Memory Lane.
DFCP,
Thanks for the compliments to my memory - pity it's no use on what happened ten minutes ago ! IIRC, Harold Wilson devalued to $2.40 some time in the '60s. You're likely to be right with 7/- a day for an LAC later in the war - my 5/6 relates to '41, when an AC2 got a magnificent 2/- a day to bless himself with !
The fatality at the airshow at Thornaby happened around September '51, I came up there shortly afterwards; people were still talking about it. Again IIRC, he was trying a roll far below his authorised height.
The MSG accident has passed into legend now. I was told he tried to overshoot on one from the runway in a T7, the thing swung off onto the grass and headed into one of the O.M. living wings, charged into the window of his own room (on the ground floor, of course), and he might have survived but (in the words of John Henderson, later the Teeside Airport SATCO (he had been with me at Strubby) "the lintel fell on his swede!" His ghost is reputed to haunt that wing of the building (now the St. George Hotel); when civil crews had to overnight there, the hosties wouldn't sleep in it (I'm told).
Teeside (ridiculously: "The Durham and Tees Valley International Airport") is a shadow of its former self now, don't know what will happen to it.
Curiously, when I did the Meteor conversion in early '50 at Driffield, like you, I don't recall any prohibition on having airbrakes out with wheels and flaps down. In fact, I'm sure I remember doing just that once turning finals, and being rather perplexed at the rate at which height was bleeding off, before the penny dropped. But then, wasn't the golden rule: "don't let the speed drop below 150 kts until the landing is absolutely in the bag!"
Yes, "when I were a lad", professional footballers were happy with £5 a week - at a time when the average weekly man's wage was £3 a week (and it didn't reach that till the War) source: "The Ministry of Labour Gazette".
Yes the Vampire was cheap - why else would the Irish Air Corps buy 'em (and they also bought some of the weird two-seat Spitfires).
Them were the days !'
Danny.
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Taphappy,
Quite correct ! Danny.
Last edited by Danny42C; 8th Aug 2012 at 22:26.
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