Is Naiad a mythical nymph?

It gets confusing with all the mergers that took place in the 50s and 60s. We ended up with oddball nomenclature such as Rolls Royce Olympus and Rolls Royce Proteus.

Conscience?

Rolls Royce started calling their aircraft engines after birds of prey with the World War One “Eagle”. We then had the more famous ones – Merlin, Kestrel, Griffon and the not so famous Goshawk, Exe, Peregrine and Vulture. They decided to call their jet engines after British rivers (Derwent, Tay, Trent, Dart, Nene, Tyne, Avon, Conway etc) Then they gave up on the river names and went down the boring “numbers” route – RB162, RB211 etc. More recently, the rivers have been resurrected although rather than find any new river names to use they have decided to recycle some of the old ones (Tay and Trent). Why have they never called an engine after the Thames or Severn I wonder?

Bristol engines were named from characters and places in Greek and Roman Mythology – Perseus (Greek), Taurus (Roman), Olympus (Greek), Centaurus (Roman), Pegasus (Greek) etc.

De Havilland seemed to call all their engines “Gypsy” – which was slightly coinfusing.

Napier were totally random, – Dagger, Sabre, Nomad, Elland.

Armstrong Siddeley named their engines after big cats – Jaguar, Cheetah,

“Waste of money” for a start. The same model can be bought a lot cheaper all in one go – according to others on the forum. And of course, you cannot afford to miss an issue – as each issue contains some vital components. One of the complainants on TV last night did miss an issue. They tried ordering the missing part for the Subaru from Di Agostini and they are still waiting after 18 months.

Why not go out and buy the big 1/24 Airfix Mk 1 Spitfire. Looks fantastic and less likely to end up in pieces.

This has just been featured on BBC TV’s consumer affairs programme, “Watchdog”. Generally, the concensus appears to be that it is a “bad idea”.

Two years ago they did the same with a Radio Controlled Subaru Imprezza model rally car. Some people are still waiting for missing parts!

Not today, I’m afraid. I will have to do a search first in my slide boxes to find the correct set.

The planes were put on static display at two airshows held at the Powerscourt Estate in 1977 and 1978. As it was not too far from where I lived, my friends and I took local buses (too poor for cars in those days) to the estate for the airshows. The estate was, for a long time, owned by the Slazenger family (of sports wear fame etc) and they operated a private strip in the estate grounds. A number of other Blue Max planes were displayed along with the Pfalz (an SE5A replica and a Caudron if I remember correctly).

Without wanting to sound disingenuous, I think if you’re building it for a chap aged 85, I’d be inclined to go out and buy a kit in one go – and then buy him a subscription to Flypast (or even the “other” historic aviation magazine) with the excess you would have spent on the Spitfire Mag.

At the age of 85, there’s a strong chance that he may not be around to see the finished item if you are buying it over 50 issues (that’s over 4 years!).