As far as I know,G-RORI has never been owned by Dave Roome,although he has flown it on a number of occasions,many of those whilst it was still on charge with the RAF.She’s currently owned by Delta Jets.

To ‘Tally-Ho!’ into the Goodwin Vs Walton debate,I have to say I’m firmly on the Goodwin side.I bought the BofB soundtrack from Amazon a couple of years back and it has the Goodwin score along with the unused Walton stuff.To my mind (or should that be ears?) Walton’s score wasn’t flexible enough and some of the pieces are a little bit too ‘playful’.Goodwin’s music is more ‘punchy’ and dramatic whilst also being pretty catchy and it is also more varied and flexable,enabling it to be used throughout the film.Doing the same with Walton’s music would’ve been a bit repetitive and wouldn’t have had the same impact.
To my mind,Goodwin’s music is part of what makes the film such a classic,with pieces like the Luftwaffe theme (Aces High) being particular high points,and who can forget the RAF theme cutting in as droves of Hienkels smack into the North Sea?I’m not at all sure that Walton’s music would’ve made that scene as memorable.
The one piece of Walton’s which I’m glad they kept is ‘Battle in the Air’,the piece played over the top of the final dogfight scenes.
As I’ve heard it,the makers of the film were going to drop Walton’s music entirely,but Lawrence Olivier (a friend of Walton) threatened to withdraw his involvement in the film if atleast one or two bits of Walton’s were not used.They made a wise choice over which piece to include! 🙂

Last I heard,the DH Museum at London Colney were working with a chap up in Scotland with the aim of building a static example. I expect Bruce can tell us more…
Nice pics 🙂

It’s great news that the sponsorship deal is continuing if you ask me.I can sympathise entirely with Philo’s feelings,but she simply wouldn’t fly (in the UK anyway) without sponsers.
It would be nice to see her in an RN scheme (who wouldn’t like to see that?) but the day we see her in it will probably also be the day she’s grounded.It’s flying in a ‘tacky and horrid’ paint job or no flying at all-I know which I prefer!
As it happens,for one reason or another I didn’t get to see the Vixen last season,so haven’t seen her in these new colours,so in a way I’m glad I still have the oppertunity to see for myself.Hell,it’s a SeaVixen,I can’t imagine that I won’t enjoy seeing her fly. 🙂

The Mossies used in Purple Plain were done up in a very similar way to those in 633 Sqn a decade later.The perspex nose caps were overpainted and dummy Browning muzzles were stuck onto the nose.What you get is a split screen Mk.34 or 35 Mossie (with astro-bubble on top of the canopy) which looks superficially like a fighter-bomber version. (Fighter,fighter bomber and trainer versions always had flat screens and never had an astro-bubble.)
I read somewhere that the aircraft in Purple Plain were only dressed up in this way for a couple of days-they were fully operational aircraft and so there was no time to lose in getting the aerial and airfield scenes done and getting the Mossies back into thier usual configuration.

The back seats of both those Mustangs are empty???! Next time that looks like happenning,gimme a call Yak…;) 🙂