David Gilmour – my sister once hatched a plan to marry him, simply for the guitar playing and the airy-plane collection.

There are more technically perfect players out there, but no-one with the natural ability to cram emotion into a couple of bent notes as he.. actually, I hate him! 😉

For the more folkily-inclined – Bert Jansch? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqjUWJtH88c

Makes one guitar sound like several playing off against each other. Hell of a trick to pull off.

Although I’m a new guy too, I just thought I’d say ‘welcome’ and wish you the very best of luck with the project – elsewhere forumites have already suggested Tuck’s story as one of the tales that they would most like to see on film. Of course, there are bits that the public will have trouble believing (if I remember rightly, there was a million-to-one tragedy involving him and – correct me if I’m wrong – his brother in law).

I’ll certainly be watching for your questions, eager to help – as I’m sure many here will.

I’m curious – as an amateur script-writer myself – how are you rounding off the story? Are you sticking with the timeline, which has Tuck happily becoming a mushroom farmer in Kent, or deliberately ‘topping and tailing’ to give dramatic shape, as per ‘Fly for your Life’? I’m not saying one is better than the other.

To have collected the port fin of the Halifax on the port wing of the F5 would have been difficult in a ground collision? The fin looks quite new (!)

To be fair, it would be equally difficult – if not more so – to do so in an air collision.

If the Halifax was – as per Badger’s quote – written off I would suggest that the Halifax was either taking off or landing with the F5 stationary in its path. Thus it had sufficient momentum to lose a fin and do some serious damage to leading edges and upper surfaces of the F5, and also the bottom of the tail as it was rocked backwards by the impact. This explains how the fin stayed there (as per my previous post, unlikely in the air) and why the props were not turning. The wheel tracks only show the F5’s most recent movements – almost certainly it was trundled away from a place where anything was likely to hit it again!

It would be lovely to believe the P-38 had miraculous powers, but I suspect there has been some myth-making going on over the years around this incident (the tale conspicuously lacking one thing – as bazv points out – a hero), and the truth is rather more mundane. However, I would be very happy to be proved wrong!

Fair point, Mark. You are right – so many documentaries talk of ‘Nazi troops’, ‘Nazi bases’ even ‘Nazi aircraft’.

However, in this particular case, it seemed a bit iffy as this was specifically a very senior officer’s dress uniform (not that of a combatant) from the Nazi period that he had chosen to wear to a public day out – gold braid, baton and all. I suspect it would be regarded with distaste at any German air display as well.

I’m sure they guy wearing it was clear on what he was commemorating.

Heston Racer? :diablo:

Just remembered that the Puffin book is simply a kid’s version of the official publication, from the same Ministry source – though oddly it does pre-date it. Other ‘time capsules’ still occasionally available in second-hand bookshops (though so much rarer now than twenty years ago) are wartime ‘flight’ magazines, and those beautifully produced, heavy-duty illustrated hardbacks aimed at older kids, (finest example: ‘The Wonder Book of the RAF, 1941’), including photos that don’t appear in any archive, just in hard copy in those rare tomes.

While I was overseas my landlord took it upon himself to remove and then throw away a packing crate full of this material. Lost forever. He said ‘But Matt, they were OLD, I didn’t know you wanted to keep them’. I am still in mourning, 12 years on, and haven’t had the heart to begin rebuilding. Moral: Cherish these items.

Wait, no, I have read further, and have a new favourite “Your official rules were the basis for my reasonable set of expectations, namely, my right….. to not be frustrated by people standing on ladders”

To be fair, ladders ARE a bit antisocial, and should be conviscated on entry. But this does read like a spoof.