mmitch (#68) and Stanwell (#69),
...A quick Giggle brought up the site of Australian Modellers International...
Not for me it didn't - I got a load of International Harvester trucks ! Tried Australian Modellers Vultee Vengeance International, and got one scratty pic of a VV.
I suspect that all roads will lead back to Dick Simpson's marvellous pics of the Narellan (Camden Museum) Vengeance, and we know those well enough. But a high quality pic of the Camden panel now - that would be something to see.
I reckon that the panel in EZ999 started life quite normally in a Mk.I. Then the engineering students at the Tech College got hold of it and God knows what they did with it. I suspect that any Flight instruments (useful to a home builder) would be looted and replaced with any old clock they could find to fill the hole (this would account for the double ball in the DI, which never was in any Mk.I, to my certain knowledge: we had a plain old DI).
(The Museum was a whole load of help, dresssing the thing up as a Mk.IV with that thundering great cannon in the back, and throwing everyone off the scent).
I suspect that what is in the front room of the Camden VV is a 'bitsa', unlike any VV living or dead.
...There's also a pic of Danny himself pedalling his own machine...
Dear old FB986, never gave any trouble, had been "M" for Mother on some squadron, but as a Mk.III would not have seen combat (none of them did). Taken over the foothills of the Western Ghats south of Cannanore. We sprayed mustard on volunteer squaddies to see if their Gas Capes were any good (not much, IIRC). Chopped up at Nagpur in the end.
Finally we cleaned 'em out (I hope) and sprayed DDT on some unsuspecting Indian villages to reduce incidence of malaria. Worked, too - until they found that DDT was toxic. Ah, well.
Danny.