Recently in Aviation history Category

There can be few among us who, during the Cold War, did not dream of dancing with our friends in front of a Tupolev Tu-134. You had to be crusty not to. Fortunately, in Andrew Rogers we have a connoisseur of such things (and other more mainstream things) who carefully curates them for the rest of us.

I suppose the British equivalent would be Morris dancing in front of a Trident accompanied by the London Philharmonic.

Every time the damned Vulcan XH558 people contact me for support I promise myself this is the last time I do it. At least I had the honesty early on to voice my doubts. And every time I end up caving in.

This time I was absolutely braced to say 'no'. Fingers poised over the 'n' key. And then I watched their irritatingly good movie, and even then I was ready to stand up to them. And then I read the comments on the movie and something about the nasty little anonymous sods lurking there got to me, so here I am again urging you to at least take a look at it. Worth it just for the movie, up to you if you want to contribute.

Oh yes, and it gives me an opportunity to post an entirely gratuitous link to what is by some measure my favourite ever Unusual Attitude post. It being that time of year and all.

Wouldn't it be cool to see what it was like flying one of the Wright Brothers' aircraft - you know, if they had mounted a movie camera on it to see the pilot's eye view? Would never have happened of course.

Except it seems, to my astonishment, that it did. In Italy, in 1909. And here's the movie. Or so it seems. This is real, right???

Courtesy of my colleague David Kaminski-Morrow, a movie, complete with moving visor, wipers, and foreplanes! Double-slotted foreplanes at that!!

Quite enough snow pix just lately I realise, but these ones are livened up by the presence of a Tupolev Tu-144 Charger (Concordski) in the middle of them. This one's at the Kazan factory and looking a bit sad, but as is so often the case all over the world, some people are happy to spend their day giving it a bit of TLC.

This one's CCCP-77107 and I'm a bit vague about its history. No doubt someone can fill it in. Several more pix in the series here, which translates nicely in Google. I didn't realise there were so many Tu-144s around.



I

Way back in 1936 Flight carried a story titled Lindbergh buys British. Sub-titled: His new Miles Mohawk described: a high-performance "custom-built" tourer. Complete with evocative pic of Col Lindbergh running an eye over his new purchase.

He finally took delivery the next year and, as you do, flew to India with his wife in it, then back to the UK via, obviously, Belgrade. Suffice it to say that the aircraft had an eventful life before finally being written off in Spain in 1947.

In fact even after that its life was only a little less eventful and somewhat incredibly it has now just gone on display in its full glory at the RAF Museum at Hendon in north London. Pretty isn't it?

The full story of what happened and how it got there is below, courtesy of the museum.

When I wrote on 18 August 2006 that "I've got my own doubts about how much money can be justified to keep large jets flying" I may have inadvertently given the impression that I had doubts about how much money could be justified to keep large jets flying.

Having spent a gloriously unproductive ten minutes at Farnborough this afternoon watching an Avro Vulcan fly (see pic below) I would like to assure readers that I think the amount of money appropriate for keeping Vulcans flying is, basically, whatever it takes.

I apologise for any confusion that may have been caused. Readers are encouraged to attend the Farnborough public days this weekend for further clarification.

Not something you see every day of the week...

Pic: Ricko

Story and another pic follows...

You remember the tale of Sarah Bennett who innocently asked on Pprune "Does anyone remember my Dad?" He died in a Vulcan accident. (You can refresh your memory here.) Well, today was the day of the anniversary and below is the remarkable story of what happened.

It all began just about a year ago when a lady in England called Sarah enquired on Pprune "Does anyone remember my Dad?" It took a while to get going, but now Sarah knows more about her Dad than she probably expected, and certainly has a whole new understanding of the remarkable circumstances of his very sad death. It turned out to be yet another tale in the inexhaustible history of the Avro Vulcan.