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PC and Cookie's Big Adventure (feat. Navy Bird), the CedB cut


Procopius

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As usual, behind with the selfies... and my iPad seems to have lost the Flickr sharing options so I’m limited to ‘copy URL’. Weird. Does it even work?

 

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Oh, OK then. 
 

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Ah, senior moment, sorry...

 

Hannants was like a huge playground for the chaps:

 

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... including games of ‘Where’s Cookie?’

 

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Of course I can order - and get reasonable shipping - whenever I like but the guys took this opportunity to select some ‘treasures’. After a while I retired to the car to change some hotel bookings and arrange a few more ‘special viewings’. Having great fun and both guys are a joy to be with :) 

 

Last night in Norwich we wandered into town and came across this:

 

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Now a Weatherspoons :weep:

 

At least they do Steak and Kidney pudding...

 

Lincolnshire tomorrow. 

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Enjoying the tour vicariously. My mums family come from South Lincolnshire and so memories of Vulcans, F100s, Phantoms etc, as well as a trip to the BBMF as a birthday treat a couple of years ago and Newark Air Museum after watching the RAF 100th anniversary flypast practise. 

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1 hour ago, Rob G said:

 

Ah, but is it worth eating?

 

Ah Rob, sadly I think you’ll be able to tell from my next selfie appearance - count the extra chins!

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I'm only very slightly, mildly, moderately, hardly at all envious of the main players in his thread, it'd be hard to think of a better way to spend some time than the way that you bunch of miscreants are. Journey well gents. :) Speaking of miscreants, are we allowed to know the IDs of the ring ins, selfie bombers, stray dudes in post #39, I'm guessing one is @Aeronut it would be nice for us stay at homes to put faces to names. :) 

Steve.

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10 hours ago, Procopius said:

Once again, I have to doff my cap to Ced, who has tirelessly driven us all over, organised everything, and made sure at every step we're enjoying ourselves. We certainly are, and it wouldn't be a tenth as much fun without all of the hard work he puts into the whole endeavour.

There’s a business opportunity for CEd then, what with Thomas Cook going belly up there is an opening for a guided tour operator.

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On 11/5/2019 at 7:27 AM, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

by this young man in a Swift (at least the label said it was a Swift - @Fritag has already pointed out that it looks distinctly Hunter-esque, amd he has a point!

You know I'm with you and @Fritag on the "Swift". I'd never noticed that on previous visits. It has to be a much modified Swift, or a Hunter! 

 

Terry

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16 minutes ago, stevehnz said:

I'm only very slightly, mildly, moderately, hardly at all envious of the main players in his thread, it'd be hard to think of a better way to spend some time than the way that you bunch of miscreants are. Journey well gents. :) Speaking of miscreants, are we allowed to know the IDs of the ring ins, selfie bombers, stray dudes in post #39, I'm guessing one is @Aeronut it would be nice for us stay at homes to put faces to names. :) 

Steve.

Oddly enough no, I am not in any of the photos and so I retain that air of mystery. 😂

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34 minutes ago, stevehnz said:

I'm only very slightly, mildly, moderately, hardly at all envious of the main players in his thread,

 

On the upside Steve, you get to avoid the 'joys' of international air travel. It's 2019, why is it still such a PITA?

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46 minutes ago, Rob G said:

'joys' of international air travel.

I guess that unless if you can afford business class or even economy premium, then a minimum of 2x12 hours jammed into cattle class when you're rugby forward size does not qualify as a joy, tried it 5 years ago, hated it. Nevertheless, in a couple of years I hope to retire & a trip to the UK/Europe is high on the list of to does. At least then I should be able to spend long enough to justify the physical torture that getting there & back will entail. I doubt that there'll be much difference between my experiences in 2014 & 2021/22ish,  other than the airlines might have jammed another couple of rows of seats in, cutting legroom slightly more. :(;)

Steve.

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Sorry guys, should have labelled the faces. For a reference:

 

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Ex-FAAWAFU (Crisp), me, John (Avareda), Cookie and PC.

 

Today’s selfies... - PC will hopefully tell the stories, and much better than I can

 

RAF Marham

 

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Lincs Aviation and ‘Just Jane’
 

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PC made it into the nose of a Canberra

 

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Then on to the International Bomber Command Centre and overnight in Lincoln

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Well it looks like you chaps are having a splendid time. I do envy you! If I'd have been in the Hannants warehouse, I'd have been running around like a five-year old, saying 'I want this, I want that!'.

