Well done that man !! ( Allan) CS Great find indeed.

Bill T.

Senior Citizens united !!!!!

Just hang in there a while, Bruce and Co Might well chime in soon. Is that wrapped item in lid a spanner of some sort ? Makes me think they could be Wing Spar Bolt hole reamers.

Bill T.

Wow !! nice find.

Bill T.

Excellent satisfactory conclusion guys, Yaaaass !! Now where to find the elusive types of wheels. ( S/Hk nosewheels do have the circular discs on other side of wheel too, I just never took pics. of that side 😮 )

Bill T.

Owch !! Yes !!!! quite. Presume that is just hire charges ? Unless twin Otter can sweet talk Firm into a sponsoring for Event. 😉 (I’ll get me coat. )

Bill T.

Hi Runway06,
Was just thinking about a write -up about visit yesterday to a very wet Cockpit fest, good nudge, so here we go:-

Heading off from a warm-ish ,dry, North Wales with Terry P for a leisurely drive and arrival for 10:30am,we hit the bad weather over hills then that continued down to Newark, where we joined other very wet ,staff and enthusiasts at C/pit Fest 2015. Stepping out of car into a big puddle got trainers/feet soaked immediately,(good start ) so after heaving on gear and flicking up brollies, we squelched our way to entrance. It was then I noticed most sensible people were wearing “Wellies” 😮 There seemed to be plenty of vehicles parked up outside so a lot of folks were around. Met up with a very wet ,but cheerful “Bill” on main gate and exchanged a few words and shook hands and in we went. ( Think “Twin Otter” was there too )
Was great to meet up with old and new friends and place faces again. Nice to see quite a selection of C/pits and aerojumblers, but the heavy rain seemed to be keeping most folks away or inside somewhere and of course quite a few C/pits were covered up(Eminently understandable) Did my rounds of it all, commiserated with most of the very wet Aerojumblers/cockpiteers, many of whom just could not keep their wares dry, everyone quite cheerful about it all though. The event was as ( always) well organized but once again ,let down by UK weather but the public who were there seemed quite happy too so it was well worth us going.
Inside the 2 main hangers bumped into and had long chats and catch-ups with forumites and pals. We all did our deals /swops,etc, and by end of our visit I had picked up 2 Oxy Clips and a temp gauge from Outside jumblers. Had a meet up with Anon and rest of Nth West Contingent huddled under their gazebo’s . Was also great to finally meet up with Pete Sharp (Ex-RAF Armourer and Valiant man) we stood yapping for so long suddenly Terry P was tapping me on shoulder as time to head back off to home.

So to:- Chris/Richard/Gary/Pete/Ian/Ritchie/Alan/Allan/ Nth West Contingent and many others, great to C U all again.

Twin Otter, (thought),
As C/pit Fest weather seems to be quite unpredictable, you know, a big marque put up in Aerojumblers area as a community jumble dry place would definitely bring more folks in to purchase from jumblers on inclement days.( Thinking more of the folks who were operating out of car boots and inadequate gazebo’s really) and obviously these marque’s aren’t cheap to hire, but definitely worth a Committee thought or 9. Salute to you and all staff for the event and especially the outfielders weathering it all. We’ll be back (of course what ever ).

Bill T.

Hi Fouga,
Presume you mean for Flying Aircraft ? There are proprietary approved cleaners /polishers available that need basically a heck of a lot of polishing work, but do bring up the surfaces brilliantly. If you have scratches, these can also be filed ,scraped then polished out, BUT you have to work within the Aircraft Servicing manual’s tolerances and once completed an inspector will be checking for any sighting distortions from inside C/pit, before job is signed off.

For Non Flying Canopies,
Same amount of polishing ( Brasso works well ) and you’ve more scope for remedial work on scratches, grooving even crazing, but no inspectors to worry about. Graham Sparkes did a really good job on his crazed Sea Hawk canopy and I spent a lot of time on Terry P’s Venom canopy, which came out pretty good, that had a lot of bad scratches in it and the whole exercise took me about 80 man hours, which was B********* hard going but it looked great when done. Unfortunately, it collected another bad scratch in transit somewhere and I’ve been in hiding ever since–lol !!! :D:very_drunk:

I’m sure I took pics, at the time of the progress as we went, will post em back in here when I find em. So let forumites in here know what canopy in particular you have in mind and how bad it is, cos static display canopies are always :- Baaaaaad !!!!! and owners can always find excuses to put off for as long as possible—-;)

lol !!!!! Bill T.

Interesting thread guys, glad to see this stuff being recorded. My Dad was born in 1917 and died in 1981, a very posh speaking Brummie (if there is such a person ) He joined RAF in 1939 and trained up as an Engine Fitter and reached the dizzy height of LAC. Sent over to France on a Blenheim Sqdn. he was caught at Dunkirk and although he spoke very little about it, I found out from my mother many years later that he had got to the coast and got on a destroyer back to UK. Back in the 1950’s we watched some of the :-” War in The Air “series on TV and during one programme about the Battle for France, there was a film shot of a Tiger Moth landing there and he jumped out of chair and said:- “That’s the Tiger Moth that delivered our mail”. I know also that he had some good Senior NCO Air Crew friends flying the Blenheims and they were all killed and I don’t think he ever got over that. He contracted a bad stomach ulcer and was invalided out of RAF in 1943. But before that he spent time when in UK on Baders Sqdn. and I’m afraid to say his opinion of Bader is unprintable here.

Seeing as how today is 70 years on from the VE day parties held around UK, I myself remember our street party in Birmingham very well. I was 4 years old at the time and we had the bunting strewn across between the houses and wooden tables and benches lined up in the street. People were so pleased the war was over, but of course austerity went on for another 9 years and bombed out houses littered the area for years after too. In Sandford Road near the Western end ran the relief railway line that got heavily bombed before we moved back to Birmingham and 2 houses (5 up from ours) got a direct hit. I used to play in the crater and got chased out by police a few times. It was a flipping big crater too, unless I was small and it only seemed that way, full of bricks and rubble, eventually it was filled in around 1948-9 and 2 new house built there. You can see where it was as these house are lower and different to the others on that side of road.
Bill T.