Hallo Savoia.....I've checked my neg strips to confirm 'XMM was at Bembridge (sandwiched between Islanders!) (and not at LHR where I worked)...it was a Britten-Norman open weekend ...Flight magazine a couple of weeks later reported that the planned Air Race round the island was delayed by fog 24hrs (till the Sunday when I was there).
Re the well-connected and Heli-friendly Insurance Man Charles Hughesdon's autobiography I found the most amazing story in there was that of the Solicitor, back in 1949, who (for a £5,000 'present') arranged for the Treasury Solicitor/The Crown to re-imburse the underwriters in the case of the Collision of an RAF York and a SAS DC-6 near Northolt (the RAF York had been found 'in the wrong' by an Inquiry).
Re the Papal Helicopter did you know that the Vatican reviewed having a fixed wing airstrip built in the Vatican grounds about 1946 (its recorded in Flight Global archive). During WWII the Americans maintained a Charge d'Affaires in the Vatican City seconded from Switzerland which they connected to by Italian Train ( the US only established full diplomatic relations withthe Vatican State under Reagan in the 80s) .But in addition in 1942 an American envoy, Myron Taylor was flown from Lisbon by an Ali Littoria Savoia
to Rome Airport, from where he was driven in a limousine with blacked out windows to the Vatican(to convince Pope Pius XII the Allies were going to win)...a visit permitted by Count Ciano and later regretted by Mussolini
Very interesting thread....speed-read 20 pages so far
... Mick