Thanks, I wrote them to give thanks for keeping me abreast of the current aviation news and to continue the good work. Aviation isn’t always pretty and the pictures like the Spirt of St louis are great learning tools with a lesson to the wise. Furthermore, the only way they would have been wrong was if they would have shown the body after the crash.

Get over it! Those types of pictures serve to remind us of the ever constant danger of flying and to remain vigalant maintaining and constructing Aircraft. Check, Recheck and tripple check maintenance items. It’s to bad the gentelman bought the farm but not to learn from it is the real tragedy.

Joe : British aircraft maintenance is not above bubble gum and bailing wire to fix planes. I stand by what I said. If an maintenance item is not in the log book, IT DID NOT HAPPEN. So you will find no proof. Low strut, Leaky actuator, flight controls misrigged high oil consumption, worn tires you name it . Seen it all the time in Brussels. Line work is much different than Hanger work. If it flew in, It will fly out is the term I heard often. I have seen CAA inspectors that wouldn’t know a Rivit from a Hyloc but they were sure good with the paper work and you better have it in order. There are alot of flea bag airlines on the brink of bakruptcy who will turn a blind eye to broken items just to keep old worn out pigs like the Belfast flying and keep the money coming in. The mechanics know if the plane doesn’t fly the company doesn’t get paid and if the company doesn’t get paid they are out of a job. Furthermore, I wouldn’t exactly call going to a museum to retrive an engine with 50 HRS left a good maintenance practice! So you had a good trip once to pick up another pice of junk. So What? The Belfast belongs in the scrapper with the L-188 . Why paint it ? You can paint dung but you can’t take the smell out.

RE: Shorts Belfast

Another inflight Failure? Sounds like the Bean counters were very wise to cancel the Belfast program and save the RAF from itself. I would sure hate to be on a mission with an aircraft I could not depend on to get the troops critical cargo. The Belfast just isn’t dependable enough or able to carry the weight the distances newer aircraft can. Not to change the topic, Zantop has sold all of their Convairs and DC-6’s and is still operating a few L-188 but they are very rough. They run them untill they need major inspection and then they park them. They are just using all of the life out of them for that last dollar.

RE: Shorts Belfast

Euro Politics and RAF was awaiting newer aircraft. It would not exactly look good if the ( FEDEX )yanks were hauling us around would it! Heavy lift got the planes for relativly little to nothing and ran them to death performing very little maintenance untill a heavy check was due and then they parked them.

RE: Shorts Belfast

Probably because they were Junk! It is a wonder they are around this long and most should have been sent to the scrapper long ago.

RE: Isn’t it about time Sally B was repainted.

You can make one airplane look like a whole fleet in Hollywood! I worked in Chino and helped in several aviation movies. They use waterbased paint to add squadron markings and nose art and when they want to switch they simply take a water power sprayer and wash it off. Of course if you were to leave it on and fly threw virga or rain it would come off. We always had to retouch it after each flight.