Seriously unimpressive response by the emergency services 🙁

If I were in a burning aeroplane ( ie a more serious incident than this) I would hope they could be there before almost 2 minutes had elapsed.

Surely they should be suited up, in their wagons, beside the runway, and rolling within 10 seconds.

Stumbled across an Aeroplane Monthly from 1989 ( B17 on cover- Memphis Belle filming) .

There is 2 page article on the Skyhawks team by Joy Fraser, with some nice air/airs.

Have you seen/got this ?

If the idea grows in the public consciousness that this aeroplane is in some sense suspect, and that prejudice in time becomes received wisdom in the ‘industry’, then its value (£) will be down-graded commensuatly.

I do not suppose the project was instigated purely with a profit motive, but if the value of the article is driven down by public disdain, this surely erodes the motivation to make any more, and that would be a great shame.

This is not ’emperor’s new clothes’ syndrome, and nobody need pretend anything is other than it is, but too much ‘putting the boot in’ may have unwanted consequences.

Nah – Henlow of course 🙂

Or why not sell the Spitfire and commission a 2nd Hind as well as the Demon- that makes even less sense :rolleyes:

The foremost concern of the Trust is, I imagine, to maintain commercial viability and keep the public coming, as without sufficient revenue, there can be no airworthy collection.

The views often reflected here ( hard-line Hamas of the aeronut movement 😉 ) are not neccessarily those of the broader public, and whilst we might wail about the loss of Jean Batten’s Gull , to many people it is a boring silver Proctor, and by no means a crowd puller.

Sure, they have some sort of a broad collection policy, but they are not entomologists pinning butterflies to a board, to be classified and arrayed according to nomenclature.

The whole point is that it is a living collection, and they should be supported in their endeavours to run it as a evolving, dynamic enterprise. There is a great British tradition of giving people what you think they should have , rather than what they want, and over the last 30 years our industry and commerce have been crucified for it.

A final thought, the summer season seems to get windier by the year, and whilst the ‘flimsies’ are cancelled and hangared ( yet again ) the Wildcat can be blattering round the sky,able to provide an airshow, that keeps the money coming.

FLY NAVY !

Visibility is not restricted.

Don’t expect to see that very often 🙁

A 2nd thread was started and again locked, today.

I think the perceived wisdom is that there is little further to say just now, apart from rather circular, uninformed and sensitive conjecture. What happened is now well known, and how/why will emerge in due course.

In general terms, I think the forum should not be gagged, but if members will not self-moderate at sensitive times such as this, then a bit of external prodding is to be expected.

Forgive my ignorance but is the Red Bull P38 the one that used to race at Reno called White Lightning?

If you want a bit of background info on this aeroplane, and the recent history which brought it to Europe, this is a very interesting extensive interview with Ladd Gardner, his training on flying warbirds, and the day he force landed it, thus ending its flying days in the USA.

Just a little bit here-

”As soon as I hit I remember going kind of uuaahh.. when I hit, thinking, ‘man that was hard!’ I hit the ground hard! I remember, actually before that, I remember coming along, the ground was coming up, and I remember it felt like I was hauling ass, I was going way too fast. I remember there was a power line ahead of me and beyond that, a whole line of trees, it was thick woods from that point on. I thought, ‘man I’m gonna go crusin right across this field right about a foot above the ground and just go sailing right into those trees underneath those power lines!’ So I reached and grabbed the flap handle and thought ’maybe this’ll slow me down’ and the flaps didn’t come down but that’s OK, it worked out better. I just kind of nosed the airplane over a little bit and just kind of forced it onto the ground.”

http://www.aafo.com/racing/history/white_lightnin-1/index.html