It’ll be quite hard to hide once I get it home so does anybody have any suggestions as to what I should tell the wife?:o

Tell her that it came with Issue 1 at the introductory price of £1.99 and that you’re intending to build the whole model….!

I’m only in my early 30’s so my memories don’t go back as far as some here, but two early memories spring to mind.

The earliest was when I was about 5 and was suffering form a nasty bout of chickenpox, my parents (I think in an attempt to take my mind off it!) drove my sister and me to either Waterbeach or Mildenhall, parked up in a country lane where we watched the Vulcan do an air display, some distance away. I can still see it in my mind’s eye, the most amazing sight, but also the sound crackling off the pine trees that were between us and it. I’d never heard anything so lound, and perhaps hadn’t until this year when the F15 came directly overhead at Duxford with its afterburner on. I think that was in 1984.

The second, which again, I can still see in my mind’s eye was at Duxford – my dad had just bought a short wheel base Land Rover with a hard top and we happened to be driving past Duxford at the close of (I think it was) the Spitfire’s 50th Anniversary airshow. We sat on the roof of the Landy, parked in the naughty field at the end of the runway as 24 (?) Spitfires took off one after another. What a sound and sight that was.

I think it was the second experience which got me totally hooked.

I thought I’d share a few pix from today’s “pre-bedtime bath” for Sally B ~ she’s timetabled to go into Hanger 2 for winter maintenance on Tuesday Nov 1st 🙂

Removing the wing tips was the first thing on the agenda …..

Cheers for the updates – really interesting!

Just out of interest, do you know how the wingtips are attached to the B17 – are they having to drill out rivets in that pic, or is it easier than that?

Keep the pictures coming 😉

This is a very interesting thread – I’m really enjoying seeing the pics and watching the story progress, the only thing is, are you sure that this isn’t a war grave that you’re uncovering?

Maybe the winter would be well spent finding out which aircraft this was and if the crew got out.

That aside, I can’t wait for some more updates….

Thanks for the pics – very interesting images.

Looks like you were the only person at Duxford today!

We were out in Cambridge today and saw G-AKIF (The De Haviland DH-89a Dominie based at Duxford) on a circuit over the city at about 2:30 this afternoon. It was nice to see it away from the airfield for a change.

Cheers for posting…

Cheers for those Andy – I particularly like the first one of the Harvards flying together and the last one of the Spit.

I wasn’t able to be there (got free tickets but can you believe that I had to go to a birthday party instead???!) so your comprehensive photos are most welcome.

It strikes me (from reading this entire thread) that the positives of this situation are that although it’s no longer flying in the UK, at least it’s hanging up away from danger in a heated and relatively stable atmosphere, where one day it can be taken down and returned to the air, where it should be.

Surely better that than it being kept outside or crashing / suffering damage or deterioration in some other way.

It’s also nice that they’ve not done this to it:

That’s a superb Stirling model, and the P-51’s are pretty much spot-on, too. The people inside are particularly well painted.

😉