I’ve just found a couple of very interesting Fairey Rotodyne clips, one without sound and the other a full Fairey promotional job. It’s amazing to see this thing in flight, just watch the pattern of smoke from the rotor tips as the tip jets fire up in flight! It also shows the Rotodyne doing some heavy lifting work with a pre-fab bridge slung underneath! Such a shame there’s only a few bits and pieces left of her today.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9633v6U0wo&mode=related&search=

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pv6Gr2mLo1Y&mode=related&search=

Ok, make that one of only two survivors worldwide.:o Thanks for the correction, it’s nice to know there’s another. 🙂

I was born and raised in west London, just a couple of miles from Heathrow and right in between the approach paths for runways 27L and 27R. As such, aeroplanes were constantly going by and although I was aware of them I can’t pin point an exact point at which I started noticing them. My general memory is of lots of very noisy, smokey airliners going by (this would be in the early-mid 1980’s), things like Tridents, DC8’s and B707’s. Ofcourse Concorde was always the one thing that everybody noticed, and she always got plenty of attention from me and anyone else who happenned to be around. Seeing (or hearing!) Concorde three or four times a day made you take her somewhat for granted, but she was always worth a glance at the least. Oh to be in a position to take Concorde for granted again!
As a slight aside, apparently an airliner nearly took the roof off the West Middlesex Hospital while my mum was giving birth to me there. The story goes that the crew had mistaken the lights of the Great West Road for the runway lights at Heathrow. Does anyone know of an incident that matches this description on April 6th, 1980?

Lovely build John, I’ve never built a Tunnan before but now I think I’ll have to give it a go. 🙂

Thanks Dave, I’ve just found the Anson post on your excellent forum…

http://rnzaf.proboards43.com/index.cgi?board=Airshows&action=display&thread=1170316665

She’s a real gem, it’ll be great to have an early Annie back where it belongs. 🙂

[QUOTE=Dave Homewood

Isn’t there a Fiat G-59B flying in Italy too?

There should be an Avro Anson Mk. 1 flying here in NZ by the end of the year, much prettier than the late variants still flying.[/QUOTE]

The G59B is Pino Valenti’s I-MRSV. She was badly damaged in a landing accident about 5 or 6 years ago, but according to a thread over on WIX she’s just back flying again. 🙂
Could you elaborate on the Anson story Dave? An airworthy Mk.1 restoration is (very good) news to me. 🙂

Whoever said the new owner was Peter Monk obviously spoke to Aeroplane Monthly aswell, the latest issue of AM states the same as Classic Wings

How about the moustachioed Week’s Sunderland?

From what I’ve been hearing, it would be ambitious to describe her current condition as airworthy. She hasn’t flown for a number of years and she was displayed outdoors for a good while too. She would need a fairly substantial amount of work to get her fully fledged once again.