The Night Mail

[Dave Hunt]

My first ever flight was in an RAF Beverley at RAF Topcliffe during an ATC summer camp in 1960. The main part of the fuselage of a Beverley was a large cargo bay with the seating in the tail boom, which was occupied by a gang of us cadets. At the time Topcliffe was the home of the Beverley conversion unit and the trip we were on was a just a local area one but I was enthralled looking out of the window at the little world below. Fast forward six years and Topcliffe was one of the adjacent airfields to Leeming, where a certain Acting Pilot Officer Hunt was learning to fly on the Jet Provost. One day when the circuit at Leeming was busy my instructor decided we would go and do some circuits at Topcliffe and it was there that he decided to let me loose on my own. So, first ever flight and first jet solo at the same place. You'd think someone would put up a commemorative plaque....

 

My experiences of DC-3s have all been as passenger in the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight Dakota when I worked at Coningsby. Great fun standing in the open doorway (attached to the aircraft by a monkey strop) waving at the punters at air displays.

 

News on the modelling front. Spraying of red oxide primer on the crane carried out without either me or the cat changing colour and sufficient on the crane to achieve the objective - result!! In a few days' time comes the real test, though, when the gloss crimson lake has to be put on. I bet no-one's ever seen a Midland Red moggie before.....

 

Night night everyone.

 

Dave

[Happy Hippo]

1 hour ago, BMS said:

 

A later flight was from Heathrow to Liverpool we, married 2 children, (together with Gerald Sinstadt etc) were the next flight out of Heathrow after the "Kegworth", having seen the passengers leaving the departure lounge. At some point the flight changed direction and more or less flew up the M1, after which the chatty crew became very much quieter. My memory is of the vast amount of traffic stopped on the M1, I suspect the pilot was deliberate flying over the incident so we couldn't see it. 

 

When I was based at Woodhouse Eaves, Garat's Hey barracks, we had a Military Support role to cover East Midlands airport in case of an accident.  We would regularly get called out to practice incidents.  Our role was to provide independent communications, first response in support of the ambulance service casualty evacuation (if possible) and security. 

 

 

[Florence Locomotive Works]

Evening,

 

This afternoon was not spent bleeding the brakes on one of the "vehicles requiring special insurance", as other labor volunteered. So I got to bumble around my bedroom/workshop looking for something to do, and eventually sat down to have a look at the tender frames for "The George." Long story short I ended up stripping the paint off them and sanding off loads of rust followed by repainting, and now they dont look all that bad.

 

Douglas

 

Before.

After.

[Happy Hippo]

9 hours ago, Dave Hunt said:

My experiences of DC-3s have all been as passenger in the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight Dakota when I worked at Coningsby. Great fun standing in the open doorway (attached to the aircraft by a monkey strop) waving at the punters at air displays.

We got hold of a spare strop.  As we were taking off and the Loadmaster of the Puma was doing his usual hanging out the door waving to the crowd.  As he turned back into the aircraft, one of the freefall team pointed at the strop tail we'd carefully positioned on the floor.

 

Knowledge dispels fear, but for that split second, he didn't know

 

 

9 hours ago, Dave Hunt said:

I bet no-one's ever seen a Midland Red moggie before.....

I'm not so sure.  I thought this was pretty close:

 

 

I too shall paint again today, but it will be Jasmine White satin acrylic from a big tin.

[Doncaster Green]

Morning all

 

My first ever flight was on a BAC111 from Manchester to Belfast in 1972.   Checked baggage at the check-in then had to identify it on the tarmac prior to loading and boarding.   IIRC the return 6 weeks later was on a Trident.   Other flights that stay in the memory:

 

VC10 from Brize Norton to Wildenrath.   My first experience of rear facing seats and a cabin half full of freight.   Was informed later that that aircraft (tail number 103) was notorious for fatigue cracks around the tail!

AAC Gazelle out of Berlin Tegel on an Inner German Border patrol flight.   A Wg Cdr colleague managed to wangle us the two spare seats.   No doubt where the border was just from the amount of visible light, bright to the west, very dim to the east!

