not the most reliable source concerning the Falklands – see how the PPRuNers, a few who were involved at the time, feel about Sharky – a little too close to the Lord Flashart for comfort. “let’s sit ye down and talk about me” There are better, more ballanced SHAR books out there

Certainly the guy seems to have a high opinion of himself, guess that goes hand in hand with the job to an extent though, certainly true of a lot of the UAS people I knew at University! If the PPruners are RAF or ex-RAF though then I wouldnt consider them to be objective either. The truth maybe somewhere between the two versions of events. I too know of some guys who served out there, mainly ex-RN and they havent had anything adverse to say about him though. May just be a case of inter-service rivalry!

Planners are the least rational people I have ever had the misfortune to work with. They read rules and regulations and apply them with little or no regard to the big picture or the impacts of their decisions.

Totally agree with that. Also very nice to hear that someone actually wants to reduce the number of houses! Wish they’d do that down here where I live. Perhaps one day we’ll be in a position to buy up and demolish housing estates and build airfields on them 😀 😀

Merely what I was told by the guys at Brooklands. You could well know better.

By ‘Full Runway’ do you mean 580 metres?

Moggy

I have just checked http://www.vc10.net and it seems some trees and lamp posts did have to be removed, but beyond the runway threshold, so not sure exactly where. It approached from the south and by “full runway” I meant the runway as it used to be, pretty much from the Byfleet banking up until the loop at the north end, rougly at the end of the railway straight of the former motor racing circuit.

At some point between ’87 and ’94, Wellington way – an access road to the industrial and retail sites built on the former workshops and hangars west of the runway – caused the runway to be be chopped in two and that itself has trees and lamp posts along it, making approach even harder. Somehow the One Eleven 475 and the Vanguard landed on this reduced length runway! Obviously now theres no runway at all 🙁 I think Mercedes are supposed to be providing a grass strip so the museum can do a couple of fly ins. I’m not sure what length it will be – or where it will be for that matter?

I have had a request from someone associated with the flying Shackleton (P1722) in South Africa. He would like anyone in Cyprus who might be in contact with the owner who is reading this, to get in touch with him by email or phone:

[email]henkhugo@shackletonproject.co.za[/email] or +2782 354 0922

Not a great heli fan, but my vote has to go to the Cierva W.9… who’d have thought us Brits were building NOTAR ‘copters back as early as 1944? 😉

http://avia.russian.ee/helicopters_eng/cierva_w9-r.html

There was certainly a wooden mockup of the Hawker P.1121, a development of the P.1103 at Kingston and that was cancelled by Duncan Sandys White Paper. The P.1103 had a more F-16esque appearance.

Someone I know whos father worked on the design team at Glosters states that the thin-wing Javelin did have the horizontail tail… he remembers a model of it on their kitchen table as a boy all those year ago! However, as an engineer myself and knowing some of the shortcomings of the original Javelin, I can see obvious merits in deleting it!

Looks like I am a bit late into this one. R.J. Mitchell must surely be well known around the city due to the sheer number of things named in honour of him – a road, a bus, a wind tunnel at the University, a bust in one of the university buildings, a memorial plaque in Woolston near the site of the Supermarine works and of course with the Spitfire mockup at the entrance to the airport.

As far as Southampton Airport’s name goes this is an interesting one. Yes a lot of people call it “Eastleigh” because this is the nearest town to the airport, however, as far as I know it was only known as “Southampton Eastleigh” from some time in the 1980s until 1994. With the new airport terminal opening in ’94 it became “Southampton International” and photographic evidence from 1981 shows it to be simply “Southampton Airport”. Prior to this it had been variously “Southampton Municipal Airport”, “HMS Raven” or “Atlantic Park” back to the early times of Aviation.

The main road running through the airport, Mitchell Way, was previously named after a US Navy officer; Lt Cdr G.C. Chevalier who had been the first CO of “Naval Air Station, Eastleigh” from 1918 to 1919.

Getting back to the concept of naming in general, I do prefer locations, although names arent too bad so long as they have an aviation collection. Think its been covered already, but Liverpool Speke was simply named after the local area. I believe the large house just north of what was the “link taxyway” between the old and new airport sites is also called “Speke”, as was the British Leyland factory that used to be situated just to the north of the present terminal site.