I was there that day and it was definitely 1987.

An air pump which supplies a continuous supply of compressed air to run your airbrush. They can be purchased from around £50 and can go up to £1,000 plus (depending on how sophisticated you want to get). They are definitely the way to go if you want to get serious about airbrushing.

Why not go onto the Revell or Badger web sites. You will find lots of helpful advice on their airbrush products.

As far as my situation is concened, my lack of skill with an airbrush is entirely down to me. I guess I’m just not meticulous enough with masking etc.

Challenger and Columbia were both lost so the survivors are Discovery, Atlantis and Endeavour. Of course, Enterprise still exists as a museum piece.

A number of airfields around the world are designated as emergency landing fields for Shuttles – the most important ones are Lajes in the Azores, Torrejon in Spain and there is also one in West Africa (Gambia?). The expected scenario is an abort in the climb to orbit as the Shuttle heads out over the Atlantic so that is why these primary diversionary sites exist in those locations. In reality, as the Challenger and Columbia accidents showed, a Shuttle accident tends to be catastrophic, resulting in total destruction of the vehicle and the diversionary sites are largely academic.

As for Homer and Buzz Aldrin, I don’t recall seeing that episode. In reality, the only pre-Shuttle era astronauts who flew on earlier generation American spacecraft (Mercury, Gemini and Apollo) and on the Shuttle were John Glenn (Mercury), John Young (Gemini and Apollo), Jack Lousma (Apollo – Skylab) and Owen Garriott (Apollo – Skylab). A number of astronauts who joined NASA in the 1960s expecting to fly to the moon decided to stay in the agency even when the moon landings and follow up missions were cancelled. These guys were obviously very patient, some having to wait 14 to 15 years before making their first space flights (Storey Musgrave, Gordon Fullerton and Bob Crippen for example).

I don’t want to deviate the thread too far from the discussion on the B-17D but for the record, the Space Shuttle fleet was/is as follows:

Challenger c/n OV-99
Enterprise c/n OV-101
Columbia c/n OV-102
Discovery c/n OV-103
Atlantis c/n OV-104
Endeavour c/n OV-105

Enterprise was used as a glide test aircraft in 1977, being launched from the back of NASA’s Boeing 747. It was intended that she would be refurbished and used for actual spaceflight. However, it was decided that the static test machine (orginally given the c/n STA – 099) would be easier and cheaper to convert and so this was the route taken. STA-099 became OV-099 Challenger. Enterprise was allocated to the Smithsonian in the early 1980s although she was loaned back to NASA after the Challenger accident to be used in runway barrier tests, which were conducted at Dulles Airport.

The Shuttles are not “registered” as such – the numbers quoted above are c/n’s (or probably more accurately) NASA fleet numbers.

Was that the one purchased by Court Line. They bought a Beverley in 1973/74 with a view to using it to ferry spare Rolls Royce RB211 engines around. Even to me as a teenager at the time this scheme sounded a little “half assed”. It was never put to the test as Court Line went bust in August 1974.

Sad to hear this.

I read “The Whitley Boys” a year or two ago and found it most informative.