A couple of shots with John Fairey at Middle Wallop in the summer of 1976

Hi Philip,

Was that slide film for those very nice images?

Don’t forget that last season they made 60 odd appearances. that cant be bad now can it?

A stunning success by any measure. That was the whole point of the exercise.

If the Doomsters are so certain that they can plan, resource and operate the business infinitely better, then why don’t they pop along to XH558 HQ and give their expert opinions to Mr Pleming and his team rather than be insulting to them on an aviation forum.

(heres hoping the same mongers don’t migrate to any Just Jane threads to spill their dooom……)

I have a copy too and it’s a good read. Don’t be put off that it’s a ring bound document rather than a conventional polished book. It’s very good.

I’ve just been doing some quick calculations and it actually seems quite difficult to produce the exact ratios that I have quoted.

I’ve come to the conclusion that the gears must be the same size (although they don’t look it to me) so the reduction ratio can only be 0.5:1 in this case.

They don’t look to be the same size to me either. I shall dig through my collection of 30’s books again.

Bristol and DH engines appear in great detail much more often than RR in the typical pre-war pubs.

I can think of a few people I’d like to strap into one, then light the blue touch paper and stand well back! 😀

The “One eyed son of the Manse” by any chance??

why not give DeoxC a try?

I’ve had much sucess over the years with this quite benign liquid solution, got back to sound and clean base metal everytime without fail. I immerse in a metal container and leave on a Stanley cooker at 40-50 deg for several hours normally. (even heavy scale will submit in such a short time)

Doesn’t remove base metal that wasn’t sound however long you leave it. (sometimes a few hours with medium temp and with hourly scrubbing is enough, sometimes over night, or leave it for a day or two at ambient) Degreasing parts first and taking them out for a gentle brass wire or nylon brush every 1-4 hours works a treat to expedite the process. Doesn’t strip bright hard chrome, paint on sound foundation nor damage rubber or plastic mixed assemblies nor touch alloys in my experience. It will remove cad plate and similar thin cosmetic coatings from memory.

Parts when fully cleaned turn a dark grey overall colour and will clearly show pock marks from deep oxide pitting if present, though will clean up quite easily into something usable. If you ever have a really badly corroded assembly of multi material parts that looks hopeless to dissasemble and fasteners locked solid, give it a try and you may be surprised that it all comes apart easily afterwards with little secondary damage that blasting will incur.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]235589[/ATTACH]THIS IS THE DUMP IN 1977, AN MR3 A T4 AND THE REMAINS OF ANOTHER BADLY BURNT

When I was there from circa 75 the MR3 still had a couple of engines and at least one prop.

The T4 illustrated was not burnt at the time , though there was also the skeletal remains of the other T4 with mostly nose left and adajacent.

There was also a Meteor two seat with greenhouse canopy, sitting on the deck and can’t recall if had wings.

Other items included a Riley pathfinder and a strange Victorian looking 3 wheel engine powered ‘horse’ carriage, probably worth a fortune if it still existed! I think there was a lot of other stuff there at the time, though not as interesting at the time to an eleven year old as your own private Shackleton to play in! I remember passing years later to see the MR3 on fire with a Whirlwind and crew member dangling, could have been the mid 80’s.

There was a lot of oil etc soaked ground around at the time related to the fire training I expect. Hardly surprising it is baren, same as some crash sites.