Thanks for the lovely photos Paul.

Lovely stories there Ian, and great photos – loved the Spitty too! It was great catching up with Andre mid week sometime in July and having a very close inspection of the powerful girl outside as well as a lucky climb inside as well. Amazed how cramped it is in there for 5 + 1 people. The Tornado is looking very spiffing and near new – well done Andre – a great lot of prep and then the top coats. I have some photos of her too from different angles, so I need to post on Flickr and then load in here… 🙂
Graeme from New Zealand.

Andy Salter is now advertising on Facebook for an engine fitter to assist with a project of international interest. It is said to be a long project and not very well paid 🙂 LOL!

https://www.facebook.com/andy.salter.54?

Also see on his page in his photos, there is the bold picture of one of the Sabres – all shiny black. Comments there indicate it is his next big project.

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The image was not blocked so eds if you deem this is inappropriate, then delete, as people can follow the link and view for themselves.

I am so enthralled this is getting closer!! I have seen a couple in the museums in UK – Solent Sky has a complete engine and a cutaway MKVII? at Duxford IWM – one with water/methanol injection.

Yes Baz, still planning the itinerary with map images – I have one for Coventry 🙂 I have two Airshows and Formula1 within three weeks contiguous… sort of locks down those weeks and whatever short inter-week journeys we can squeeze in. And yes there will be plenty of photos!! Looking forward to seeing the Shackleton there and the Victor and Nimrod plus others up at Elvington too!!

You might think I was daft, but as C-GVRA came in over Scotland, Inverness then down to Lincolnshire, it was 1-2am in the morning here in NZ and I was watching the path on FlightRadar24 both on the cellphone in 3D and on the laptop with the overview map. This shot was epic for me… Except the weather for the last hour of the journey was very different to what I saw via Google earth mapping!!!

P8090008 by suthg, on Flickr

Graeme

Thanks for that – we do have one flying regularly in NZ and stationed at Ohakea Air Force Base. Quite noisy and fast – the Ghost engine. The Sea Vixen was quite a bit bigger with the powerful Avon engine.

I see there was one from management there (or acting as a visitor) the chap with the blue and red top just watched most of the time 🙂 Good job guys! Hope to be there June next year to see you all and the girls of course!!

Kiwi

James, I have pm’d an historian in NZ for information on your grandfather. Hopefully he can share some detail on his efforts in the war for you.

As an edit, he said that if you have anything specific about his establishment in the RNZAF and history leading up to his final sortie then he can probably hep you. He has a lot of info in his book(s) he has written on (all?) RNZAF staff who were active in WWII and still has resources on tap.

That family name Atkinson, was in my local country district in Sth Wairarapa but they had links to origins in Christchurch too, just sth of Hagley Park.

Graeme