 

Best Regards,

 

Jason

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23 minutes ago, Learstang said:

Well it looks like you chaps are having a splendid time. I do envy you! If I'd have been in the Hannants warehouse, I'd have been running around like a five-year old, saying 'I want this, I want that!'.

 

Best Regards,

 

Jason

You and me both, id have to buy a few pieces of luggage as well for the trip home. 

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Wait, wait... back up a bit, because I almost missed something... I could have sworn there was an Overstrand in there.

 

My Lord, there WAS!  I had no idea that even the tiniest bit of Overstrand was still in existence, let alone such a patrician nose as that.  If Terry Nation was not thinking of the Overstrand when he designed the Daleks, then my name’s Davros.

 

I am going to bed happy.  I bet @general melchettis, too; I seem to recall he shares my unlikely passion for the Overstrand (and indeed Sidestrand).

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Good news, everyone! I definitely fit in the nose of the Canberra B.6.

 

I was even able to wriggle out effortlessly. So there's clearly something wrong with the one back at Boscombe.

 

This morning, we headed out to the field where Cookie's grandfather crashlanded his B-24H in 1945, while trying to make a forced landing at RAF Shipdham. We couldn't find the pond the aircraft landed in, though we found the lane it landed somewhere along, and a woman out walking her dog told us a bit of local folklore about a young woman who threw herself in the same pond to drown when a B-24 carrying her lover failed to return. (Not, I hasten to add, JD's grandfather.)

 

We also drove onto Shipdham airfield proper, or what's left of it, which isn't much. The Shipdham Flying Club, who were not in evidence, maintain their headquarters there as well as a number of visual references to the airfield's somewhat more glorious past.

 

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There was also a small plaque, placed in 1988, in memory of the field's tenants, the 44th BG, but sadly it's not in the best shape:

 

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Then we went on towards Lincoln, with a quick detour to RAF Marham, where we hoped to catch sight of an F-35B, but alas all of them were probably on HMS Queen Elizabeth in America or conducting trials with HMS Prince of Wales. Fortunately, we happened upon the Marham Heritage Centre, where a helpful volunteer and former weapons engineer for the Tornado gave us a wonderful little tour and talked all about JP233, a weapon that's fascinated me since I learned of it in 1989. The centre has lots of interesting full-size stores, mostly replicas or training ones, for the Tornado, including a BOZ pod and Sky Shadow ECM.

 

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They also had a nice little shop area, and since the proceeds went to RAF Marham and my love for the RAF is I trust well-known, I picked up a 617 Squadron shirt, a Typhoon patch, and a very nice book of Tornado photographs, and they gave me a Tornado engine blade on my way out. Then, as I came outside, a pair of Typhoons passed overhead, with one barrel-rolling away and their wingman following. JD had never seen one in flight before, so he was quite pleased, and I was pleased too, because the Typhoon is gorgeous.

 

We then headed to East Kirkby to see their Lancaster, Just Jane. I'd tried to arrange a tour of her in advance, but unfortunately she's being worked on now, and that wasn't possible. 

 

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She's immense, and immensely imposing. It might not have been the best decision of East Kirkby to suggest one begin their tour with her, however; everything else is apt to seem an anticlimax.

 

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There's also what I understand to be the only intact Mosquito NFII there, in the throes of a 40-year-long restoration; I donated a few pounds towards this worthy cause.

 

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When we left the hangar, we saw yet another Typhoon, this one wheels down and much lower, so we got a good look at her. I think I shall never tire of seeing them.

 

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Then, after picking up some gifts for the boys and for Mrs P, it was on to the IBCC in Lincoln.

 

The IBCC is a sombre place. It can't help it. When you step out the back of the building, you're faced with the spire, the height of a Lancaster's wingspan, and around it, the stone tablets bearing the names of 57,861 members of Bomber Command who gave their lives during the war. Perched atop a hill, it overlooks Lincoln below, the great bulk of the cathedral looming over the city in the distance. That building, almost a thousand years old, would see thousands of bombers pass over it between 1939 and 1945. Some returned.

 

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We walked out to the spire in almost total silence. What could we say? Nearly eighty years ago, the sound of them all must have been deafening as they passed overhead, to impale themselves on the spiked ramparts and drown themselves in the moats of Fortress Europa, each seven-man crew an entire lonely universe unto itself in dark skies punctuated only by terrifying flashes. 

