It’s easy for the blokes. Female, alive, attractive, human = horny

Not necessarily! 😉

Somewhere on the web there is a lovely shot of south pan taken from a Nimrod taking off, you can see the the two T.19s parked next to each other

Oooh, if you find where that is, do let me know!

Dayglow – well yes, the dayglow orange on the Canberra TT18’s was painted, but it was Fablon strips on the T19’s. Easy way to tell the difference is if it is applied as strips – if it is then it’s Fablon. If it’s a broad area or fuselage/wing bands like on the Mk.18, then it’s painted.

I’ve only ever seen that one photo I mentioned of a T19 with 7 Sqn markings applied. They both had the blue circle and black codes applied (I remember them and had a couple of snaps way back then which I’ve long since lost – aargh!) but the other shot was floating around on the web for a while. It’s an air-to-air shot of the starboard/front side. But the only place I see it now is on NAM’s site, and someone has erased the tail markings. I presume they did this because they’re obsessed with local units so they probably wanted the photo to look as if it was taken whilst with 85 Squadron. Nice sentiments but a bit annoying that they had to “doctor” a photo to do it!

You’re right about the mixture of T4’s of course. The ones that languished up on the dump illustrate that some just kept the markings of their previous units!

Why denigrate “armchair experts”? Surely if they can spot a flaw in your work they’re more qualified in the subject than the inept author who’s too lazy to check his output.

Congratulations on your heroic ability to completely miss the point! :p

http://www.abpic.co.uk/photo/1052455/

I’ve authored twenty books or so, and if you want my advice, I guess my main point would be to aim for historical and technical accuracy. If you plan on exploring aviation subjects, you can be sure that unless you stick to facts, you’ll spend your life deflecting flack from thousands of “armchair experts” out there. Far better to maintain accuracy or (alternatively) just make sure that you avoid describing specific aircraft, places or people, etc. Either way works – just don’t mix the two!

Interesting stuff!

Have to agree that it will always be runway 13/31 as far as I’m concerned!:p

As Pagen01 says, the Victor photos are in the Warpaint Victor book. Oddly enough, I’ve never seen the pictures published elsewhere so they must have been languishing in Alan’s collection, unseen, for many years. I don’t know what’s happened to Alan’s photographs collection since he died – hope the pictures haven’t all been lost. Maybe Richard Caruana might know?

Indeed, I believe SM’s ORP is unique in being developed from WWII spectacle dispersals.

Interesting to hear that Vulcans deployed there too – I’ve only ever seen SM listed as a Victor dispersal site (I think Humphrey Wynn also listed it in his huge book somewhere). Certainly never seen any photos of Vulcans there, just the Victor photo which was (as guessed) taken by the late Allan Hall. Somebody out there must have some snapshots?!

I presume the old NE/SW runway was abandoned when construction of the Nimrod pans was initiated, sometime around 1968? I remember talking to a local who remembered a U-2C being deployed to SM and he claimed that it had done at least one approach to the old runway – but I can’t imagine when that would have been. I assume the shorter N/S runway (leading to the south pan) was abandoned even earlier? Having said that, I remember seeing UAS Bulldogs taking off on it in the 1970’s.

St.Mawgan never ceases to fascinate me. The last time I visited I pointed-out the old Shackleton rails in the hangar floor to one of the Sea King pilots – he’d never even noticed them before! All that history and now it’s just sitting there rotting away. Sad business. What’s happening to the hangars and HAS’s these days? Anything?