Polished aluminium looks lovely. For a few weeks at least – if the effort of removing heaven knows how many layers of paint and polishing her would be a serious undertaking, the ongoing maintenance would also be quite time consuming.

Another aspect to consider would be the increased vulnerability to corrosion that the lack of paint would leave the aeroplane open to. Ok for California, but not anywhere like England!

Paint it and be damned – I’m not polishing the bugger! For info, SV will be painted as well and not polished.

JC

I think the flying controls may be fitted over the coming weekend (unless Dave has been busy fitting them during the evenings this week). But as far as I know, no ground runs have taken place yet and neither (quite obviously) has the flight testing.

I assume RA will be doing the work this weekend as she has seats. And a Floor. As well as a complete set of uppy downy sidey sidey flappy bits 🙂

You forgot the ailerons Merlin 🙂

JC

*SOB*!! I’m quite overcome 🙂 Doesn’t she look luvverly..

Well worth all the effort, and well done to the paint crew!

JC

I’m sure there’s a similar story in Tumult in the Clouds by James Goodson – Not sure of the pilots, but it may have been Kid Hofer or Vic France picking up their flight commander in a P51.

Kid Hofer also used to take his German Shepherd dog (Duke) flying as well – to the point where the Kid used to put his seat low and formate on an unsuspecting Spit or similar. To all appearances, the P51 would be flown by a dog…
One of the greats – shot down in one of the last major fighter confrontations of the war, possibly by Hartmann (who shared similar trates to Hofer).

JC

To drag this back onto track (which from me is a miracle in itself), the traditional antagonism between England and France stems from the fact that we’ve been at war on and off for the best part of 1000 years.

As for hate? Nah – mutual distrust and mickey taking maybe.

JC

Whatever bacame of the proposed remake of Father Ted starring Steve Martin ?

Now that might just work!!

What I don’t understand is why US big business is so scared of offering shows that are successful here in the UK in their original form. They seem to assume that the viewer is unable to grasp that there is a world beyond the US national borders.

The fault lies with executives being too scared to take a small risk, and being unable to understand that Red Dwarf IS Craig Charles, Robert Llewylyn, Chris Barrie and Danny Jon Jules, The Office was Ricky Gervais and the excellent cast. or that John Cleese was Faulty Towers and Dads Army was Arthur Lowe et al. The humour lies with the chemistry among the performers as much as the writing. Take that away, and all you’re left with is a load of words with no character.

I’ve recently read Peter Cook’s assembled works and to be truthful, they’re not that funny without the great man’s delivery and timing.

I rest my case 🙂 It’s not the American people’s fault their broadcasting companies think they know whats best and are scared of taking risks.

NB: Married with Children was a cracking US show that was terrible when remade here – again the actor who played Ed Bundy was the core of it, and without him it was nothing.

JC