Seems like a good idea to me. I was one of those who hadn’t bought in advance of last years September show and I missed out on seeing the Lancasters as a result.

Perhaps online booking and home printing of tickets up until two or three days (assuming availability) before would be better than two weeks which is current policy.

Also, if it’s rained off then surely there could be a small compensation made? Perhaps some of the difference between general admission and airshow ticket price – the major cricket venues can do it in bad weather if there is no play.

BBC are forecasting showers with sunny spells Sunday afternoon – the day I’m going.

The Seafire just flashed past my office window on departure from Bentwaters. I guess it’s heading to Duxford (although I don’t know that for certain as my work here is not connected to aviation) so cameras at the ready to our regular diarists!!

Cool thanks,

apologies to all for hijacking with a non-diary item. It didn’t seem significant enough for it’s own thread though.

Working on Bentwaters Parks has some advantages. I was lucky enough to witness ML407 and the Seafire taking off in short order on Wednesday afternoon and a further flight yesterday from the Seafire, the noise was fantastic. Due to restrictions here the rest takes place at high altitude or away from the local villages so I’m not going to get a sneak preview of the Flying Legends display!

Unfortunately photos aren’t easy as I’m behind a chain link fence on the wrong side of the airfield.

Well done to all involved.

For example

http://www.frontlinedevelopments.com/

People are less snooty about them at such levels though because less money is involved!

Fair enough, Jaguars aren’t really my area of expertise. I’m more of an MG man.

So there were original ‘Lightweight E-Type’ Jaguars?

I must have got the wrong end of the stick from the part of the programme that I saw; how close are these new-build ‘Lightweights’ then to the originals?

Yes, if you didn’t see the whole program. There were 12 special factory built Aluminum bodied E-types built for racing around the early years of the series 1 E-type. They were raced by the factory and had mostly professional drivers, so if you own one of the 12 then it’s likely a famous works driver of the early sixties raced it at some point and now you can buy a Spitfire or Mustang for less (gratuitous aviation reference)!

As for originality it’s not easy to tell. The originals were handbuilt and will all be slightly different depending on their racing history, repairs and modifications when in works or subsequent private hands. What we can tell from the program is that the sub-contractors (not mentioned by the program) employed by Jaguar Heritage had access to as many drawings as available and attempted to build cars to those drawings.

There is more to it than just Lord March being able to state ‘we don’t allow replicas’.

Goodwood races (and most other historic meetings of the type) are sanctioned by the FIA and the historic motor racing bodies within the FIA umbrella. In order to gain entry into an FIA sanctioned historic race meeting, the car has to be as it raced in period and homologated by the FIA and given a historic technical passport proving the car is as it was when first raced. The only deviation from this is the use of modern roll cages, seats, seatbelts and driver equipment (overalls and helmets). It may be possible to take an original road car of the period and turn it into a historic race car based on available FIA homologation but you cannot get a passport on a car built during 2014 or 2015. It has to be built in period.

Although there is nothing to stop you building/buying a bodyshell and building a ‘dataplate’ period car – but that is a whole different can of worms and no-one is expecting the new lightweights to suddenly develop a new data plate