One for the Air Buffs

[NewcastleFalcon]

Another thread to fill in, with all things Air transport. One for the train buffs is a decent participation thread. Let's give this one a go

I could start it off with a few of my originals. My particular favourite is this. Produced on my usual compact point and shoot, a Turkish Airlines flight from Istanbul to New York, high up in the sky over Alnmouth Northumberland



Neil

[mickthemaverick]

Name that plane!

MTMO

[NewcastleFalcon]

Name that plane!

Have you ever been to Leighton Buzzard Mick?

https://flyaflightsimulatorexperience.com/about/

Neil

[mickthemaverick]

I certainly have! I took Bob's eldest grand daughter for her birthday treat last year and she thoroughly enjoyed it!! However it did result in her giving up her inclination to be a pilot, too boring apparently!!

[NewcastleFalcon]

Bit of a tired old picture now, been seen quite a few times on the FCF before, the first back in 2015, but now there is a home thread for such things worth another look. A ground run day including a engines start up and bit of throttle pushing for a friend of mine who supplied the picture.



Neil

[mickthemaverick]

I believe that is a Vulcan Neil?

[NewcastleFalcon]

I believe that is a Vulcan Neil?

It is Mick. Haynes even do a workshop manual on it

A few copies of thiis will be available to browse in the Pickled Egg snug

Neil

[bobins]

WTF? You may ask - own work

[mickthemaverick]

Been to Brooklands have we?

Spoiler: show

https://www.brooklandsmuseum.com/explor ... re-chamber

[myglaren]

[bobins]

The other bit of the Brooklands thing - own work

[bobins]

Happy days - own work

[mickthemaverick]

Is that the one they use for processing rubber?

[bobins]

Somewhere in Germany, but only just if I remember correctly

We have lift off - own work

Big shiny plane - own work

A HAS - own work

[NewcastleFalcon]

No point leaving this languishing in the forgotten depths of the Trivia Investiagtion Team now that "one for the Air Buffs" is here and a connection with Goodwood (former RAF Westhampnett ) to boot. Unfortunately telling a story does require a little bit of verbiage to read.

A brief dalliance

The Crown Inn at Humshaugh is the venue for a lot of car activity from Ferrari/McClaren Owners meets, to Microcar Days, and Tractor days. This unusual three-wheeler/trike appeared at one of its microcar meets.



Yes looks like a plane, but is there more to decipher? The plane has some numbers and letters on it. The black lettering is too fuzzy to properly make out, and google image search cannot bring up any matches for the whole thing. So what is there I (the roundel) KJ. Black lettering guesswork. SM 530? that was enough to find this



The black lettering turned out to be SM520. Cant find much about the three-wheeler, maybe the chap knocked it up in his garage, but its mocked up to pay homage to the Spitfire. The Spitfire itself the SM520 has some details on it here...

https://www.spitfires.com/sm520

SM520 was built in the Castle Bromwich factory in 1944 as single seat Mark H.F.IXe high level fighter, with firewall construction number CBAF 10164. It was delivered to the RAF on 23 November 1944 at 33 Maintenance Unit at RAF Lyneham but with the European conflict tapering off it was retained in storage until being shipped or flown (they did both) to the South African Air Force (SAAF) in 1948, one of a 136, 80 gifted and the remainder sold by the UK Government for £2000.00 a piece...(and continues...)

...and the decoding of the Squadron/aircraft Code

The first and probably the only ever two seat Spitfire in RAF service was an unofficial conversion of a former tired 4 Squadron SAAF Mk V, ES127 that is thought to have been converted locally in Sicily by 118 Maintenance Unit at Catania. This conversion had the front fuel tank removed and a second wind screen attached that enabled passenger and observer flights to be given. The squadron code markings used for 4 SAAF were 'KJ' and the letter used for this specific aircraft was 'I'. SM520 now wears those same code letters.

...you will see now that SM520 has been repainted, and has acquired the Squadron Code LO-G instead of KJ-I. This was in houour of Nigel Rose who in 1940 was a young Pilot flying Spitfires with 602 (City of Glasgow) Squadron which were based at RAF Westhampnett in West Sussex. LO was that Squadron's code.

Neil