TALY
I don't remember the timing of the skid change on TALY, but I do recall fitting no end of gadgets to her - dual wipers, sun visors, autopilot, etc, none of which were common mods at the time.
I also remember the inside of the P2 screen being scratched to bu99ery by His Lordship's boots - he'd put his feet up on the de-fog nozzle in flight, so Ken whatsit told us.
NOEL
The re-engraving was fairly simple once we found someone who could do it. It started off when we made our own edge-lit switch panels, e.g. Fuel valve, Hyd on-off, etc. Having made and drilled the new perspex plate it was first given several coats of 'special' paint in the desired colour of the writing. Then several more coats of the finish colour. A specialist engraver would then cut the wording through the top colour but not disturbing the base colour. Simple. We did the c/b panel the same way but it wasn't lit.
NOEL was also a flying accessory brochure - the first in the UK with a cow-catcher (wire-cutter), an illuminated T/R G-box sight glass, colour co-ordinated float covers, to name a few.
Don't have any photos - didn't take them in those days.
I don't remember whether Geoff delivered both N & M, they were close together I know - a week at the most, so I doubt it.
I remember writing a large 'WM' or 'WN' inside all the cowlings as they were all off at the same time as soon as we got them. We had to take them apart to see why they were working - brand new or not.
Hope this helps.
Last edited by TRC; 14th Oct 2010 at 16:54.
Reason: Tryping - what else.....