As I said before XS 412 was the last Whirlwind I flew in Borneo and the first I flew back in the UK. It was originally a Piston Engined Whirlwind 8 that belonged to the Queen's Flight. These were replaced by Whirlwind Series 3 which was a civilian version with lots of windows, etc. XS 412 was than modified as a Whirlwind 10 with a Gnome powerplant and issued to the Air Force. Because of its ancestry it had chrome plated handles on the side to enable you to climb into the cockpit.
I had a 'Royal Wave' experience later when I was, briefly, a passenger in a Wessex of the Queens Flight when it was repositioning at some high powered function.
(XR412 was a Radioplane OQ-19 Drone).
??????? You've got me on that one. (Edit. Got it, corrected).
Thanks for the pictures of our aircraft being loaded at Labuan; something I hadn't seen before. I remember when a Belfast arrived the captain was waxing lyrical about the ACR7 approach he had been given to Odiham.
"When I looked up all I could see were green fields."