That's very cool. Did the watch come with a certificate to say which part of the aircraft was incorporated into the watch?
The little beige piece of cloth in the rotor between the words wright and flyer is a piece of the Muslin used to cover the left wing. the video explains everything they did with the wright foundation. Neil Armstrong had a piece of the same cloth when he landed on the moon and most recently the NASA Mars Rover helicopter had a piece of the cloth fixed to it for its first flights on Mars. Pretty cool to think a 120 year old piece of Muslin cloth has flown on the Earth, Moon and Mars.
Anniversary of the maiden flight of the Supermarine Spitfire, arguably the most iconic aeroplane of all time. At 4-30pm on the 5th of March 1936 test pilot Mutt Summers took the Spitfire up for 40 minutes.
I don’t believe there is a person alive who would not relish the chance of a flight in the Spitfire. It’s as beautiful as it was practical.
My pic above was at Southport airshow in 2014 and sitting in the cockpit cost a fiver. If that had been when I was 9 years old there's no way anybody would've got me out. Later on the 2 Lancs, Vera and Thumper flew over
Bremont have a limited edition Sortie watch you can only buy if you have flown in a Spitfire (passenger or pilot). I think there is another you can only get if you have solo flown a Spitfire. Mutt Summers was an amazing chap who also helped develop the bouncing bomb flying the tests for that. I think he got his nickname from often having a Pee on the rear wheel before a flight. Not as mad as it sounds as it avoided a pressing 'need' in the air and also a full bladder was said to cause more injuries in a crash or bale out situation. Someone once told me after the first short Spitfire test flight he just said 'change nothing' .
Was Mutt Summers at Vickers who later took over Supermarine? I know he flew a Wellington when they were testing the bouncing bomb. One of the blokes on the Altitude site has been up in a Spit and got the watch, lucky git
Last summer within the space of 8 days a Hurricane flew over twice and a Lancaster in between. I didn't see anyone take any notice of the Hurricane but they did of the Lanc.Mind you the Lanc was a lot lower. Some kids playing football stopped and watched as the mighty Lanc went over
When I was just getting started in motor sport I was given advice to race with an empty bladder by another competitor who was a doctor.
A lot of bomber crews pi55ed on the wheels of their kites for luck. Superstition was a big thing among the bomber boys.
It became a tradition for cosmonauts to piss onto the wheels of the bus driving them to the launchpad, as Yuri Gagarin had done on April 12, 1961
I saw this for the first time today… 20 years old or so. A bad day at the office / glad no one was hurt.. The pilot could get a job in a kitchen with slicing like that. . The aircraft was sliced by a runaway Piper Saratoga's propeller. Four other aircraft were damaged, three beyond repair. .
This is one of the funniest I have seen. The 747 is famous for needing section 41 repairs nut this particular section 41 is toast. https://www.1001crash.com/index-page-description-accident-SAA_B747-lg-2-crash-134.html
On one level a bit silly / an another rather cool and impressive (or perhaps rather Coulthard would be a better description :0) (78) Coulthard-driven Red Bull F1 car takes on inverted race plane - YouTube
