Sea Vixen at Coventry

[ozplane]

The Ryan tragedy of course overshadowed Saturday's event but can anyone help me with a couple of things in the Sea Vixen act. Just before he rotated something (brake chute?) dropped out of the fuelage. Just after his first vertical maneouvre a couple of those streamers parachutists drop appeared and finally what could have been a silver piece of a decal fluttered down. No I hadn't been on the lager but it all seemed rather odd.

[DamienB]

The stowage bay in the starboard tail boom popped open - the white bag was the tool roll, the streamers etc. rolls of paper wipe and assorted contents of the bay and the silver bit you saw was the bay door eventually parting company with the airframe after valiantly holding on while banging to and fro (and damaging the other side of the boom in the process) for some time.

They patched it up with a replacement bay door from the one at Bruntingthorpe and some skin repair foil - due to be flown back to Hurn for a full repair job but she's off the airshow circuit for the time being and I would expect her to miss at the very least Biggin Hill this weekend and perhaps Kemble too.

[ozplane]

Many thanks for that Damien. I'm glad my eyes weren't deceiving me. Shame that the Vixen will be off line for a bit. Personally I think it looked terrific in non-RN colours but the Canberra looked equally good in the Bomber Command scheme. Variety is the spice etc.