Spoke to him a few days ago and he now using central heating boilers to give him the flame effect! Seems even Kelvin started to worry about the gas, as for the MIG21, keep watching….

The Shackleton (Pelican16 – 1716) that crashed is still there, well some of it!
About three years ago some of the crew re-visited it and found that it had been stripped from the cockpit rearwards.
During Gatwick Aviation Musems open weekend recently we were delighted to meet a couple of guys working on the Mk3 (XF708) at Duxford. It seems that they took it upon themselves to start cleaning the inside etc. They have had some support from the management and have got the de-humidifiers going. We obviously offered our support in their efforts, lets hope others do also!

The rear props were “cropped” to eliminate a problem with vibration.
The original props were of the same diameter and this caused a resonance which in turn was the source of the vibration. Each rear blade is only a copule of inches shorter than the front. I can’t find the specific data at the moment, but I can look at the manual in a next time I go to the museum, if you’re interested!

PM

Rod Dean is still active, he’s air testing the Hunt bros Chipmunk this afternoon from Redhill. It has just had it annual, the engine has been re-furbished, it had a crack in the compressor case.