Nah! The tropical filter looks good on the V. The XII has a nose too short for a proper Griffon and too long for a Merlin, it’s kind of halfway. The tail is too small for the nose, and the four blader looks all wrong on a Griffon. It has the pointy rudder in combination with clipped wings, and the asymetric radiator is too small for a Griffin Spit. Out of the whole Spitfire family, which I otherwise love without exception let me say, the MkXII is the one they should have locked in the atic and fed on bread and water. Back to the foxhole. :rolleyes:

🙂 We need more people with such a great sense of humour on this forum. Almost had me believing him for a minute there….

R5868, now in the RAFM, was on the Scampton gate from 1960 to 1970. She was at Scampton (though not on the gate) from April of 1959 and of course had also been there 17 years earlier!

The claim of 1958 gate guard in the story looks incorrect then.

Malcolm, I think, in the circumstances, your comments are bit harsh. This forum is a discussion place as well as a historic database.

it was very lonely standing on the Tank bank

That was a long walk!

Both parties knew that to remove the glass wall had a cost and the Client accepted that when a major renovation or addition was in view this cost needed to be added to the budget..however they took a value judgement as to whether or not the value added by this solution to the building overall was sufficent to justify this additional financial cost to the operation of the building.

The IWM decided it was and the glass wall was built.

All very interesting, what was the alternative to a glass wall? I was not party to the discussions at that time but I would guess that the alternative had to be a door of some kind, which to make transparent would have been prohibitivley expensive. The glass wall was surely a compromise, the ‘client’ making the decision to reduce initial capital outlay but with the knowledge of expense later when the need to move large objects in/out.

Was Spencer Flack any relation to the aviation writer Jeremy Flack?

IIRC – no.

Paul,

I think you are making general remarks but in the context of a specific (and respected) organisation and a particular aircraft. It would have been advisable to look in to the specific cases your are making these statements about in a little more detail before making your posts.

The narrow track undercarriage that is seen on both the ME109 and the Spitfire make them difficult to control (especially on grass airstrips)

The narrow track u/c did not make things easier but you may be over simplifying things: Black Six was normally only operated off grass in order to assist with directional stability. Spitfires will generally track straight on landing with little tendancy to ground loop. The issue with the 109 and directional control was, I am told, mainly to do with a lack of rudder authority at the start of the take off run when the tail was still on the ground. Neither aircraft are helped by cross wind conditions of course, although that was usually not a significant problem in the days of large grass airfields where you could just point the nose in to wind and go.