If you contact Hannant’s of Lowestoft, they produce a model paint Xtracolor X014 “Red Arrows Red,” which is matched to BS381C:537 “Signal Red,” and they’ll tell you if it pertained to the Gnats.

Look on it as a job-creation scheme; think of all those gas-fitters we’ll need, to fit gas mantles back into our homes, in place of electric lights, and the return of the man with the lighted taper, needed every night to light the gas-powered street lights. Quite what they’ll do with the London Undergrouind, and the new all-electric railways, of course, remains a mystery.

He missed the word “selfish” from between “careful” and “experienced.” Any emergency vehicle, trying to use the outside lane, could be held up by somebody passing his mobile roadblock at 75, but he’s paid his road tax, so the road belongs to him.

Sad news, my commiserations to the myriad of other classic jet operators in the UK. 🙁

What a sad, mean-minded response; has it never occurred to you that seeing the Vulcan fly might inspire others to provide backing for an airframe in which they do have an interest? No, I thought not; it’s far easier to be negative, isn’t it?

took turns, 15 mins at a time standing around the Central Heating, a Candle one of us had nicked from a shop,

Being law-abiding, we had to wait for Mum to buy a 2d packet of Polos, then we all sat round her tongue.

Please do sent it over (you still have my email address?)

I don’t think so; having had my mailbox hacked, last year, I tend to delete “finished” messages, to ensure it doesn’t happen again. This may seem a little over the top, but one of the spam messages was received by the widow of a man who’d died from cancer three months earlier.

Actually what L.T.C and R.T.P stood for was my next question. The first 11 mods for this aircraft are all based on L.T.C minutes (and all class 2) so my assumption is they are pre-production modifications when the aircraft was still in the early prototype stage.

I’ve only really researched the Spitfire, but a class 2 mod could appear at any time (Spitfire mod 1013 “to strengthen engine mounting” was introduced on the Mk.V [due to the Merlin “M” type] as late as August 1944.) R.T.P. is an unknown, but “P” often meant “parts” or “party.”

But just to clarify some of the opinions presented – would the appearance of the Mod in the aircraft’s technical Air Publication indicate it’s actually being seen “in the wild” or is it a simple a notice to riggers that “you may come across this”. Is the date in the index cards where “Approval has been given” the actual notification that this modification is being put into place on all aircraft with the indicated priority class?

A listing, in the A.P., was just a flag, to indicate to the groundcrew, M.U. personnel, or whoever, that the mod existed, with the classification to tell them of its importance. Usually, there were mod plates, somewhere on the airframe, with the numbers stamped on them, so that the crews could assess what needed their attention. Index cards are out of my research “zone” (meaning I’ve never heard of them,) so I don’t want to hazard a guess as to their role.

the story my grandfather told was told to both my Dad and me without any prompting (and without either of us having any background knowledge of the subject) was “We took Spitfires to Malta and painted them blue with deck paint”, not a response to the question “When you took those Spitfires to Malta, did you paint them blue, and if so, was it deck paint?”. It was unprompted reminiscence. So I’d say the evidence stacks up quite well.

Eddie, it’s a sad fact of life that any new information can (and will) come up against the brick wall of those who (for whatever reason) don’t want to believe, and it really is best to move on, and tell those who have a genuine interest in discovering any new information, however disturbing it might be. Even if he’d read, and noted down, what was written on the tins, it would make little difference, in some quarters.
My father was in SHAEF H.Q. during 1944/45, and related to me how the Battle of the Bulge was not an all-American affair, as he was able to watch it unfold on the maps, including the troop movements, and (even though he loathed the man personally) was full of praise for Montgomery’s actions. This, of course, was long before Charles Whiting’s book; it would be interesting to see how many have actually read it.

It’s called capitalism.

Oh, get off; it’s called jealousy and greed, and the desire for something without actually working for it.