Yes, I probably didn’t express that very well. What I intended to say was it avoids giving so much information that it persuades people who could visit that they don’t need to as they’ve see enough on the website. Paying visitors are, of course, the lifeblood of small non-government-funded museums such as Tangmere.

I do take the point, though, about those who can’t get to the museum and I’d be very interested in any suggestions to improve the service the website can give to that category of “visitor” without falling into the trap mentioned in the first paragraph.

Pete

I had a feeling that I’d heard it before and, on dragging out “The Battle of Britain Volume 1” CD, there it was on track 9.

Unfortunately the booklet describing the tracks was no help; all it says about the date is “Recorded near Crowborough, Sussex in August/September 1940.”
PP

Yes, It’s a great archive but very difficult to find things. The page you’ve flagged up is from about 10 years after the introduction of airways to the UK and deals with the re-alignment of Red 1 (later to be renamed Red 1 North) and the introduction of Blue ‘X’ which became Blue 29.

All this began to change again from the 1980s with the ever increasing use of computers for en-route navigation. First with the removal of the colours from the airway names and the use of just the first letter of the colour so Green 1 became G1 (spoken Golf 1) Blue 29 became B29 (spoken Bravo 2-9) Amber 25 became A25 and so on.

Then intersections had to renamed with just 5 letters (VORs and NDBs already had 2 or 3 letter abbreviations) which led to the loss of such wonderful reporting point names as Killintringham Point, Blackhead Light and Abeam Lichfield East.

Finally, all those lovely low numbers the UK had as the first European users of airways were lost in the late 90s and early 2000s when the airways system was renumbered so that first airway Green 1 ended up as L9, Blue 29 as L608, Amber 25 as N864 and so on.

Great shame but all done in the name of progress.
Pete

Speeds are those reported by ‘Captain Speaking’ so some are IAS, others ground speed.

Hmmm… I think you’ll find they’re probably all ground speed. Just applying some simple rules of thumb to your 600mph IAS on the Gatwick to Dallas flight (and assuming a cruise of FL310 which was a good westbound level in those days) gives a True Air Speed (TAS) of roughly 985mph (855kts) or Mach 1.3! Rather slow for Concorde but a little too much for a Boeing 747, I think. 🙂
Pete

The ambassador looks stunning!

Yes, doesn’t it just! Even better than it looked in service – Gatwick, May 1969.

P.

…shame she no longer sports her blue scheme but at least she is in good hands.

Yes, the blue scheme was considered for its respray a couple of years ago but pragmatism carried the day. It was felt that the grey would be less likely to show the effects of weathering and, as 29 Squadron were willing to offer practical help, that’s the scheme it now wears. The blue scheme is still there, though, burried under a couple of layers of grey!
PP

Seems a odd place to send a harrier.

Not really. Although mostly civilian -Swanwick is home to the civil London Area Control and London Terminal Control Centres – it’s also the home of the RAF’s area control services for England and Wales. The boys in light blue do love their gate guards and a Harrier is as good a symbol of their presence as any other military aircraft, I guess. If I recall, the gate guardian at their previous home in West Drayton was a Lightning.
PP

In 1954 the 100 pound per hour flying charge is equal to approx £5,874 in todays money based on average earnings.

Just to make it clear, the £100 I quoted was per engine hour so the hourly cost of each Lanc using scotavia’s figures would be about £23,500 and £11,750 for the Wellington and Varsity.
Pete