‘135 W’ – 135 Wing? Once owners of MH434, ML407, etc.

PPS, Trent Aero, HFL, WoGB, TFC, Harry Stenger, Charles Church, Airframe Assemblies, Ambrion Aviation, Franco Actis, Craig Charleston, ARC, Aerofab etc etc built!:)

I see. I thought you were talking about historically accurate, factory-applied position. Sorry about the confusion.

RAUT (Polish, rather old fashioned) – PARTY, esp. EVENING PARTY
Very fitting for an old lady.

More likely in Malta, I suspect a Mk VC originally fitted with two 20mm cannons per wing and then had the inner cannons removed and perhaps two outer .303 Brownings fitted.

Quite. The question is, why they chose to remove the inboard cannon, not the outboard? And there were many more like this.
Or, more generally, when the armament was standardised in Mk IXs etc. as 2×20 + 4x.303 why was the inboard station chosen for the cannon, not the outboard? After all, the installation like here allows to get rid of the extension tube, saving a little weight (and probably a little drag as well). And of course the switch to (e) wing would be so much easier later on.

Only very slightly off-topic: AVM Park inspecting fighters on Malta.

3rd May 1998 saw what was effectively a ‘Diamond 16’ led by Rod Dean

Can’t locate any photos from 2000, but found this of 3/5/1998.

Ian,
The first question that springs to mind here is: was he told he would be promoted to W/Cdr (permanent rank) or was he told that he would be appointed to a post which entialed the acting rank of W/Cdr?

This is a photo believed to show two Polish Spitfire pilots on 302 Sqn’s MA843 WX-F, one of the numerous Spitfires in MA800-MH400 serial range that seem to have been built from the outset with the ‘single chimney pot’. To me the cannon here looks like perfectly standard ‘C’ wing unit, certainly without the distinctive ‘B’ wing ‘chimney pot’ on the wing leading edge. The photo was taken at Northolt during late September or early October 1943.

Off topic, the sergeant near the fuselage is Alfred Krzysztof Wlodarski who had flown operationally with nos. 315 and 316 Sqns. He was subsequently killed in an accident while ferrying Typhoon IB JR127 on 14 July 1944.
The F/Sgt near the cannon is Kazimierz Benzinski, who served with 302 Sqn and then joined the RAF after WWII, flying Spitfires well into 1950s. During his service he flew several survivors in Polish or RAF squadrons: MJ783 WX-F and MK959 WX-F in 302, TB863 in 691 and 17 Sqns, and possibly also VN485 in 80 Sqn in Hong Kong.