Well, it was refreshing to see some of that footage – less lazy research, more genuine period film from roughly the right place and time -with only one FW190 letting the side down.

Holland is an odd one – a clear-thinking and plausible historian who has obviously applied intelligence and rigour to his work, and yet someone still prone to being selective when its axe-grinding time. As I suspected, he brought his ‘109 is better than the Spitfire’ thing to the table once again, this time adding some very misleading statements about ’55 seconds of fire’ in his keenness to prove himself right on this one.

And did anyone in Germany really laugh at our radar technology? Granted, the UK and Germany don’t always share the finer points of each other’s senses of humour, but..

Generally, though this surely was a cut above the ‘ooh, look at me, I’m famous and in a Spitfire’ programming that generally passes for historical TV.

And as ever, seeing and hearing those veterans tell it like it was was the most valuable part of all for me.

Apparently it was thought to be a replEca. Not a replica at all.

Never mind the bizarreness of the commentators, the journalists themselves are illiterate.

Nice summary there, Andy.

I can add my own fourpenn’th – I was a teenage member of the Severnside Aviation Society and while at first it was, for some, a trophy hunt the man at the helm – a certain Allan White (lovely guy, and someone I’d like to track down) – was a historian by instinct who – if I was reading things right at the time – himself lost his love of aviation archaeology because of the ‘race to collect’ aspect. In fact, I recall he was hesitant about digging a certain Spitfire site because, as he said at the time ‘what will we learn from it?’. I was only 13, and baffled by this.

I remember this because it was the first crash site that I had found myself through investigation – N3026, a serial burned into my brain – and felt quite hurt!

Maybe we have all grown up a little since those days. As for human remains, it is a phenomenon how much more sensitive we have all become in 30 years – I’m sure any old aviation archaeologists of that period will recall practices and occurrences that would read very badly today.

OK, daft question, but.. The Goodwood Harvard belongs to the flying club there and operates as a training aircraft. To fly in it, one books a lesson and obtains temporary membership of the flying club. Thus, a non-passenger carrying aircraft according to CAA rules is able to completely legally convey members of the public for money, as they are NOT passengers but student pilots.

I’m curious – is this a potential model for a two-seat Spit operation? Only hypothetically – I’m not suggesting that anyone does this or should do it in the future!

As I understand it the rule is that paid-for (ie ‘commercial’) trips in a Spit are not allowed in the UK (as the Spit is not defined as a ‘passenger aircraft’), but passenger carrying where there is no such financial arrangement is no more illegal than in any other aeroplane – ie, the usual qualifying laws apply. I suspect a paid trip for the purpose of flying training (where the aircraft is operated by an accredited school and is flown by a suitably qualified instructor) is exempt from this ruling, but I’m only guessing.

EDIT – sorry Robert, our posts crossed. Yeah, this was what I meant by ‘the usual qualifying laws’. But I bow to you, sir – you have the references to hand (and know where to look).

Thought I’d better justify myself!

The spar web is wrong for Hurricane outer wings – there is a zig-zag lattice effect on Hurricane metal-wing outer section spars while these are ‘solid’. The spar web does look right for hurricane centre-section, EXCEPT that on a Hurricane there would be tubular booms above and below this web, and in between centre-section front and rear spars there were not ribs with lightening holes as here, but instead a network of tubes.

Also, the airfoil section is wrong, and I don’t recognise those access panels. Not sure they are gun access panels, Graham, as there are no visible gun ports in that section of leading edge.

Not brilliantly helpful, saying what it isn’t! But it avoids red herrings 🙂

I don’t understand why an ’empty’ airfield is a problem. Just two groundcrew attending the aircraft – as another poster has mentioned – seems perfectly ordinary from the little I know. I presume they were Rigger and Fitter. It doesn’t have to look like an Airfix groundcrew set box-top to be authentic. Maybe I should watch it again to see what the objection is..