Britannia Airways 737 (MOD shuttle) from Dusseldorf to Luton diverted to Gatwick due to fog.   Very heavy landing at Gatwick as I'm not sure the pilot could see the ground!   On deplaning Movements were herding everyone on to buses to take them back to Luton to catch the chartered train to St Pancras.   My travelling companion and I said 'Sod that - Gatwick Express'.   Not a lot Movements could say, I was a civilian and my companion outranked them - same Wg Cdr as Berlin!

A 32 Sqdrn Andover from Northolt to Bruggen in the teeth of a gale.   Held forever at the end of the runway with the engines screaming, then, brakes off, hurtled down runway, climb to about 700 feet then seemed to drop 500 feet.   I don't think Andovers were great in crosswinds!

But for sheer breathtaking scenery, a Thompson 757 from Gatwick to Verona.   Only 5 passengers (it was basically a positioning flight to take a full load back to Manchester) and it crossed the Alps in glorious sunshine with not a cloud to be seen.

 

John

[Happy Hippo]

The new pressure washer has arrived and has been given a quick test.

 

It was able to strip some paint that had been dropped on the blocks that make up the driveway.  Something it's predecessor was incapable of doing.

 

Of course, although not clad for the task in hand, I got a bit carried away and did some more cleaning and for my sins got my shoes wet and trousers rather splattered.

 

Fortunately they are 'work' shoes and trousers and have been removed and put to dry/wash.

 

Even more fortunate is that I have no other work clothes available, so I'll have to take the rest of the afternoon off.

 

Planning continues on the new shunting plank, although trying to fit in 7 (or less) Peco 7mm scale turnouts is proving rather difficult.

 

This is the first time I've used Peco points, as usually I hand build them to fit, and now I remember why.

 

I will succeed,  but it will just take a little longer.

 

 

 

 

[TheQ]

Kegworth,  roughly a week later I was stuck in a traffic jam on the M1 on the way to RAF Leeming... Parked on the scratches on the tarmac, with obvious damage to the surroundings. Worrying with aircraft still going overhead to land. 

My previous trip out was to RAF  Leuchars at Lockerbie on the A74, just a couple of weeks before on my way back for Christmas,  I was stuck in slow traffic where bits of the Panam flight just clipped the road. Later that bit of the road was Identifiable by a new section of fencing,  but now that's faded.. 

 

I'd only just started the job in Late October 88, I was beginning to wonder about all these aircraft falling from the sky..  Hmm 32 years ago... 

[polybear]

The supposedly reputable Plumbing and Leccy Contractors (they still exist) that were responsible for working on my house as a part of a refurb programme back in 1990 for the local Council (I later purchased the place) might have installed a reliable system; however some of their corner cutting is pretty p.p.  Such as:

1. Pipes clipped to the wall - rawlplugs missing from some holes entirely; thought the screws came out easy...

2. Leccy conduit cut short and leaving a gap between the end of the conduit and the socket back box.

3. No grommets fitted to the back boxes, leaving cable at the mercy of the metal hole edges.

4. Back boxes secured using countersunk screws, so sharp edges again.

Mates ask "why don't you get someone in to do it?"  No thanks......

Plasterers I'll happily pay (that's  a black magic trade in my book) as well as Roofers (too bl00dy high for my liking).  Anything else (not gas) is down to me.  It might take a while, but I'll keep on until I'm happy with the result.

[jamie92208]

Reference the tailplane cracks on VC10's. They were the first aircraft that my brother flew for BOAC. He always liked the aircraft and told me a story about thectail replacement programme. There was a programme to strengthen the taiplanes and it was a slow process. Someone suggested that they needed a spare tailplane so that one could becworked on whilst another was replace but none existed. Then an engineer remembered the one that was hijacked to Dawson's field in Jordan.  The tailplane looked intact. A scheme was hatched and eventually  a C130 flew, I think from Egypt, with a load of engineers on board. Theclanded in the desert, removed the tailplane and took it back to London. The replacement  programme then speeded up and planes weren't out of service for long as swapping a tailplane was a fairly quick progress.

 

Jamie

[Happy Hippo]

 

Jamie's comments about the recycling of certain parts of airframes reminded me of the the Larnaca incident on 19 Feb 78, where the Greek Cypriots and Egyptian special forces got into a fight with each other at a terrorist incident.  It was not the Egyptians finest hour, as the Greek Cypriots killed 15 in a firefight  plus the crew of the C130 when it was hit by an anti tank round in the cockpit area.

