One more Trident, G-AWZU seen shortly after its arrival at Stansted, still complete.
S.B.

I’ve got a safety card off of that beast:)

Didn’t Dan Air operate one of those Nord 262s once upon a time?

All the pics and nostalgia is good, but is this just getting a little repetitive?

Oh not at all. IMO, not nearly as repetitive as the endless stream of souless twin engine pod ‘Airboemb’ types we see on here;)

Some great shots all round. I may very well be in the minority here, but I think that the Tu144 knocked spots of the Concorde for looks, especially in ‘nose up’ pose. Nicest eastern bloc livery? why, Interflug of course;)

Sarah, you’re now top of my Xmas card list:) I love that aircraft, although my real favourite has to be the ‘Red Square’ I never thought that it looked quite right in the ‘Flying Jack’ scheme. Thanks for posting these.

Very nice indeed Keith. Looks as though you had a thoroughly good time. You won’t believe this, but as I was scrolling down these marvellous images, I was thinking that when I had seen them all I would post a small “where were the Gulfstreams Keith” comment, and there it was. Many thanks mate, and some kudos too! It must be something to see those airliners flying that close up for real. More images please!

These shed some light on the subject. I found this on the Pprune website.

“”The most recent of many tributes to Captain Blair was the unveiling of a memorial in his honor at Heathrow Airport in London, terminus of his 1951 record-breaking transatlantic flight. Consisting of a large-scale replica of his famous Mustang, Excalibur III, the memorial was dedicated on January 30, 1981. Present at this ceremony were Captain Blair’s widow, who performed the unveiling; representatives of Pan Am and other companies; aviation notables; the press; and many of Captain Blair’s friends. Plaques located near the memorial give the highlights of Captain Blair’s career and constitute a permanent record of his achievements. This memorial was made possible by contributions from Captain Blair’s friends and fellow employees of Pan Am.””

http://www.users.uswest.net/~aknot/blair.htm

Very interesting man. In my book that memorial counts as a historic aviation item, so where is it now?

Vee One. I used to go with my Dad from the 1970’s very regularly. Used to visit my Nan and on the Saturday morning we’d jump on a number 140 bus and with our packed lunch and flask watch the planes all day…
You remember the mustang model on a pole in a garden visible from the QB? I wonder what happened to that?
When we used to go see my other Nan (Maternal) it was a trip to Luton!! Used to get all sorts of gems in there…

I remember that Mustang well. It was made by the same company that used to have a store within the Sheraton Skyline Hotel on the Bath Road, on the perimeter of LHR. In those days they were known as Executive Display Models, and latterly Collectors Aircraft Models, until that folded earlier this year. In fact, it was still visible on Google Earth sitting on its plinth amongst a lot of ‘crap’ until the LHR images were updated. It probably now hangs in one of the numerous building workers portacabins on the site:(