By my reckoning its about 25 crow miles from Brunt to Cott so can anyone enlighten us as to where it's gone and what it's doing in the meantime if eta is 1600? Or are the timings now different?
The crew will be checking the systems, hopefully undercarriage retractions and testing the time the gear take to travel. 7 seconds if memory is right? Maybe Bomb bay travel time as well, and other air tests.
I am sure Smiler will tell us later how the air test went and what it entailed.
There were, as usual, the massive changes in rumour as to whether or not it’d land, and when, and from which direction, and whether or not there was a fire on board that scuppered things. Hopes were restored that we would be seeing something soon, when someone phoned ATC at Cott and was told that it was def going back to Bruntingthorpe without landing. Fantastic! That did it, off came the lens caps and sure enough, 2 minutes later, there she was.
A wonderful sight, and how smooth she sounded too. Dunno what she’s like under the skin, or if she flatters to deceive but she looked utterly magnificent, a credit to the guys working on her. Coming out of the sun, from Oakham she seemed graceful indeed. An afternoon well worth spending standing in a muddy field and some good chat to be had too.
Many thanks for some great photographs - the shot of the flare with the heat haze is a beauty.
I was at Cranfield for the Reds/XH558 show and, mainly because my dad was part of the design team for the GPU's, was a contributor to the original fund.
There were some serious snappers there with some proper gear - there will be some truly awesome shots on the way, I'm sure . Its nice that people for whom 558 means so much, are able to appreciate her.
Congratulations
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