Vampires used to be considered common as muck, but they have never been as common as spitfires!
It is difficult to ration airframes or stipulate who saves what. At the end of the day, we need to endeavour to save representative examples, a sort of WWF endangered list…this was what was aimed for by the BAPC’s National Aviation Heritage List: equivalent of Noah’s Ark….any others are a bonus.

Someone mentioned the Lasham collection and the aircraft’s future…well, it is fair to say that if Bob and the chaps had never saved them in the first place, there would be nothing for us to worry about the future of.

Happy birthday to you Sir!

(and to you too FB!)

Excellent series!

Really enjoyed it….the Rhodes-Moorhouse colour footage and archive was amazing….Andy, methinx there is a book in there! Family at War – One Familys personal Battle of Britain…..get writing.

The Johnny C o c k outer wing was lovely! As was the spade grip…I suppose another for Mr V’s collection?!

Are they planning to put it all on a DvD?

I thought most beaching gear used ground equipment road wheels and tyres.
John

i know thats the case on the restored items i have seen. The tack i was taking is that the tyre is very narrow indeed. Now that needs us to cast our net wider…I was wondering how a non amphibian Cat could get ashore per se.

Anyway, with that discounted, it makes me think about other types using Sumburgh during the war. We should not lose fact that RAF aircraft could use tyres from the US (if short)….a bit like my He111 tailwheel with its Dunlop tyre!

At Sumburgh, they used Dragon Rapides for comms flights, airlines for mail runs and sometimes a HP Sparrow

originally I thought it might be Catalina nose wheel, but the width is a tad thin!!

The tyres tend to be extremely rigid, so when inflated, unlikely to be hugely wider.

RAF Sumburgh did not have many types serving there that could fit the bill, well I cannot find residents that fit the bill. I did wonder whether it might be from a beaching trolley (The sunderland used dual wheel beaching trolleys), sometime Cats would use them too.

I agree! Colour film is awesome and brings it home to us youngers gens….when I was a boy I thought the war was fought in black & white!

This is fascinating stuff. My grandfather joined 210 in 1942 and in November went to Gib.
Coincidentally, I am up to this part of his memoirs. Just after they got down there, his friend Ted Sleigh died in a porpoising accident (swell related).

That depends on how much new faces cost!

snip!

Bruce

I do faces for Spits! Also do full replica fuel gauges…fine for static cockpits and stupidly cheap!
Note to Bruce and mods….I am not touting for ‘business’ – other suppliers are available….just suggesting that other options are available!!