt Cmdr John Moffat’s book “I Sank the Bismark” is an excellent read on the flying of Swordfish in all weathers.

It is probably a bit far away for you PhantomII, but John is acting as a guest speaker and carrying out a book signing at the RAF Museum, Hendon in a few weeks time. PM me your details if you wish and I’ll get you a copy!

Try http://retrotrackandair.com/

PM sent.

Bicester works well, but does require a thorough briefing of any powered aircraft pilots so they understand the principles of operating from a gliding site.

No overhead joins are allowed. All aircraft must join via the downwind or extended base leg to allow a good lookout to be kept.

All take offs or landings are made without crossing either the winch cables or the centreline of the glider approaches. If the cables aren’t laid into wind, there is still usually enough airfield to allow non-conflicting approaches and departures to be made into wind.

If you land with the cables between you and the hangars, you simply backtrack to behind the launch point and cross there.

If radios are carried, we normally make blind calls on the gliding frequency, but most operations are non-radio.

Blooming right I do. I know I fly with open cockpit, but even in summer will wear gloves.

My aeroplane may only have a humble 62hp, but I figure if it all goes pear-shaped, it will burn just as hot as more exotic stuff.

Imagine an in-flight fire somewhere on the airframe. A metal control column is going to get blooming hot, just when you really need to be in control!!