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


Procopius

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While I think of it, can I just say for myself what a pleasure it was finally getting to meet @Procopius, @Cookenbacher and @Navy Bird at Telford. What courteous and enthusiastic people you three are - and brilliant ambassadors for your country! If any of you fancy standing for the 46th president, you would get my vote. If I was able to vote. Which I'm not, but there you are.

 

So glad you enjoyed your action packed jaunt round our funny little country, and I'm not surprised @CedB looked after you so handsomely. If you are back for 2025, I will happily join in the Grand Tour mk. II - I will only be 35 so we can do all the more action packed things while @perdu has a little sit down! 😉

 

You need to go to Tangmere, and Elvington, and Bruntingthorpe, and Solent Sky, and Biggin Hill, and the Science Museum in South Ken, and back to Duxford for the (hopefully finished) Victor B1, CR42 and Beaufighter!

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2 hours ago, Vulcanicity said:

If any of you fancy standing for the 46th president, you would get my vote.

I'm not sure it's a good idea Procopius becoming president. Think of the size of the stash if he was allowed near the US federal budget. :o

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33 minutes ago, Stew Dapple said:

 

Also he might well endeavour to restore the USA as a British colonial possession :lol: 

 

You say it like it's a bad thing. 

 

Longer update later, chaps, as Cookie and I had a final BM meet-up here in the 'states, but right now, I'm packing up books (which I was promised, repeatedly, that I wouldn't have to do) and getting ready to paint my front door in 4.5 C weather so that we can hopefully sell our house starting Monday. This is perfect, because for the first time in living memory, I felt totally at peace and comfortable in my own skin after two weeks in England, and it would never have done to go back to work tomorrow like that.

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Good luck with the viewings PC and I hope you get a decent buyer soon 🤞

 

Comfortable in your own skin? You should be matey, you should be :) 

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18 hours ago, Navy Bird said:

I'm shocked that @Procopius was silent during his 15 seconds of fame courtesy of the Airfix camera crew. He's usually such a talkative chap.   :)

Did I really talk too much during the trip? I tried not to interrupt anyone! 

 

I did speak, but it wasn't very good, and they just used a bit of what Andy said; he had a very eloquent bit on why he modelled (that was very similar to my own reasons for doing so) that sadly wasn't used. Also, I'm very shy. 

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13 hours ago, Procopius said:

Did I really talk too much during the trip?

 

No mate, you didn't :) Except when you realised I look more like Alan Partridge than Terence Stamp, that realisation probably should have been part of your internal monologue rather than vocalised :lol: 

 

Converstations do tend to become a bit disjointed when there's a small group of us, and due to time restraints I spoke with you a little less than would have wished, but I enjoyed talking to you (and everyone else) very much; looking forward to the next time.

 

Cheers,

 

Stew

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16 hours ago, Procopius said:

Did I really talk too much during the trip? I tried not to interrupt anyone! 

I don’t think I gave you much opertunity to talk at Wallop as I was in full tour guide mode during your visit. 😊

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On 18/11/2019 at 20:16, Navy Bird said:

I'm shocked that @Procopius was silent during his 15 seconds of fame courtesy of the Airfix camera crew. He's usually such a talkative chap.   :)

 

Cheers,

Bill

Entusiastic Bill IMHO! I found all of you to be great companions and had a wonderful time :) 

17 hours ago, Procopius said:

Did I really talk too much during the trip?

Not for me PC, not for me! Your company was a constant delight and your knowledge is, frankly, very impressive :) 

 

 

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1 hour ago, CedB said:

Not for me PC, not for me! Your company was a constant delight and your knowledge is, frankly, very impressive :)

Well I only had a short opportunity to delight in PC’s company, but it did at least involve beer, and delight in it I did (the company I mean not the beer - although I enjoyed the beer too.......oh heck I think I’ve got myself in a muddle here.....).  Ditto for cookie and Navy Bird too (I’m not going to enter the beer/company syntax muddle again).

 

And as for PC’s impressive knowledge.....I’m still reeling from his immediate identification of a PZL M-15 Belphegor I was cluelessly looking at in the Kraków aviation museum last week (don’t ask - its a tortuous story - just accept that it was gob smackingly impressive)......
 

