I for one didn’t even look at what else was available there Ratty, I didn’t see that selection. I only had a look at the link as I’m interested in Fireflies and didn’t even know I was going to see a crash till it finally downloaded. i only spotted the title after it was all downloaded.

I agree that it’s macabre to want to see crashes, in the case of the Firefly at least no-one was in it.

Thanks Darren and Carolyn for clearing that up.

I don’t know the film title or the film, but I know it’s a true story.

I don’t have the opportunity to ever visit any UK airshows at all, as I live on the other side of the world, so I follow them on the forums like this one. Even as a casual observer from this distance I would never complain that Legends is all the same old stuff every time, it clearly isn’t. There are lots of familiar old favourites with numerous new additions each time. You cannot expect the Duxford based collections to rotate their entire inventory every year just to please your airshow needs (even though TFC has been doing a bit of that lately anyway!)

In fact from where I sit, the only airshows that always seem to be the same planes doing the same things (except the recent FAA formation) are the shows at Old Warden, but I am not complaining a bit about that place one bit and I always look at and admire the many threads generated by those shows. They are keeping the aircraft flying and allowing the public to see, what more can you ask?

The duck in the eggshell nose art in the centre looks familiar, and I think it could possibly be ‘Thomas Frederick Duck’, an artwork worn first on a No. 75 (NZ) Squadron Wellington T for Tommy, and at the en of the tour one of the crew members cut the fabric off and kept the artwork. The crew reassembled later for a second tour, with only two additions to the crew, and they applied the fabric directly onto their Lancaster F for Freddy, and it was worn for the second tour like that.

The artwork now resides still perfectly intact in the RNZAF Museum at Wigram. I am trying to find a reference photo I have somewhere of the artwork to confirm if it’s the same one.

That’s a stunning aircraft. It looks so good in that colour scheme. How old is it? 40-odd I guess, but it still looks like “something from the future”, very bat-like.

Is this the only Sea Vixen still flying in the world?

In my photos, the one sitting inside is the ex-TEAL Solent. It has never left NZ since retiring from TEAL, and never flown with another airline. It flew the Coral Route to places like Fiji, Samoa, etc.

The one in the photos seen sitting outside (with the nose turret) is the Motat Sunderland. It is still outdoors, rotting away.

There is only one other Solent in existence, which is a Mk III and can be found in a museum at Oakland, California, USA. It has no connection to TEAL though, I don’t know where it used to ply its trade but Google should be able to tell you.

Welcome to the forum Zed.

There are at least two at MOTAT at Western Springs in Auckland, NZ

I’m afraid this is wrong, there is only one Sunderland Mk V, and one Solent Mk IV at Motat, as per my photos above.

And the last flying survivor is now part of Flights of Fantasy (sic) in Florida. That however is not a Bona Fide Sunderland and is in fact a Solent,

Being a demilitarised Sunderland, would this not make it a Short Sandringham? Solents were different from Sunderlands/Sandringhams. But a Sandringham is a Sundy with the turrets and bomb gear removed, and fitted with airline seats, etc, just like Kermit Weeks’ example.