Is that P36 the only one airworthy at the moment? It looks interesting.

It’ll be good when the Omaka based Luftwaffe one is up in the air too.

The P40 is an excellent display fighter. I had the great joy of seeing Mark Hanna take Sir Tim Wallis’s P40K aloft on several occasions, including its first flight in 50 years, and I’ve also seen John Lamont display it very well. I think it is much more interesting to watch than a Mustang, though the P51D sounds a bit better.

The type as a fighter was excellent in the right hands. The RAAF did well with the type, as did the RAF. The RNZAF found it to be a very good fighter against the Japanese, shooting down 100 Japs confirmed and 14 probables in a few short months between going operational and converting to Corsairs. That figure of 100 enemy kills is to just 20 P40 losses in action – at least one of which was lost to a US aircraft bombing it. Many other RNZAF P40 pilots were attacked by US Corsairs and P38’s etc during engagements because the yanks shot at everyone, but most of the time the kiwis out manouvred them and escaped.

They were purely used as escort fighters, not ground attack then.They were later used at OTU’s in NZ before converting pilots onto Corsairs, and they proved very good work horses in that role too.

I’ve looked at the IMDb sites for Dench, Kidman and Jackson and none mention anything about the film, though both ladies have many upcoming films. I hope this isn’t a hoax.

I suspect if the film that Peter Jackson is meant to be going to mkae soon about women in the Russian Air Force is still going ahead, it may remain in NZ for that (or perhaps return) as the OFMC is meant to be involved in that project. Purle rumours and media talk, so if this is worng, I apologise. I hope it is made though.

DaveM2 was talking recently about how Ray Hanna is building a new hangar for this aircraft at Wanaka, if I recall right.

There are some parts of “The Office” that are beyond the US realm of knowledge, like references to towns and the people that live there. Don’t you think the US would find it funnier if such references were made about US towns?

Yes, but that is the very point I made above…

If they just bought the original, it’d be a much better show all round compared with a rehashed recast mishmash, and viewers might learn something about other cultures too rather than having to have everything put into their own version of the language and culture.

I live in New Zealand. I am not British. I am not American. I am not Australian. However with much exposure to all three country’s television output through our local programming I have grasped a very good understanding of these three country’s cultures, styles of humour and also geographic locations, as have most Kiwis who watch TV here. Whereas if all of those shows had been remade here in NZ with Kiwi actors and local references replacing foreign ones simply for our own market, I would have learned nothing about the other countries and missed out on the many and various takes on life. If you see what I mean.

Or is it that a US audience simply doesn’t want to watch foreign programming and take an interest in the outside world? I’m not trying to flame here, this is something that does make me quite curious. Kiwis are a nation of travellers, we all aspire to see and learn about the rest of the world. Apparently there are a million NZ’ers outisde NZ and 4 million in it at any given time! (so TV tells me). Most of us at some point have travelled abroad, despite it being more costly for us to do so than any other western nations.

I think we all want to see the world these days because we are an isolated nation but we’ve experienced so much of the globe through our TV’s and we want to experience the different lifestyles and cultures we see, if only to compare it with our own and realise we “don’t know how lucky we are” as the popular Kiwi song goes (Fred Dagg 🙂 ).

Can you see where I am coming from? Seeing difference is learning. Immersing yourself in difference is understanding. But shutting out difference, censoring it, leads to a lack of learning anything, so understanding will never be reached. Vive le difference (even if it is French 😀 )

What does TDY mean??

Thanks. Interesting, so one at Breighton, one at Dayton, where are the other two? One’s in France, isn’t it? I’ve always liked the PR XI, might be because of the colour schemes, PRU blue and PRU pink look good on a Spit.

Wow, some lovely shots there Mark. Very nice. Looks very cold.

Has anything been done with the Spitfire since? How many PR XI’s exist these days?