MJ, HI
I've heard that she is staying in PIK until it's time to take the NZ Ams Cup boat back to NZ. Makes sense as PIK is the designated maintanence base for her and it must have saved $'s and $'s bringing her as far as Valencia on charter.
Have had e-talks with many others on the subject of the Queen, JM who was a QFI (?) on HMFC's Belfasts remembers checking out Bob Reynolds as the original Chief Pilot of HLA................what a cowboy Bob was!
On my first training flight, straight of Buccs, he asked me if I thought I could barrell-roll her.......Paddy T was the FE and I remember his face when I said I would try it.
Don't forget that I had never flown anything bigger than a Buccaneer....and had little or no idea of civvy rules and regs. No comments on that, please!
We got to over 90 degs when I started to run out of aileron and dished her out before the nose got too low....Paddy was rather pale but Bob just sat there totally unfazed.
I could spend hours on the subject of Bob R and the Belfast in HLA's early days, all on GBEPE, the original pre-production model, she weighed 2 or 3 tons more than the others.
I think David D is in on the chats, hope all goes well, David.