Wow! Fantastic work. Um, I say, I have this Escort 75 van – 10 years old now and becoming quite a classic, but a bit scabby and faded. Do you ‘do’ Escort vans by any chance… ? She’d look nice in sea grey.

Hey Bob!

You old cynic! 😉

How many web designers, (this one probably not really being paid top-dollar for his work?), include ‘hacks’ and work-arounds to accommodate different browsers.

Noise and animation is another matter, but it still isn’ t at all bad, IMHO. At least he’s using CSS, but tables for layout still, and it isn’t his fault that MS didn’t properly get to grips with standards.

Cut him some slack I say.

SoG

The Gondola is that of a Lebaudy – Le Capitaine Marchal :
http://www.earlyaviator.com/archive1.htm

I thought it looked like a Shorthorn – but it isn’t.

SoG

Arclite, I didn’t think the Swallow actually replaced the Prefect, rather, didn’t they soldier on together? The Prefect had airbrakes, and were seen as a logical progression on from the Cadet (T31) before conversion to the Swallow. They were both to provide continuation training for Staff weren’t they?

SoG

I flew them at Bodmin Airfield back in the ’70’s. I well remember the CFI sternly warning me about the close proximity of the carb-heat and the mixture levers. Apparently a student pilot had pulled the mixture to lean rather than carb heat to hot on the base leg, and deposited them into the ‘shiggy’ as we say in Cornwall.

Didn’t at least some of them have some sort of coupling arrangement between aileron and rudder?

SoG

This reminds me of the time…

… when I took off in a Slingsby Swallow (Dart canopy) at Perranporth (01) on an auto launch with the air brakes fully open…

Longer than usual ground run, much pole bending to get her to climb, amazingly got to the top of the launch, 800′, released, and immediately noticed that something was not quite right.

Higher than normal rate of sink (Swallows not noted for their low sink rate anyway), more noise than usual, handling seemed strange.

Only then did I suddenly remember the airbrakes, accompanied by distinctive sphincter flutter, increased heart rate, audible heart-beat, rising facial colour and temperature, all associated with acute embarrasment, and fear of the inevitable ridicule to follow.

I slid that horrible Slingsby airbrake lever forward quicker than every before; she seemed to leap back up into the sky. With the excess airspeed I heaved back, got an extra couple of hundred feet, and wizzed around into the circuit, airspeed all over the place. Two minutes airtime.

I still squirm with discomfort when I remember it.

Not quite as exciting as taking off with wings folded, but “I learnt about flying from that”.

And the CFI, dear old John Turner, (CPO, RN), was not too unkind about it.

Mike, thanks for coming back and responding. Look, the thing is, in this case you have described your article as being airframe covering fabric. With your declared experience in aviation you must, surely, know that it is not covering material and I for one cannot imagine that you were mislead in this by another. Again with the benefit of your admitted experience in the field, you just aren’t that niave.

You can’t blame any of us for expressing our discomfort at your missleading description in this and another instance, or our growing concern about it.

The actual origin of that piece of material is irrelevent. It isn’t what you said it was.

As an Ebayer, I’d like to think that you would exercise a great deal more care about your descriptions in future.

SoG

From this Australian Defence announcement, I see nothing which speaks of recovering the wreckage, but confirms the proposal to carry out a thorough survey with a view to recovering remains.

SoG