 

And somehow, they did it:

 

"In the summer of 1943, the disruption in the Ruhr manifested itself across the German economy in the so-called 'Zuligieferungskrise; (sub-components crisis). All manner of parts, castings, and forgings were suddenly in short supply. And this affected not only heavy industry directly, but the entire armaments complex. Most significantly, the shortage of key components brought the rapid increase in Luftwaffe production to an abrupt halt. Between July 1943 and March 1944 there was no further increase in the monthly output of aircraft. For the armaments effort as a whole, the period of stagnation lasted throughout the second half of 1943. As Speer himself acknowledged, Allied bombing had negated all plans for a further increase in production. Bomber Command had stopped Speer's armaments miracle in its tracks." (Adam Tooze, The Wages of Destruction)

 

 

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"We were attacked again. I went back to the pilot. We had our intercom on and he shouted out, ‘Don’t bale out.’ But the intercom was very bad and crackly and I think that some of them only caught the last two words. The wireless operator, the navigator and the flight engineer all went out. So, one gunner was probably dead, the other probably dying and three men had baled out, just leaving myself and Kevin. He tried to control the plane but the fire probably burnt through the control cables and it started to dive, with a terrible screaming sound. Kevin and I realized that we had to get out but, because of the G force, we couldn’t get to the hatch in the nose. I could see that we were going to go down in this bloody plane but Kevin managed to reach the escape-hatch in the nose and pulled it open. He then physically got hold of me, shoved me into the hatch and pushed me out with his feet. He said he was following. I pulled my cord. I couldn’t see anything but very quickly indeed I landed in some trees. The plane crashed three or four hundred yards away. Kevin never got out. We had been too low. I am very conscious that my life hinged on that moment when Kevin pushed me out. When my son was born in 1951, I called him Kevin, as a daily reminder of Kevin Hornibrook, to whom I owed the rest of my life. Never a day goes by without me remembering that he was first at the door and could have saved himself easily."

 

-- Alex Bryett, 158 Squadron

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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What moving comments and thanks for putting them on. It is somewhere I must visit when next in the area. 

Coincidentally, I have just finished reading the 'Wages of Destruction' on the Kindle app on my phone (my preferred way of reading these days of text heavy books, easier on my post stroke word processing centres). I found it a very informative book, that adds a lot to the history of the period. 

Lincoln is not a bad place, last stayed in a hotel opposite the cathedral. 

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6 hours ago, Learstang said:

running around like a five-year old, saying 'I want this, I want that!'.

 

Yeah, that's what happens. Then, when you stand back and look at the pile of STUFF that you've collected, you remember that you're not a Rothschild, nor can you call on a friendly C-17 driver to ship it home, and so... you put it all back, keeping just one decal sheet and some etch.

 

At least that's what happened to me the last time I visited there.

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The last time I made the pilgrimage to Hannants I suffered the same 'box blindness' that Ced complained of; after about half an hour I was just blankly scanning rows and rows of kit boxes and not really seeing anything... rather disappointing, but I'm pleased to see Edward and Cookie were apparently not affected :D 

 

Cheers,

 

Stew

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Good to hear that you're all having a whale of a time, if I'd known earlier that you lot were in Lincoln you could have descended on Melchett Towers for a cup of something warm and wet. Hopefully catch up with you at the show, in fact, I may well treat you to one of Telford's finest bacon butties! or not. I'll be there dashing between the Bomber Command table and the Airfix/Key publications stand where I'm required this weekend...trying desperately, and probably failing to avoid my long time nemesis, Martian Hale. Hope you all enjoy yourselves....

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 I could have sworn there was an Overstrand in there.

My Lord, there WAS!  I had no idea that even the tiniest bit of Overstrand was still in existence, let alone such a patrician nose as that.  If Terry Nation was not thinking of the Overstrand when he designed the Daleks, then my name’s Davros.

I am going to bed happy.  I bet general melchett is, too; I seem to recall he shares my unlikely passion for the Overstrand (and indeed Sidestrand).

Crisp, yes indeed, I saw this wonderfully restored relic a while back, (not me, the Overstrand) in fact I had a long chat with Les Whitehead about the old bus as he worked on them with BP back in the day, a true gentleman, he supplied with with all manner of info, AP drawings, factory photos etc. Wonderful tales of stick, string, early power-assisted turrets and high-altitude rocket interceptor designs, they were a clever lot. 

 

 

 

 

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Sounds like you're having a great time. I pass the IBCC on the way to work five days a week. Still haven't managed to get there though!

The booze warehouse is about three miles from there. And I spent most of today in Nottingham or traffic jams caused by the weather.

20 hours ago, Procopius said:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_MHqW5KVds

 

Turn up your volume to listen to this one.

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