 

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I wasn't trying to imply that PC talked too much. No sir! I was just hoping that Airfix would have interviewed him on camera so he could be nominated for the Most Erudite Modeller award.    :) 

 

Cheers,

Bill

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10 hours ago, Fritag said:

I’m still reeling from his immediate identification of a PZL M-15 Belphegor

Not surprising, because it is enough to see IT only once in your life and you will never forget IT!  Also, having seen THIS, you can never fall asleep without sleeping pills and sedatives ... and you will also have nightmares!

😁😁😁

 

B.R.

Serge

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Much belatedly, the story of the final leg of my journey, since right now strangers are (hopefully) going through my house deciding on whether or not to buy it.

 

49075756986_0715832dcf.jpgVID_20191115_075022_LS by Edward IX, on Flickr

 

After JD and I returned, we discovered that Mrs P was in a frenetic burst of house-cleaning activity, and I had to pack up eight large boxes of my books since apparently people buying houses don't think overflow storage on the floor when the shelves are full is very attractive. Cookie also got to meet my mom when we dropped the books off at my parents house for storage, and she treated him to about ninety minutes of family drama. Lucky Cookie.

 

49075756511_00f4f44d9c_4k.jpgIMG_20191116_091611 by Edward IX, on Flickr

 

Since Mrs P was decamping with the children (who liked JD VERY much, poor fellow), Cookie and I had no car and were restricted to the pleasant confines of Highwood, IL, five thousand souls and a square mile in size. Fortunately the town has an excellent Indian buffet (when JD expressed excitement at this, Mrs P remarked "my god, it's like you're clones" in a tone of disgust), and so we weren't about to go hungry any time soon. Also, I'd made contact with local Britmodellers @John Laidlaw and @Corsairfoxfouruncle, who both live at the outer edges of driving distance from me, and asked if they'd want to come down for lunch on the day we saw JD off to the airport. They both very graciously obliged (and Dennis very kindly brought a photo album of pictures from a week he was able to spend on a USN CVN in the 1980s, which sadly but perhaps mercifully for the stash we never got around to looking at), and we convened at local eatery The Mean Weiner (which also makes excellent tacos and, I am advised, a quite good hamburger as well) for a pleasant little lunch before we decamped back to Hedgehog Manor for a poke 'round the ol' stash. As a modeller with limited social skills and even less small talk, I feel the stash inspection should be compulsory, because it gives one some common ground with other hobbyists and you don't have to expose the profound limits of your pinched little personality. But that may just be me. 

 

We all had a very pleasant time and I relieved myself of some kits (I bet you were worried when you started that sentence, weren't you?) that I likely wasn't going to get around to any time soon, but which I now expect to see built on these forums in the not too indistinct future. Moo-ha-ha-ha. Then it was time for Cookie to head home, and Dennis and John decamped as well, but not before my dad came by to look at the house, so they got the dubious pleasure of meeting him as well. 

 

And then everyone was gone, and it was just me, going back to my normal life.

 

Fifteen years ago, not long after I'd run away from home and while I was still living in a condemned apartment two hours away by train and bus from the poverty-level job with no health coverage that I worked to have enough money to barely live, I attended a wedding held at the Brookfield Zoo for two of my classmates from college. They had wealthy parents, and it was a beautiful wedding (despite the somewhat improbable choice of "Golden Brown" by The Stranglers to play as the bride walked down the aisle), and I stayed too late for any train home, and talked to my old editor at the college paper, who looked not unlike a Brian Froud fairie, and told jokes with all the cool people I'd sort of known, and then had to beg a ride home in a too-small car sandwiched between two terribly drunk people, one of whom got into a fight with the driver, which only narrowly didn't end badly for everyone, and I distinctly remember thinking to myself "and then everybody went home, and nobody did anything witty and clever ever again." This is the sort of thing you think when you're twenty-one and stupid, and I was dumber than most, but the sentiment is hardly original; Churchill, in the early days of his career, is alleged to have said to Eddie Marsh, as they walked past the rowhouses of Manchester, "fancy living in these streets, never seeing anything beautiful, never eating anything savoury, never saying anything clever!" Of course, probably most everyone has their victories to sustain them, though what was savoury or clever to WSC might not have answered for the worked-to-the-bone poor of Manchester (but then again it might; I read Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire cover-to-cover-to-cover-to-cover -- it was a two-volume edition -- and loved it immensely during the period of my life when I looked most like I'd just escaped from a correctional facility and stolen my clothes from a dumpster; our bodies are rude prisons for our inner selves sometimes), but as prosaic as it is, this sentiment is one I often come back to. Like Cinderella after the ball, we all have to go back to our real lives after our adventures are over, and what will sustain us through them is what we retain inside ourselves of those experiences. Adrienne Rich, who if you're familiar with her, you probably weren't expecting to see conjured up on Britmodeller (I'm here for you, though) writes in Twenty One Love Poems:

 

Whenever in this city, screens flicker
with pornography, with science-fiction vampires,
victimized hirelings bending to the lash,
we also have to walk . . . if simply as we walk
through the rainsoaked garbage, the tabloid cruelties
of our own neighborhoods.
We need to grasp our lives inseparable
from those rancid dreams, that blurt of metal, those disgraces,
and the red begonia perilously flashing
from a tenement sill six stories high,
or the long-legged young girls playing ball
in the junior highschool playground.
No one has imagined us....

 

Which is just I guess a recapitulation of the idea that we have to rely on our inner life, or light, to keep us going through the humdrum normality of the real world which we go back to at the end of any adventure. Even Johnnie Johnson had to clean the bathroom sometimes. 

 

Anyway, this is all a rambling and roundabout way of saying thank you to everyone I met in England this time, everyone I almost met, everyone who arranged special tours, everyone who just said "hi" at Telford (and good on you to the folks who approached JD and me to ask if we were PC and Cookie, it made us feel like Big Men), everyone reading the thread here, and everyone who participates in this, our wonderful hobby, be you lumping the paint on with hairy sticks on the kitchen table or faffing about with your Iwata Custom Micron in your special modelling annex, and everyone in between: this has been a deeply rewarding passtime for me these past ten years or so and I hope long into the future. For me, finding out about the history of these aircraft has always been an act of love: for the pilots, for the aircrew, for the men and women who built them, for the people who designed them, for the ideals they were used to fight for. The story of every aircraft I've built is in this small way a love story. Thanks for being a memorable supporting cast, now and forever.

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And now, some photos (in reverse order) from the trip, since I still have ninety minutes before I can go back to my home.

 

Retro-BEA scheme at Heathrow, which for a long, dangerous moment had me looking at the 1/144 F-Resin Trident kit on ebay:

 

49064384483_b92d20cecc_4k.jpgIMG_20191114_134152 by Edward IX, on Flickr

 

Some gorgeous British Airways 747s:

 

49065112992_f520544178_4k.jpgIMG_20191114_132818 by Edward IX, on Flickr

 

49065112737_cdccf042f0_4k.jpgIMG_20191114_132707 by Edward IX, on Flickr

 

Runnymede, remembering the people who made our lives possible through the sacrifice of their own:

 

49064383628_dfa2fcb2db_4k.jpgIMG_20191114_120126 by Edward IX, on Flickr

 

49065112497_fcd00482cc_4k.jpgIMG_20191114_120120 by Edward IX, on Flickr

 

49064382808_db314f72a0_4k.jpgIMG_20191114_115050 by Edward IX, on Flickr

 

49064897416_96cef32c46_4k.jpgIMG_20191114_114811 by Edward IX, on Flickr

 

49064382538_acd869f003_4k.jpgIMG_20191114_114806 by Edward IX, on Flickr

 

49064382358_264d7fa674_4k.jpgIMG_20191114_114653 by Edward IX, on Flickr

 

Tightly packed in the T-Roc on the last leg of the journey:

 

49064381903_7acd7f58eb_3k.jpgIMG_20191114_094509 by Edward IX, on Flickr

 

Merlins at Yeovilton!

 

49059991631_828f165913_4k.jpgIMG_20191113_123003 by Edward IX, on Flickr

 

And why @Ex-FAAWAFU really didn't want to meet up with us at Yeovilton, it's just RAF and Army stuff:

 

49059428802_63776c9d40_4k.jpgIMG_20191113_112149 by Edward IX, on Flickr

 

49060214007_8581514910_4k.jpgIMG_20191113_122535 by Edward IX, on Flickr

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Under and around the FAA Museum's Fulmar:

 

49058686098_aa397ac7a4_4k.jpgIMG_20191113_111527 by Edward IX, on Flickr

 

49059420532_ad50a8941b_4k.jpgIMG_20191113_111509 by Edward IX, on Flickr

 

49059419402_034c8b1296_4k.jpgIMG_20191113_111456 by Edward IX, on Flickr

 

49058687198_bfaee1e3c6_4k.jpgIMG_20191113_111557 by Edward IX, on Flickr

 

49059421447_70a5fb012e_4k.jpgIMG_20191113_111542 by Edward IX, on Flickr

 

49059418362_8221d283ef_4k.jpgIMG_20191113_111428 by Edward IX, on Flickr

 

The rump of a Scimitar:

 

49059400577_d24b741479_4k.jpgIMG_20191113_103811 by Edward IX, on Flickr

 

49058666303_eb8af82e35_4k.jpgIMG_20191113_103824 by Edward IX, on Flickr

 

The other end of Supermarine's last fighter (more or less a fighter, anyway):

 

49058662728_1821bd24a3_4k.jpgIMG_20191113_103711 by Edward IX, on Flickr

 

Victor B.1 under restoration:

 

49056799686_77e9c06992_4k.jpgIMG_20191112_120008 by Edward IX, on Flickr

 

49056286493_aef187ef2c_4k.jpgIMG_20191112_115958 by Edward IX, on Flickr

 

49057016722_e2b88c3f9d_4k.jpgIMG_20191112_120016 by Edward IX, on Flickr

 

Partial fuselage section of a captured Zero, including some Aotake:

 

49056798386_8360f97a65_4k.jpgIMG_20191112_114015 by Edward IX, on Flickr

 

Blenheim IV cockpit section: 

 

49057015052_0134ee7ce8_4k.jpgIMG_20191112_113839 by Edward IX, on Flickr

 

Robin Olds's signature at The Eagle:

 

49056265828_703c2cb002_4k.jpgIMG_20191111_194431 by Edward IX, on Flickr

 

Graffiti on the ceiling of The Eagle:

 

49056265403_8445d9d10c_4k.jpgIMG_20191111_192242 by Edward IX, on Flickr

 

Those two instructional airframe Jaguars they keep at RAF Cosford:

 

49056988202_90c0c33ec1_4k.jpgIMG_20191111_112850 by Edward IX, on Flickr

 

Inside the Hampden:

 

49056756826_8ec58929d8_4k.jpgIMG_20191111_101225 by Edward IX, on Flickr

 

49056973397_26cb0679c5_4k.jpgIMG_20191111_101204 by Edward IX, on Flickr

 

49056756446_0856a023b1_4k.jpgIMG_20191111_101209 by Edward IX, on Flickr

 

49056755411_4b7e4f233b_4k.jpgIMG_20191111_101118 by Edward IX, on Flickr

 

Paul Lynde, F-4 Phantom pilot:

 

49056238763_e20f7ebf7c_4k.jpg00000PORTRAIT_00000_BURST20191110144225567 by Edward IX, on Flickr

 

Navy Bird, looking substantially more like a fighter pilot in a Hunter:

 

49056237483_05f62f6050_4k.jpg00100lPORTRAIT_00100_BURST20191110143909049_COVER by Edward IX, on Flickr

 

Bomb-aimer's position on a Victor B.2:

 

49056702996_c6ed4e2cff_4k.jpgIMG_20191108_111407 by Edward IX, on Flickr

 

The low-complexity instrument panel of the Victor B.2:

 

49056701681_b6713f86cc_4k.jpgIMG_20191108_110333 by Edward IX, on Flickr

 

 

 

 

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TSR.2 ejection seat:

 

49056180973_af090ec8b8_4k.jpgIMG_20191108_101748 by Edward IX, on Flickr

 

For some reason I bought a kit of this damn thing after seeing a few on the trip:

 

49056159178_453d143869_4k.jpgIMG_20191107_144510 by Edward IX, on Flickr

 

"HOLD HER STEADY!" Cookie presses on to Leningrad:

 

49047189328_c3f8cd8b8d_4k.jpgIMG_20191108_110742 by Edward IX, on Flickr

 

Me somewhat the worse (or better) for drink with Navy Bird, Stew, Jamie, Ced, and (not visible) Cookie:

 

49047186668_fa4c6303f3_3k.jpgIMG_20191108_210803 by Edward IX, on Flickr

 

A meeting of minds between Stew and Cookie:

 

49047686236_8d16c2c09f_4k.jpgIMG_20191110_103457 by Edward IX, on Flickr

 

Remembrance Sunday at Cosford:

 

49047685556_b7d4aafbb9_4k.jpgIMG_20191110_135328 by Edward IX, on Flickr

 

49047898507_f20d5ed662_4k.jpgIMG_20191110_135345 by Edward IX, on Flickr

 

Sea Vixen and Gannet:

 

49029175226_e00677a0bb_4k.jpgIMG_20191107_151125 by Edward IX, on Flickr

 

 

49020980776_6a6f97bd87_4k.jpgIMG_20191105_110230 by Edward IX, on Flickr

 

 

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1 hour ago, Procopius said:

 

And why @Ex-FAAWAFU really didn't want to meet up with us at Yeovilton, it's just RAF and Army stuff:

 

 

49060214007_8581514910_4k.jpgIMG_20191113_122535 by Edward IX, on Flickr

Nice try, Edward - but that Sea King is actually a Mk.6, and thus never wore either the spurious RAF HAR3 of her starboard side nor the RN HU5 of her port side for real!  It was painted that way for an RNLI rescue display (before it was anywhere near the FAA Museum); the Museum has hung onto it because it is an historic airframe: as an HAS2 with sonar removed (i.e. used in a quasi-Junglie role) it was one of the aircraft in the Sir Galahad rescue, filmed using the downdraft to blow lift rafts away from the inferno.  I think I’m right in saying that it doesn't actually legally belong to the Navy (most of the exhibits there do), so they can’t repaint it.  And anyway the walk-through display is kinda neat.

 

As for the Army, all Wildcats of both services are based at VL; you just happened to see an Army one.

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What a great final instalment PC...

 

I reiterate that the trip has left me with many fond and special memories and I look forward to your next visit. Great times. 
 

Now, get on and write the thread about models for the 453 museum! :poke:

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10 minutes ago, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

As for the Army, all Wildcats of both services are based at VL; you just happened to see an Army one.

I know, I know, there were a bunch of Navy ones too, but the opportunity to wind you up like a majestic grandfather clock was far too good to resist.

 

Just now, CedB said:

Now, get on and write the thread about models for the 453 museum! :poke:

I thought we were waiting for a list from Jim?

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My photos from the second week of this glorious adventure can be found here:

 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/142843986@N03/albums/72157711920710536/page1

 

There are 519 of them, and they took about forever to upload them all. Enjoy!

 

Cheers,

Bill

 

PS. Oh, I have some more that are on my phone. Tomorrow!

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5 hours ago, Procopius said:

I thought we were waiting for a list from Jim?

Quite right, apologies… at least we got a teaser in :) 

 

Great photos Bill :) 

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  • 1 year later...

Just popped over and read this after following Ced's B-17 builds including the one for Jim mentioned a few times here.

 

Sounds like a great trip and I would love to join the festivities in 2025 if the funds work out.

 

My last visit was in 2013 when I combined seeing some of the family (me Mum was British) with the Telford IPMS 50th tour and show.  Many museums were visited, usually 2 a day with much running to try and get it all in.

Unfortunately we skipped Hannants but I did make up for it at Telford where I had the luxury of hanging out with the What If Modelers so had a place to rest my feet and stack my finds.

 

 

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