Thanks again for the very informative replies and it is nice to hear the personal accounts of the flights in the particular aircraft. It will probably be quite some time before I get to hear stories about more recent missons ZA449 has been involved in. I have a feeling my stick from 449 has seen more combat action than my GR1 stick from 369 especially as 369 was a recce version well i know it was involved in a lot more operations. I wonder if I mifght be a bit sadistic but I enjoy the fact that the trigger and button has probably given some terrorist a really bad day, probably more from the button than the trigger. Mind you they could have mde it a bigger button, at least big enough to draw a smiley face on, like someone did on my GR1 stick!
I beleive ZA449 is still in service, well i know she has a new stick and a new total fuel contents indicator as my latest part is the fuel indicator and thats from 449 as well! I just need one more intrument now to have the full front cockpit panels, minus a few buttons and switches.