Anyone into old aircraft?

[dangerous brain]

Ah wonderful cosford. Did a flying visit there for a couple of technical courses. Early failure detection being one of the most mind numbing (first job I've done where the job was ultimately more interesting than the training) and jet turbine engine testing (this one was cool as I was working on turbo-shafts not jet turbines and theres something more exhiliarating about hoofing thousands of Lbs of thrust down a tube pointing at the sky than sitting looking at a dyno that wedges out lots of steam)

 

I remember going to Duxford years ago and from what I recall it was a bigger place than cosfords museum and had some very good stands. The 3 aircraft I remember from there were the origional wooden tailed concorde, the vulcan (that we had as a flypast at our passing out parade from Swinderby, the tornado's the week before were no-where near as impressive even though there were 3 of them), and the TSR2. I recognised that picture before my pc screen had scrolled halfway down it. We built that aircraft back in the 60's on our own. Nowadays we have to rely on 20 banana brained european states with elections every ten minutes and back pedaling like you wouldn't believe just to put into service ten years too late an aircraft thats so out of date we may as well scrap it. The MK3 chinook is still sitting in storage, in fact one hasn't even been painted yet just left in primer. The RAF is just a dismal shadow of its former self. Its a testament to the perseverance of the guys and gals that have stayed on really. Professionalism in the RAF far outweighs that of every single airforce in europe, and now working for another one and working with people that have worked with the rest its reassuring that our is actually ackowledged as the most disciplined and rescourcefull.

[Tricky-Ricky]

As a lad I literally lived at the bottom of Biggin Hill airfield, and was well into planes, used to watch all the air shows for free, could even just walk into the airfield from the back of my garden, used to watch the predecessors of the modern formation teams, they used Hawker hunters and I think they where called the Blue Diamonds? like the underside pic of the Lightning, one of my favourite planes along with the V bombers,and the pic of the little jet/rocket powered Messerschmidt:cool: