Thanks chaps for the info on the M.18s and Aries.
Quite a hazardous job TShirt, and the sort of stuff Aviation is made of. Bet you didn't have any protective clothing, eh?
On a similar vein, I was at Hermeskeil museum a couple of years ago when I overheard an elderly lady recounting how she had worked as a seamstress at Messerschmitt, something about sewing the interior of the glazing?? Oh for a tape recorder!
Your activities at Pompey, Aerohack, mirrored ours at Blackbushe fairly comprehensively, but unfortunately we looked our most promising gift horse in the mouth! After he took over the airfield he presented us with a Proctor 'JLS in the hope that we would restore it to its RAF markings etc. We failed miserable, mainly due to the lack of dosh and experience. Used to love listening to his talks that he held in the clubroom on occasions.
As for frightening people off flying, I have a similar story. A friend who had an air taxi business at Sywell needed some capital, so he invited his bank manager to that year's Cranfield do, I suspect one of Flight's September events, but it may have been an early PFA rally. He took us up in his Grumman Tiger with the express purpose of showing the bm what aviation was about. Unfortunately, the chap didn't take mush to neg G, and his pint of Guinness wanted out. Not sure if R got the funding, but I got some amusement out of it. That evening, R arranged with a local farmer to show him the AA5 next day, so after an overnight stop at Sywell, we proceeded south and started looking for the farm. We didn't find it, thanks to the smoke from stubble burning (ah...September), and just made Cranfield just before the show started, landing right over the Tiger Club who were preparing to take off. R still flies, EMBs for Maersk.
Got another question - Blackbushe hosted a Bristol Brigand, RH798 I believe, one Farnborough week in '57 or '58. Anyone with an idea to whom it belonged, and its role?
Now I've got to find the thread about the Spiteful.......
......he being AVM Don Bennett of course, sorry.
Blackbushe bye the way was well-known for its FIDO system, something akin to goosenecks sunken into the tarmac on either side of the runway for fog dispersal. Was this a common wartime system? Was it in any way automated?