Various

Damyns Hall, Waddington , War and Peace, Hylands House, War on the Line

Great story thanks for posting maybe not 100% accurate but thats not the point really is it :rolleyes:

If you collect WWII British aircraft parts, Alan’s books are a must, they are without doubt the best and most comprehensive available.

Got about half way through this book last night. The thing which struck me were the incidents of friendly fire, how tragic, as if its not hard enough trying to stay alive only to be shot down by your own side.
Clearly IFF did not work that well, surely controllers on the ground would have known that flights of friendly aircraft were in the same area and warned to watch out for each other.
I like the way both sides of the story were offered, one Spitfire closing on a Hurricane to 150 yards and still not recognising it.
Its also quite incredible that so many Pilots remained with their aircraft forgotten in unmarked graves.
Still being at school when many of these were recovered I have only been on licensed digs where the crew have been recovered and have marked graves.
The Military remains act seems to me a bit strange, a license is refused where remains are known to exist, why in this case hasn’t the MOD excavated these sights and given those airmen a decent burial?
Its a great read and clearly one heck of allot of back breaking research has gone into it, to my mind it raises allot of questions on the morality of the present licensing system and the authorities attitude towards our lost heroes.

I think I would prefer to bring it along to Shorham and get it signed in person, god knows how many fake ones are out there on eBay. I was offered a genuine Andy Saunders autograph the other day, I am sure the 1940 combat report it was written on was genuine but the signiture looked decidedly dodgy.:diablo:

To some extent I can understand their position from a purely commercial point of view. Hauling a Spitfire around is an expensive proposition and very hard work. You cannot just rely on volunteers. I need two trained staff to set mine up, they have to paid wages if you want them to turn up reliably. They have to be fed and watered as well as accommodated. On top of that I need two vehicles, a lorry and a 4X4 these both have to be taxed, insured and maintained. Then you have fuel costs. Inevitably things get broken and need repair. In my case I also have to carry out regular maintenance on the engine and moving parts. There is very little profit if any, the first season we made a huge loss.
This does not even start to cover the cost of building the thing in the first place.
The fees charged will just about cover running costs as long as you don’t get any major break downs how ever this can quickly evaporate.
In the case of an organisation like the RBL I would doubt the Spitfire would raise much revenue after expenses.
Displaying a Spitfire is not a commercial proposition its more about having the interest and enjoying the events you attend.
Saying that I fully understand the feelings of the volunteers that built the Spitfire clearly more research should have been done on the revenue position before committing its members to thousands of hours of hard work.