 

It is rumoured that any useful remains of the C130 ended up at RAF Akrotiri and were eventually shipped back to Lyneham.

 

 

[Dave Hunt]

Not directly concerned with any of the posts above but references to spare parts of aircraft remind me of a rather amusing incident. My first posting after training was to a Hunter squadron in Singapore at about the same time that there was a major reorganisation of the RAF's supply system together with  changes in stores codes. One of our aircraft needed a replacement part (I can't remember exactly what it was but it was something fairly small like a generator or fuel pump or something like that) but there wasn't one in the far east so it was ordered from UK via the new earlybird system. Our SEngO (Senior Engineering Officer) was a bit surprised to be informed by signal that it would be delivered by special flight of a Belfast, which at the time was the RAF's heavy lift aircraft, but hey, ho, at least it was one its way. Next day the Belfast arrived and offloaded an enormous crate, into which most of a Hunter would have fitted, let alone a small component. When the crate was opened it was found to contain............ a Canberra tailplane! Someone had got the new stores reference wrong. Fortunately the Canberra squadron the other side of the hardstanding from us decided they could use the tailplane and took it off our hands and the item we wanted was sent by post (or something like it) but the occurrence caused much mirth at the time. The fact that no-one had apparently wondered why a Hunter squadron was ordering a Canberra tailplane gave us aircrew confirmation of our opinions regarding suppliers.

 

Dave  

[Happy Hippo]

If you want a real loggie nightmare, spare a thought for the guys on the ground during to run up to the formation of Zimbabwe.

 

Op Agila was effectively the British effort to the Commonweath Monitoring Force which was put in to cover the 7 day ceasefire between Govt forces and the various guerrilla factions.

 

Some resupply drops were made into LZs near the assembly areas.  But someone got a Nato Stock Numbers (NSN) garbled.

 

Instead of bush hats the drop contained female sanitary towels!

 

The poor sods on the ground managed to convince the various factions that these were sweatbands, and were duly issued as such.

 

If only those ZIPRA/ZANU/etc had known what they were wearing things might have turned a little pearshaped.

 

 

[Florence Locomotive Works]

Evening,

 

School inspected today, nothing to report on that front. I spent most of my free time this afternoon scratch building this coarse scale signal (I don’t know the correct name for its type), and it’s coming together rather nicely. 
 

If anybody wants a tail for a 747-600, there are two for the taking on the two ex Lufthansa planes who have been rotting on the tarmac at our airport for 10 years now. We have a Lufthansa Tech base here, and they were used for parts but now aren’t, presumably as the 747 airframe is being fazed out.
 

Douglas 

Edited October 13, 2020 by Florence Locomotive Works

[SM42]

My first flight was in 1997.

 

UKAir Fokker 100 Birmingham - Amsterdam and then KLM 747-400 to Osaka

 

May as well make the first trip a good un with a short  hop to see if you like it first, and then head for an airport where all you see is the sea getting closer and closer until suddenly the airport appears.

 

Flight back was  just ahead of an  approaching typhoon. Seat belt light of for the hour or so.  "What a ride" as someone once said.

 

Andy

[chrisf]

My first flight was in a glider, at Tibenham airfield just after finals in 1969.  How quiet it was up there and how scary the ground rushing up to meet the craft coming in to land!  When I was not in the air I helped out by driving the tow car, an automatic Jag with no bonnet.  I soon leaned that when driven in reverse the car changed up into neutral.  Oh, happy days.

 

My first proper flight was in 1976 from Heathrow to Ronaldsway.  I couldn't tell you what kind of aircraft it was but I think it had propellers.  I do recall that my car was left in an open air car park while I was away.  On return it was so hot that I was almost hit in the face by hot air when I opened the car door.  How fortunate I was that the plastic upholstery in my Mini had not melted.

 

Chris

[Happy Hippo]

8 hours ago, Florence Locomotive Works said:

I spent most of my free time this afternoon scratch building this coarse scale signal (I don’t know the correct name for its type), and it’s coming together rather nicely. 
 

