As I mentioned in a previous post, it was MK959 for me too, but I can now post the photo as well:

My best guess is that this was sometime in the fall/winter of 1989, it had just been placed back on the pole after refurbishment. The gear was retracted a few days or weeks later.

I guess the first one I saw was MK959, then still on a pole outside Eindhoven Airbase, The Netherlands. I’ve got a photo somewhere but I haven’t scanned that negative yet. I’m currently working my way through several years of negatives, running them through a decent scanner one at a time until I get bored of it again or my better half starts objecting to the mess on the dining table.

One I did scan is the image below. I’ll argue that this is the first time I saw a Spitfire in its element. A lot more impressive than seeing one stuck on a pole!

This was its first foray outside the UK after restoration, with Dan Griffith flying her to Leeuwarden for the 50th of 320 Sqn. This photo was taken on the way back (13 June 1993) somewhere over The Netherlands between Leeuwarden and Rotterdam (I wasn’t really paying attention to the route I’m afraid).

I took the photo below a few weeks later on 2 July 1993, when it was back in The Netherlands for the Airforce Open Day at Eindhoven.

Indeed, it was built to test the fuselage structure under different pressurisation and temperature conditions. I’ve got some info and photos on this test section here: http://www.vc10.net/History/Individual/testspecimen.html

So fuselage-wise Brooklands has 2.5 VC10s, but they’re short on wings… 😉

Archer;cavitation; look at the photos of any heavy prop job on a moist atmospheric day on take-off…

No, that’s condensation, a sudden drop in pressure which causes moisture in the air to change phase from gaseous to liquid.

Or listen to a Harvard/Texan!

And that is the result of local supersonic flow over the prop blades, which because of the sudden change in pressure can cause condensation.

Cavitation is the situation where the local pressure in a liquid drops enough to cause vapour bubbles to form, which then collapse.

Have a read through this thread: http://forum.keypublishing.com/showthread.php?t=117969

And welcome!

Yes, there are several survivors already, but the ones at Brooklands and Duxford do show a lot of corrosion. The fact that non of them will likely go inside in the near future is somewhat worrying.

Indeed that is worrying, and it would be a shame to discount them and move on to the ones coming from the RAF sometime in 2013 (if current plans are to be believed). The Super VC10 at Duxford is the only one which is preserved as an airliner and therefore a unique example. Both the Brooklands Standard VC10 and the Hermeskeil one are in VIP fit, and the C1K which will go to Cosford, as well as the one which will stay at Bruntingthorpe will be tanker/transport variants. So that’s three (or four) different VC10 versions. As the VC10 was originally designed and built as an airliner I wouldn’t mind a bit of attention for the civil VC10s preserved in the UK. I prefer to look at it from a different angle: the ones which will be delivered to the museums in the future will be in good nick and will therefore be safe for a while, it’s the ones already preserved that need our attention now.

Chris, you may want to buy his book: http://www.spitfiresurvivors.co.uk/

Cannot see anything when I click that link, the forum requires me to register first. Could you explain a bit more, or provide a different link to the images?