Intresting comment about the IWM Lanc and Bristol Fighter – shame they couldnt of been available on the flightline.

If your displaying at a public event then your expected to have your own public liability insurance, for a flying warbird its a ridiculous amount for premiums to have for example £10m coverage. The organisers have their coverage for things that might be attributable to them, I doubt very much if they will take on the additional risk of exibiters displays – If im wrong I’ll be first in the que to see if they’ll cover our warbird as well!
I suggest that you establish your total costs for attending, work out what you feel is a fair amount for the organisers to pay you and then agree with them a fee eg your fair and reasonable costs. You should include entry for yourself and assistant as a matter of course. Most organisers are helpfull, if they expect you to do the whole thing at your cost so that it benifits their event then if you go or not is up to you.

Re NIMBY’s at kiddlington, we displayed a Spitfire there last year for the Messier Dowty families day – whilst the display was still taking place a complaint arrived! The complaint was that ‘some idiot hooligan pilot was roaring up and down over his house frightning all the neibours and it looked like it was about to crash….’ When told it was a Spitfire doing an authorised display he replied that he knew what a Spitfire looked like and this was no Spitfire! His wife then apparently interviened stating it was indeed a Spitfire and that she had seen one here before – slight pause on the phone followed by ‘Oh if its a Spitfire and he will be finished in the minute thats ok’ – phone put down!
The irony of the compliant is that the person (apparently a regular complainer re aircraft noise) has had the police visit several times following complaints from his neibours about him riding his racing motorcycles ie non silenced, up and down the road and with no tax, no insurance and helmet!

Sorry to see the end of Langford Lodge – happy memories of flying in there with PT462 a couple of years ago for the Open Day, vividly remember the location of the church which was nearly in the middle of the airfield! Hope everything works out well for you chaps.

As MkV has pointed out the seat fittings are identical between the low and high canopy versions however other major differences is that on the high bubble canopy versions a) the canopy is a wind back type a la P51 and b) the instrument panel is set higher up so that when the Instructor had the seat raised he still had a reasonable view of the instruments. The draw back apart from the lack of view forward on the low canopy is that even with the seat on its lowest setting you are hight resticted to a person of 6ft (certainly on longish transit flights).
It would of course be possible to re-engineer the seat mechanism however you would then run into the CAA regarding modifying an orginal fitting with all the hassle that would involve eg stress examinations would be required on the revised seat brackets and fittings, the necassary ton of paperwork to fill in etc etc.
MkV – God that was a hot day in those immersion suits!!

Thanks Mark V – your services are duly noted and may well be called upon in due course!!

The current paint work was carried out in the States and doesn’t seem to please everyone(!) however it is very thick and will take a large amount of effort to remove. I think £8k is fine for a YAK but I’d be surprised if the owner had much change out of £15k for a strip and respray.

Zwitter, all contributions towards a repaint gratefully accepted! They are not cheap and as the baulk of the airframe paint is not showing any fade at the moment the owner would rather put the money towards the ever esculating insurancerunning costs.

Daz, yes he does – on a stand in the hallway.
Never been fitted to an aircraft,only ever test run. But as Bruce said it will have to have the full overhaul if it was ever to go into an aircraft that was set to fly.