Contrailling into the sunset – beautiful!

Charlie

The dreamy music / love theme used to accompany the aerial sequences is “The World is Mine” by long established Hollywood composer Victor Young (one of his last compositions – he died in 1956, a year after the film’s release).

The Bristol Freighter at Woodlyn Park is NZ5906 / ZK-EPC (c/n 13059, ex G-18-113), not NZ5909 as asserted above

Thanks for the clarification. The photograph in the link from the Daily Mail page is not particularly sharp and it looked like 5909, but with the explanation and photos above I stand corrected.

As it’s NZ5906 I attach two photos from my album of 5906 – again taken at Gan in 1958. From the state of the engine nacelle it looks like it was burning oil at a horrendous rate, but perhaps that’s normal or Freighters!

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Roobarb

I have a whole load of old slides needing scanning

Depending how many slides you have it may be worthwhile considering getting them scanned to DVD professionally.

I was faced with a similar task of wanting to get my collection of over 1,400 35mm transparencies dating back to 1954 into digital format, and have over the years used a variety of scanners it is clear the main problem when using a home, perhaps semi-professional scanner, with many slides to scan is the element of time. What with blowing dust off the originals, positioning them on the platen or in the transparency holder and then using the scanner’s software to do the processing and then perhaps afterwards having to use a photo digital editing program to remove blemishes, improve brightness, correct faded colours etc. etc. It can take an age to just do maybe a dozen slides, added to which if one scans in at a reasonably high resolution, the scan and process time can go through the roof.

Anyhow I had my 1,400-plus Kodachrome 35mm slides scanned in by a local photographic dealer who claimed that his Fuji slide scanner cost over £15,000. When done I was more than happy my scans which were on three DVDs.
My other transparencies, several hundred Ektachrome large format 2½ x 2½ inch slides I had to do myself with my current scanner, an Epson V700 Photo which does a superb job. It comes with colour correction / colour restoration software and “Digital Ice” software which automatically removes scratches, dust flecks etc., but using these features adds a considerably increased processing time penalty. It does 35mm slides too, but the professionally scanned versions are equal in quality IMHO, but without me having to do the hard work.

I also have a Plustek 7500 AI scanner with Silverfast processing software, but it doesn’t have an automatic slide feeder and needs time to get the best results – the Silverfast software is good and has a particularly long learning curve.

To show you how well my slides dating from 1958 have survived, have a look at pages two and three in the link below (posts # 13 to 24).

http://www.airfieldinformationexchange.org/community/showthread.php?3639-MALDIVES-Gan/page2

My very first colour transparency I took whilst I was stationed at Biggin Hill in 1954 and shows this 41 Sqn Meteor F8 – not too bad for a nearly sixty-years old slide!

On 8th October 1953 whilst I was on disembarkation leave, having just returned from two years at 5FTS (RAF Thornhill), S. Rhodesia, I visited London Heathrow to watch the start of the London to Christchurch (New Zealand) air race and took some photos which included two of the competitors, the first licence-built Royal Australian Air Force Canberra serial number A84-201 and a Viscount.

The background shows the girders for the new ‘Europa Building’, which was actually the first true terminal building and was opened by the Queen two years later in 1955. The higher girders outline what I think is the ATC control tower under construction.

Also attached is a newspaper cutting showing the line-up of the race competitors.

To my recollection there were no other military aircraft on show at LHR at the time. Just the race competitors plus the usual civilan traffic, although I must admit I did take a flight in a DH Rapide that operated from LHR’s central area and was doing a good trade in local flights – I paid my 7/6d and was flown over the Thames at Hampton Court – I still have photos in my album I took on this flight.

Well the DVD of the movie clearly shows the title as “The Dam Busters” as does my Eric Coates CD where his 1954 composition is listed as “The Dam Busters March” – not “The Dambusters”

I think the air and ground crews are all quite house proud. A leak is cause for investigation anyway, to find and stop it at source.

Look at some of the early Shackleton MR1 and MR2 with the stub exhausts and you’ll see they can get very dirty

I think the 42 Sqn ground crew gave up on this one that I photographed at the 1954 ROC “Recognition Day” at Biggin Hill.

Sadly this Shackleton Mk2, serial number WL743, of 42 Sqn, St. Eval (Cornwall) went missing on the night of 11th January 1955 and is assumed to have collided with WG531, also from 42 Sqn, south-west of Ireland. It was declared Cat.5 (Missing) the same day. In total eighteen crew died, nine in each aircraft.

What a great photo! I bet there weren’t many people taking colour photos in 1953 (not in Britain anyway).
Jim

Well a year later I was at Biggin Hill and took my first foray into colour photography. 41 Sqn Meteor F8 and 41’s Vampire T11.