 

 

 

It's a bracket signal.

 

Used at junctions or other location where more than one signal needs to be co located.

 

 

Edited October 13, 2020 by Happy Hippo

[TheQ]

A chief at RAF Neatishead got one digit wrong in his order for the main bearing pin for a nodding height finder.. The first we knew about it was when a Queen Mary blocked the traffic at Wroxham Bridge, as it couldn't go over a hump backed bridge. Reversing that though Wroxham summer traffic must have been fun. When it got to Neatishead the cover was pulled off to find... a complete aerial assembly..

A mate of mine ordered a load of valves for a flight simulator, got the number wrong and a artic load of giant sized TV tubes turned up..

 

As for recovering spares, out in Saudi, our section got tasked to recover anything useful from two Tornado F3s ... just a load of squashed metal from several thousand feet.. One had flown up the others exhaust doing a radar tracking manouver they were meant to be several miles apart!!.

[Dave Hunt]

45 minutes ago, TheQ said:

 

As for recovering spares, out in Saudi, our section got tasked to recover anything useful from two Tornado F3s ... just a load of squashed metal from several thousand feet.. One had flown up the others exhaust doing a radar tracking manouver they were meant to be several miles apart!!.

 

At one time we had a Saudi Training Flight as part of the F3 Operational Conversion Unit at Coningsby and I'm afraid that I have to say that what Q reports above I don't find particularly surprising. Trying to chop Saudi crews from the course was virtually impossible, particularly the number of princes and skeik's sons etc. who came through. One pilot was so bad that he wasn't allowed to fly with navs but had to be in a dual control aircraft with a staff pilot in the back. I was flying with him once doing some high speed low level intercepts when he had the wings swept at 45 degrees and in full 'burner exceeded the limiting speed. "Wing sweep," I said sharply, meaning him to sweep them back to 67 degrees (although the aircraft was built with automatic wing sweep the RAF didn't trust it and it was deactivated on our aircraft) whereupon he swept them forward instead, which exceeded the 25 degree limit by a long, long way. " I have control," I shouted and very gingerly shut the throttles, keeping the aircraft straight and level. Once back into a sensible speed range I did a low speed handling check and went back to Coningsby, landing the thing from the back seat. When I told the engineers what had happened they were horrified and the SEngO said he was surprised that the wings hadn't broken off ( the 25 wing limit was 450 knots, we had reached well over 600) and when the BAe engineers downloaded the data log they said I was very lucky and had I put any G on the aircraft it would have been Goodnight Vienna. As it was, the wing control unit was badly damaged. Even after that, though, we still had to keep the pilot on the course and eventually he went back home having, in theory anyway, finished successfully. Had he been RAF I doubt he would ever have got past basic training.

 

A couple of times the commander of the first Saudi F3 squadron tried to recruit me as his weapons instructor but despite the large amount of moolah involved Jill and I decided it wasn't worth it. Several of my colleagues who went out there on BAe contracts (sanctioned by the RAF) didn't stay for the three years needed to get the big bonus as the whole ethos was far from their liking. Having said that, a couple of engineers I know stayed out there for ten years but both admitted that it was only the money that kept them there and on return to U.K. they were very well off.

 

Dave 

Edited October 13, 2020 by Dave Hunt
Bl**dy predictive text again.

[Northroader]

Plane spares? Come to Kemble.

[Happy Hippo]

58 minutes ago, Northroader said:

Plane spares? Come to Kemble.

I once went around the stores shed at Fantasy of Flight in Florida.

 

There was a rack up to the ceiling of the hanger, full of Allison V-12 engines as fitted to P38, P40, P41 and Early Mustangs.

 

The guy taking me around looked at them all and said whistfully:

 

'Pity they ain't Merlins!'

Edited October 13, 2020 by Happy Hippo
punctuation malfunction!

[Happy Hippo]

Some years ago I organised a couple of  trips for some American friends who were keen on the Welsh narrow gauge railways.

 

On one of the visits, we had a day on the Ffestiniog railway, although this was not trips up and down the line, but a 'working' day.

 

We started at Boston Lodge as the sun was rising, prepped both Linda and Lilla, then  went up to Minffordd before the first service train of the day.

 

We spent the rest of the day shunting slate wagons!

