Don’t know about the shutter speed..

From the EXIF: 1/2000 was the shutterspeed for the air-to-air shots. That will completely freeze most props but especially a slow moving one attached to a rotary. I guess the photographer played it safe, making sure that he got some good photos from this special occasion and leaving the minor aesthetic issues aside.

Great to see it back in the air!

Yeah, I remember that day. It was my first ever visit to Duxford and I had a great day. In the afternoon two planes returned from Spain (I’ve got a photo of them somewhere), the Buchon was not with them. We heard the news about Mark’s accident just before we left. I will always remember that.

In January 2007 Flight did an article on the FSTA and the related VC10 out of service date, which will move towards 2015, article here: http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2007/01/08/211431/fsta-delays-may-force-uk-to-prolong-vc10-operations.html

As for type numbers, the C1K indeed has the highest number 1180, see here for a list: http://www.vc10.net/Data/vickers_vc10_type_designations.html. Whether that should be considered as the ‘final variant’ is up for discussion I guess. Having the highest type number doesn’t mean that the airframes are the newest or sporting the latest technology. I’d say that the K4s, after the modification program in the early 90s and originally built as Super VC10s, might also be considered.

I’m biased though, I like them all 😉

Archer,

Yes, it was indeed dumped and later scrapped or broken up at the Miles site. It is highly unlikely however that one of the tailbooms ended up in a Dutch museum. As you probably know there is one original tailboom which is at the Militair Luchtvaart Museum, Soesterberg. It has been identified as being from a G-1 fitted with Twin Wasp engines. So this rules out the Vos/Leegstra machine. Pity, but we really need a G-1 reconstruction over here. The G-1 project is taking forever. All we have at the moment is a full size model (but a good one).

The G-1 gave a good account of itself but never could prove it’s worth. On the other hand it was already obsolete in comparison with the Messerschmitt which was over 50 mph faster (at least). But, as they say it’s all up to the person flying it.

Cheers

Cees

Cees,
That was indeed the tailboom that I meant, but it looks like I got my G.1s mixed up!

You’re right in stating that the design was dated at the start of the war, but as far as speed goes, that doesn’t decide everything of course. MiG-21bis’ question on which is the better airplane could be answered in favour of the G.1 on that account as its slower speed would give it a smaller turn radius. But as you say the man behind the steering column is a big factor.

I’ll second the need for a good reconstruction, let’s wish Pim Pouw (see link above) a lot of good fortunes and spare time! 😀

Edited to add: That’s one brilliant piece of footage you posted Tillerman! Many thanks for that!

I’d say that the first question would be ‘which hospital’. Today there are several and I’d expect that even then there was more than one. The old ‘Burgerziekenhuis’ (citizenhospital) is now a city council office for starters and I don’t know how many others there may have been.

Looking at the article on the VC10 in the September 2007 Aeroplane Monthly, I got the distinct impression that Barry Jones puts all RAF VC10s as having the long fuselage of the Super – e.g length of VC 10 C Mk 1 quoted as 171 ft 4 in.
Although having some of the Supers’ characteristics , such as the fuel tank in the fin and its thrust reversers , IIRC the RAF C Mk 1 Ten had a standard VC 10 fuselage length. (158ft 8in.)
Anybody like to clear this one up?

You are right, the C Mk.1s have the ‘Standard’ fuselage length of 158ft 8in. In the RAF fleet the K3s and K4s are long fuselage models, having been BOAC and East African Super VC10s in their previous lives. The now gone K2 models were converted BOAC Standard VC10s and therefore also had the short fuselage.

For more details have a look at my site here and here. There is also a good table of differences between the various RAF VC10s on Rick Lee’s website here.

There is a lot of information on these types on these pages: http://www.dutch-aviation.nl/ (find the ‘Civil aircraft’ list under ‘Anthony Fokker’). The photos are of the aircraft in Dutch service, but the information is quite complete.

So will your Cloudster be at Legends then? :rolleyes: