“Flying Dutchman”: Sorry that I had to start removing some of the pics I’d posted….some had even appeared in books with someone else’s credit (thankyou ‘MAP’ for doing that!).
I’ve reinstated the one you wanted to see again, slightly bigger.
Here’s my favourite shot, that truly beautiful KLM Super Connie, as she took off from runway 02 at Changi on the 18th March 1962…that’s the correct date 1962 not ’63 as I had written before. The ‘invasion of Brunei’ took place in December 62.
My photos are available as 210×297 (A4) prints by the way and that book I promised is coming when I can complete the ‘research’ I need to do!
david
My first visit to both Newark and Cockpit Fest. What a great experience it was!
I stayed over (thanks TwinOtter) and therefore also experienced the wonderful ‘social evening’ that is a regular part of Cockpit Fest. A great beef supper and lots of chat with the ‘cockpit community’ that has been produced by you all.
Bill O’Sullivan Howard Heeley , Mike Coombes and all the team at NAM, by allowing a freedom that surely can’t be experienced anywhere else, have made this such a great relaxed, fun event that I can’t praise them enough.
Also Ken Ellis needs thanking for his major contribution in the event.
The standard of cockpits is absolutely amazing and I think the winners like Tony and Trevor really should be employed by our ‘major museums’ to save those tatty cockpits that often grace the exhibits there!
I wanted to post some pics but since I was mainly shooting video, I need to get some screen grabs from that.
I’m going to be capturing some of the ‘top cockpits’ with proper lighting kit soon I hope, so will try and post some interiors then.
Bill with Tony Collins, who this year produced Scimitar XD235, which was equal to his previous ‘winners’ Sea Vixen XN651 and Hunter F1, that he also once more brought along.
Both NAM and the Cockpiteers do a great job in getting a new generation interested in aviation. This is one of the 2 Jaguar cockpits, which were wonderfully displayed by the Boscombe Museum.
Canberra fans were very well looked after this year.
Aircraft bits galore at the Aeroboot. The place to find those missing bits for your cockpit project.
The BBMF provided a Dakota flypast on the Saturday and the Lancaster on Sunday. I got a great sound recording of the Lanc…pity the ‘music ‘kicked in half way through though! I must start a ‘we’d like to hear the engines please’ thread, aimed at airshow organisers!
It was also good to see the Shackleton Association set up beside WR977. So I got to get inside a Shack again after all these years.
Many thanks again to the brilliant team at NAM.
David Taylor.
The Comet C2’s with day-glo bands appeared to be doing normal Transport Command runs…well I can’t remember anything special about them that is.
Although these pics of a Comet 2 arrival only show a ‘crew bus’ waiting to take the crew to the ‘Transit Hotel’, no coaches for a plane load af ‘pax’.
This is XK715 arriving on the Changi pan in 1961, with the dayglo on nose, wing tips and fuselage band.
Day-glo in the early 60’s was always ‘painted on’, but by about 1963 all sorts of RAF types began to get the, to my mind, rather ‘tacky looking’ plastic stick on day-glo. Made them look like they’d come from ‘Woolworths’!
The Comet C4’s of course had ‘more sex appeal’ with their extended front ends, and they were just too pretty to get day-glo anyway.
David T.
I’m coming along, for both days.
No cockpit alas, but I have new Hi-Def video kit and with a past history of sound and video programme making I’m going to get in the ‘cockpiteers’ way and try and make a little documentary about the event and the people that work so hard to keep these older aircraft alive for us!
I’m also pleased to hear from TwinOtter that the Shackleton Association will be present.
It’s 48 years since I was last in a Shack, so I’m hoping to get some Shack stories from them.
David Taylor.
I always thought the ‘Interdictor’ cockpit made the Canberra look like a more lethal machine.
However I don’t know how it compared to the B57 versions.
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Air Commodore P.J. Wilkinson states in the book ’Cockpits of the Cold War’ (Boston Mills Press):
“Those pilots who had the good fortune to have flown (or still be flying) the B(i)8 or the PR.9 will all agree that those two developed versions marked a major step forward in cockpit terms.
Up on top, under a fighter-type canopy, the pilot had a much better view. Role equipment, for either bomber or reconnaissance versions, and associated instruments, all had moved a step forward from the World War II feel if the early Canberras. The stick top, although still fixed on the right-hand element of a “spectacle”, had all the “**** and knobs” that a fighter aircraft’s single stick provided. Nevertheless, the basic Canberra cockpit, as on the T.19, gave the pilot a relatively simple working environment and, with crew co-operation, the aircraft had all the potential to be an effective operational system.”
David Taylor.
Longshot:
You asked about Cravelle F-BJAO.
Last time I looked for info on the web I discovered that more than one Caravelle seemed to have received that registration…very French!
I had the same problem hunting for info on another demonstrator I photographed at that time -Boeing 737 N7003U. It also seemed to have been registered to more than one airframe.
Back to Comets: 216 sqn had some T2’s, but some of the C2’s carried dayglo noses and fuselage bands. I guess they were used for route training?
Here XK671 ‘Aquila’ is in normal Transport Command and XK716′ Cepheus’ has the day-glo, as indeed does XK697 at the start of this thread.
Mind you I think a colour scheme can make all the difference to how an aircraft looks. I love the ‘Raspberry Ripple’ on some aircraft, but in Keith’s pic of XS235 I don’t think it suits the Comet as much as the Transport Command scheme.
Likewise I don’t think BOAC colours were as good on the Comet as say on the Boeing 707.
Here G-APDK taxies past RAE’s XN453. This is Paya Lebar, Singapore’s previous ‘International Airport’.
David
DT
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