 

What did stick in my mind was the time it took to get the various wagons shunted into trains, then breaking down and re arranging them.  It was the ultimate shunting puzzle.

 

Sometimes when we are using our model railways, there is a tendency to accelerate such moves.  At exhibitions I have a little notice to say that time for shunting has been greatly accelerated!

 

So it was interesting to see how Thomas Klimoski in the USA tries to counter the acceleration factor:

 

https://www.thomasklimoski.com/post/operational-details?utm_campaign=a0aefae3-3489-48b9-b0f7-362cf9453032&utm_source=so&utm_medium=mail&cid=72b77c1c-d921-44ea-8343-5346c58a168f

 

I do find the current method of switching in the USA fascinating as it is not too dissimilar to how the  British pick up goods used to operate.

[Adam88]

On 13/10/2020 at 11:28, Happy Hippo said:

I once went around the stores shed at Fantasy of Flight in Florida.

 

There was a rack up to the ceiling of the hanger, full of Allison V-12 engines as fitted to P38, P40, P41 and Early Mustangs.

 

The guy taking me around looked at them all and said whistfully:

 

'Pity they ain't Merlins!'

Edited 6 hours ago by Happy Hippo

 

I went there once as well and also went on the stores and workshop tour.  As you say, the whole set-up is very impressive and just shows what can be achieved with determination and a not insignificant quantity of cash.

 

 

Edited April 22, 2022 by Adam88
Returning lost photos

[Erichill16]

1 hour ago, Adam88 said:

 

I went there once as well and also went on the stores and workshop tour.  As you say, the whole set-up is very impressive and just shows what can be achieved with determination and a not insignificant quantity of cash.

Just in anyone is interested,the lower picture is , I’m pretty sure an Merlin powered Mustang. The Alison powered ones have a distinctive long  narrow carburettor intake on top on the engine cowling. There were many more Merlin powered ones then Alison ones.

Regards

Robert

[Happy Hippo]

8 minutes ago, Erichill16 said:

Just in anyone is interested,the lower picture is , I’m pretty sure an Merlin powered Mustang. The Alison powered ones have a distinctive long  narrow carburettor intake on top on the engine cowling. There were many more Merlin powered ones then Alison ones.

Regards

Robert

The Mustang a  merlin engined P51 C representing a Red tail aircraft.  It's a fairly early model as it still has the factory style hinged canopy.

 

Later versions were were fitted with a Malcolm hood which was a blown and bulged  plexiglass  canopy that slid back. I believe it was retrofitted to many P51B/C aircraft as it allowed better visibility to the side, rear and below the tail.  They also fitted them to the 'Razorback' P47 in an attempt to improve visibility for the pilots.

 

[Adam88]

35 minutes ago, Happy Hippo said:

The Mustang a  merlin engined P51 C representing a Red tail aircraft.  It's a fairly early model as it still has the factory style hinged canopy.

 

Later versions were were fitted with a Malcolm hood which was a blown and bulged  plexiglass  canopy that slid back. I believe it was retrofitted to many P51B/C aircraft as it allowed better visibility to the side, rear and below the tail.  They also fitted them to the 'Razorback' P47 in an attempt to improve visibility for the pilots.

 

 

Fantasy of Flight was set up by a very wealthy man, Kermit Weeks, who is a lifelong total aviation person.  I first came across his name when he bought the Short Sunderland flying boat from Edward Hulton and had it prepared to fly back from Calshot to Florida back in the 1990s.  At the time I had a colleague who had his ear to the ground on such matters.  When work took me to a meeting in nearby Orlando in 2014 I travelled a couple of days early and took the opportunity to visit.  Kermit was flying the Mustang - low and slow so everyone could get some good snaps and after he landed he circulated and nattered.  It was a very interesting day and the restoration to flying condition of many of his aircraft was really top-notch.  As an example current aircraft engineering specs do not allow or would frown on cotton-covered, rubber-insulated cabling so Kermit's team uses current spec cables and then sends them away to be braided so they appear genuine.  There is no functional benefit, it's an extra cost and few people ever see it but it feels right.  Since 2014 the focus of the collection has changed, moving away from a venue principally for enthusiasts to something with a wider appeal.