Brilliant – many thanks for sharing. I will download and enjoy at my leisure. Have met him a couple of times and he has a host of admirers and friends on this forum. Wonderful man!

I don’t discount all of that, but in a year which celebrated a Vulcan Anniversary and a very big wartime Anniversary, when the air force and its achievements saturated the media for several weeks, I just believe the opportunaity was there for us to see and read much more than was on offer. More Anniversaries in 2012 plus the Olympics, but will it still be there to celebrate? Is VTTS trying to capitalise on those dates? If so I haven’t seen anything in the general media as opposed to the specialist press.

Will do……..you sure have to have your wits about you at those bargain trade stands. Happy modelling! Btw I enjoyed your photos but looking at the Victor ( how come that was included and not the Shack? ) and the Typhoon they have a “grainy” feel, exactly as mine of the same aircraft. Yet those in the other hangars are crisp and clear.

Pagen – so does that mean that the European regs are effectively the same as ours so far as the subject of this thread is concerned?

Correct me if I am wrong but I am not sure that we have seen a clear rebuttal of the criticisms made by supporters of the project as to the methods of achieving the necessary funding. Yes, it has succeeded to date – by the skin of its teeth – but that is no way to go forward unless the project is simply destined to “fly for another year” and then see what happens.

I accept that there have been thousands of words debated here but perhaps there is still more to flesh out. Unless, of clourse, come the end of October it is over. Then the new debate will be what happens to the aircraft now?

Well that bears out my comment. I did make the point that it was an impression and I might well have missed some media coverage. One item in one national and some local coverage is hardly serious media promotion, neither is a programme on History, which has a very small minority audience. As someone else has asked – why repeat it ad infinitum for 6 people to see when it could be shown on a mainstream channel where at least several hundred thousand people might see it.

In stick to my point about ineffective PR.

Your last couple of paragraphs echo closely what I feel. It is sad that we live in a world where we EXPECT to be conned, whereas perhaps 20 or 30 years ago the reverse was true. It makes all of us, bar the either totally trusting or totally gullible, more wary of giving help than perhaps we should.