Shame 🙁
http://www.airliners.net/photo/UK—Air/Avro-698-Vulcan/0911727

I was based at Valley from early ’84 to late ’87, and sadly the vulcan deteriated quite quickly. this photo was taken in about 1985, and as yo can see the nose has been burnt.
Sat near it was a shackleton (i don’t have the number, but it should be easy to find as i believe it used to be the gate guard)

Also in the dunes there should be the remains of a Hawk (XX180 from memory), this aircraft crashed after hitting birds whilst doing rollers at nearby Mona, after the board of enquiry the remains were dumped over in the dunes.

I think there’s going to be a rough date where after which aircraft are just too complex to operate on limited budgets. At the moment i think it’s around the mid 70’s.
Most frontline aircraft built after this have a lot of complex systems like fly by wire and fadec engines etc, lots of complex avionics, and more lately composite structures. Most of this stuff was/is hard enough to keep reliable when you have the full resourses of an airforce behind you, and i think it may well be beyond the scope of most private companies.
Yes, you’ll probably have the odd individual who will fund a single example of a particular aircraft that they have an affinity with, yes, you’ll have simpler types like trainers, but i think the days of having ex frontline aircraft are long over.

Hi Baz, yes, I’ve seen that as well. I think it’s a variation on ‘Steam Pigeon’.

A general observation; there’s the nicknames which an aircraft is known by it’s users – the Blunty in the RNZAF, the Meatbox by most users and so on.

Names like ‘Heineman’s Hotrod’ make good copy in magazines, but aren’t what the crews, air or ground, use, and thus I tend to suspect are just viral myths living in threads like this and publications. They might have a brief or introductory use, but are vastly over-rated in discussions like this. “Oh, that’s the ensign eliminator” might be said by one airman introducing a type to another, but less likely to be used in everyday parlance. In that case, anything over a single word length is unlikely.

Commonwealth forces tend to be derogatory – affectionately or otherwise.

Cheers,

i think i’m kind of with you on this one, there are nicknames you use when you work on aircraft, but then you’d read a magazine article and find they are called something flash, that nobody who works on them has ever heard them called!.
some people from ‘outside’ use the nicknames to make it sound as if they are in the know.

there are some nicknames listed on here for aircraft i’ve been involved with for many years, yet i’ve never heard of them!

just because it rhymes and is a bit funny, it doesn’t make it a nickname!

Physical violence has sometimes been on their agenda, too. But thats another story. However….they must be doing something right as a leading light there was awarded an MBE for “…services to aviation history”.

would you care to share with us why that museum has a problem with you.
it must be quite a problem if they ban members of your family.

are you in some sort of dispute with them?

Oh for gawds sake….. all these sat’ images were taken years ago… literally !!

The Phantom is (was) F-4J(UK) ZE361, scrapped in 2001. :rolleyes:

EDIT: And for the teenagers amongst us… yes CORGI did make a model of it.

.

i was about to say it’s not there now. you can see that part of the airfield from my Mrs house, and there’s definately no aircraft there!

David Burke,

There are many things that can contribute to the Tornado MDC inadvertantly going off.

One is, as I expect you are referring to, the MDC Layshaft which is immediately behind the Pilot’s seat not being correctly aligned, thus tripping the MDC as the canopy lowers. This is indeed checked on AF BF TR’s and is clearly marked with a painted line.

Another is for the guide bracket located on the Port side of the canopy rail to have been deformed, and therefore trip the MDC cable, causing the MDC to detonate. This is also called up to be checked on AF BF TR with a 6″ rule, for squareness.

Finally, it was discovered that the aircrew theirselves can inadvertantly fire the MDC by accidentally catching the MDC handle with their harness straps. This lead to Tornado groundcrew having to take shelter during the see in proceedure as well as the see off proceedure, due to a high profile (in RAF terms) incident, whereby a Navigator unstrapped and his harness snagged on the MDC cable, causing the MDC to fire as the canopy raised.

All of these incidents however, overlook the most common cause of inadvertant MDC explosion, which is of course, Human Error!!:D

Flipflopman

Please excuse the thread diversion, but what sort of timescale are you talking about with these MDC detonations? early 80’s or 90’s onwards.
When i worked on Gr.1’s in the late 80’s there was no checking of anything with a steel rule, it wasn’t even part of the tool kit.
Hawks had similar problems with MDC going off leading to lineys hiding during canopy opening and closing.

Ok back on track, i’ve got a nice hub cap off a RAF Tristar, another off a C-130. A RAT ACC panel off Hawk xx180 after it crashed, various sundry cockpit lights from a Tornado, A Valiant nosewheel spanner, the nose off a 3kg practice bomb, half a mainwheel from an AH-64. various cockpit wander lamps from C-130’s.
Building a kit car, and tinkering with race cars tends to lead to magpie tendancies…. you can always tell when a car that has someone involved in aircraft looking after it in the paddock.!

[QUOTE=Spectre130;1223173 (Different engines, and the E model used a GTC vs and APU, and some other minor changes)
[/QUOTE]

it’s a bit more than ” some other minor changes” !

that newer aircraft doesn’t look like an ‘H’ model herc to me, more like an ‘E’ model.