Pontifex, I understood that BAe had been planning to donate RR299 to the BBMF at the end of the 1996 airshow season - sadly it was not to be...

Ninthace.... Have a search on YouTube for FLYING THE DH MOSQUITO KA114.

GGR

That's what I was told by the old timers when I was there several years later. The sheer mention of Mosquito would start a healthy debate between fighter pilots and bomber pilots about who should have flown it had it ever arrived..

Thank you for the suggestion. Really enjoyed it. Do you know, is the Vampire in the clip I watched of the flight from Aukland the one now based in New Plymouth?

From what I heard, as it was a solid nose T.3 it had a fighter style control column rather than a yoke wheel which the glazed nose bomber versions had so it was deemed that it would be flown by a fighter pilot.....:E
One of the reasons that BAe chose to hand it over to the BBMF at the end of that '96 season was that operation of it had now passed to Airbus as they now controlled the Hawarden site where it was based (although it was still technically owned by BAe) and for whatever reason BAe decided not to rebase it to Warton, and instead hand it over to BBMF.

What might have been was seen the year before its crash at RIAT, when it flew in this WW2 Victory finale formation with the BBMF, which I think might have been the only occasion it had flown with the BBMF.

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....e96b8b366f.jpg

Do the forum rules allow pictures of aviation porn?

Pretty sure Kermit Weeke's Mosquito joined up with RR299 (and maybe with the first Blenheim during its oh so brief career) at Biggin Hill in 1987. Can't find any photos of the event.

Hornarama.! # 45 EIGHT Merlins in symphony. Would love to have heard that. And seen it

The war time lads would have preferred the yoke in the fighter version so some records say, so as to be able to provide more muscle when maneuvering, not clear if there was ever a move to investigate the possibility.

Sorry I don't know. Glad you enjoyed the Video, puts you right in the cockpit, I watch it regularly and dream.

That was the intention, but RS712 went tech at the airshow so it stayed on the ground and thus there was no public display by the two together, but there was an air-to-air photo session taken before RS712 headed stateside, with RR299 being flown by ex-Canberra pilot John Sadler, and one of RR299's earlier display pilots, George Aird, flying RS712. George of course was famous for ejecting from a Lightning in that famous photo of it about to nose dive into the ground behind a guy on his tractor near Hatfield in the early 60's.

'The plane that saved Britain'.
I remember seeing the line of Bulldogs in the hangar @UWAS and asking the CO, 'which plane was his'.
I used the term plane as Flt Lt William Reid VC had used the term to describe his shot up Lanc on the 'World at War'.
Anyway, the CO growled: 'Its not a plane, it's an aeroplane or an aircraft. A plane is something in woodwork!'
Not a good start!

The Oxford English Dictionary has two uses of the offensive term for an aerodyne from 1908:

The quotation from the Aeronautical Journal has a rich collection of diacritics, along with its use of the deprecated word. The Mr Wright in the second quotation is, without doubt, one of those Wrights, and as he invented it, he might be thought to have some rights (:cool:) over its name.

Richard Hillary also used the five-letter word in 1942.

I guess it is personal preference?
I suppose I should have mentioned if it was good enough for Reid VC, then it was good enough for everyone else.
Only having a white flash on my shoulders and not two blue/ grey lines and a thin white one, I demurred.

rolling20, not your fault your CO was of limited education, there is such a designation as "Plane Captain" in the aviation business, s/he doesn't wear four rings on the sleeve nor even fly. :ok:

From now on I will only use the proper term for any flying machine… apparatus. As per 1908 Aeronaut Journal.
Much more of a scientific ring about it than just plane.

I endorse the use of "Ship"...after all you have a Captain and Crew, controlled by Pilots, and when they go down...exactly as in Ships....the Captain goes down with them......and when doing an RON....the Captains have been known to leave" Night Orders"....all very nautical ol' Bean!

("Reach for the Sky")

Blame the Americans. ;) Juan Trippe of PanAm fame is generally given the credit for the uniform style and Captain First Officer designations which he took from the nautical professions. His aircraft were named with a "Clipper" prefix and used the name as their callsign, a reference to the "Clipper" ships of old which had been designed for speed. The aircraft were also referred to as "Ships", stemming from "Flying Boat". Prior to boarding all crew had to stand dockside in line at attention to be inspected by the Captain.

I took this film of KA-114 taking off for the second time on it's official public display at Ardmore Aerodrome, Auckland New Zealand back in 2014. What you hear is live audio, my friend standing next to me was playing a certain movie soundtrack on his phone as I was filming. I don't think I'll ever forget that sound as it flew overhead. Glorious!