Issue No 40 Winter 2018 Alex Taylor’s evocative photograph of XM655 In this issue Chairman’s Introduction Page 2 Visits to XM655 Page 4 Engineering Report Page 11 A Tribute to John Lyons Page 14 Moonflower 1972 Page 15 Tales from the Hangar Floor Page 18 Notification of MaPS AGM 2019 Page 20 The Chairman’s Introduction Mike Pollitt Well we all moaned about last winter being freezing cold, but I can’t complain about this year’s summer. Wonderful! I won’t pinch Eric’s thunder this time and I’ll let him give you the recent good news on the engineering front. I’ll concentrate instead on two very successful events this year: our Members’ Day on 16th September and the Photoshoot on 13th October. On Members’ Day we had around 130 members arrive, and they were treated to two very informative and interesting presentations from Sam Weller and Michael Littler. Sam is a retired Vulcan navigator and a regular visitor to Wellesbourne, often helping with cockpit tours for our large group visits. He talked to us about the role of the Vulcan in the Cold War. I learnt a lot from Sam’s recollections of life on a Vulcan squadron in the 1960s. He recalled the excellent menu and marvellous meals that were exquisitely prepared for the aircrew by the catering staff. I must say that by the time I arrived on a Vulcan squadron the menu in the aircrew feeder had changed somewhat from exquisite catering, to all day breakfasts. Nevertheless, they were good! If the engineers discovered a snag on our allocated bomber, which would delay crew-in by more than a couple of hours, we were then entitled to a delayed meal – another enjoyable ‘fry-up’! Healthy diets were way in the future, and in my day, you could barely see across the crew room for cigarette smoke. It was all very different from today’s much more-healthy aircrew environment; they have gym equipment on the squadrons now! After Sam’s presentation we were delighted to introduce another friend of XM655, Michael Littler. Michael, together with brother Rob, own our Vulcan and Michael as many of you will know is also the Wellesbourne Airfield manager. Michael delivered a very interesting talk on the history of Wellesbourne airfield. I hadn’t appreciated that Wellesbourne was once home to the RAF Photographic School, as well as more briefly hosting the RAF Airfield Construction Unit, and the RAF School of Education. As well as the RAF period, Michael talked about the latter period of Wellesbourne’s history, whereupon it has become one of the most successful general aviation airfields in the country. After the first of two sets of presentations, as we can only accommodate 75 people at a time in our marquee, I was joined by Nick Dennis (P2) and Barry Masefield (AEO) for a successful run of all four engines. I must thank all our volunteers who devoted their weekend preparing for and then running Members’ Day, before finally packing all the equipment away again. It was a very tiring but rewarding experience and I am most grateful for all their efforts. In October we hosted another TimeLine Events Photoshoot. Thank you again to our dedicated volunteers for all their efforts to provide 100 photographers with a memorable experience. Three of our volunteers, James Pritchard, Ben Tapp and Roger Bowen, filled the gap and acted as re-enactors alongside the professionals _______________________________________________________________________________________ XM655MaPS Newsletter Winter 2018 Page 2 from TimeLine. They recreated cameos that represented those everyday aircrew and groundcrew scenes that were once commonplace on RAF airfields around the UK. Photograph courtesy of Steve Clarkson. Ben Tapp & James Pritchard to the left. Photograph courtesy of Jim Sharp. Roger Bowen doing a little re-enacting this time. _______________________________________________________________________________________ XM655MaPS Newsletter Winter 2018 Page 3 Air Commodore Pritchard did complain that his SD hat lacked a little scrambled egg and wondered why he hadn’t reached his true potential – Air Marshal! I’ll simply leave it to Jim Sharp, one of our Photoshoot guests, to sum up the day: From the minute I arrived I was impressed by the friendly and efficient marshalling in place for our arrival. After a 130 mile drive the chance to get a hot drink was most welcome! The introductory address by the chairman underlined the feeling that we were indeed welcome rather than merely tolerated. Having not eaten since breakfast, the availability of some hot food was something of a godsend. All in all, I came away from the event with a really good feeling in spite of being sleep deprived due to working the previous night. Perhaps because of the latter, there were shots that I either missed or could have done better. This gives me the perfect excuse to return to Wellesbourne should you host another photo event! The work that you do is crucial to preserving our heritage, and the care that you give to what must now rate as a most important historical artefact is most impressive. The challenges that you face as an organisation are not lost on me, and I wish you every success in the future. To this end I intend to apply to become a member of 655MAPS in the very near future. Jim, thank you so much for that tremendous feedback. Your appreciation justifiably demonstrated the sheer hard work of our volunteers to put this show together. I look forward to meeting many of our members at Wellesbourne over the coming months. In the meantime, a very Merry Christmas to you all and a Happy New Year too. Visits to XM655 Damaris Tapp My last visits report started with Remembrance Day and a photo of XM655 sporting a rather large poppy on its front undercarriage. The photo on page 5 shows the aircraft forming the background to a lovely shot of some real poppies back in June, on a sunny day when a steady stream of visitors kept some of our volunteers busy while others carried on with a wide range of engineering tasks. It is important to balance both aspects of MaPS work, not only to ensure the engineers have time on Saturdays to carry out the tasks needed to maintain and preserve the aircraft, but also to show our visitors just what their donations enable us to achieve. _______________________________________________________________________________________ XM655MaPS Newsletter Winter 2018 Page 4 June continued with the AC Owners Club bringing their beautiful cars to be photographed with XM655. And a return visit by the London Douglas Motor Cycle Club, who had been so accomodating last year when we had to move their visit to the Wellesbourne _______________________________________________________________________________________ XM655MaPS Newsletter Winter 2018 Page 5 Wartime Museum at the last minute, due to the BBC filming of 'RAF at 100' with Colin McGregor. It was lovely to see them again and enable them to get a bit closer to XM655! The good weather also brought us a different type of visitor - a Pitts Special, which one of our younger volunteers had actually been lucky enough to fly in on a previous occasion, thanks to Rich Goodwin and his generosity towards the Air Cadets. Other visitors were an AN-2, the largest single engine bi-plane in the world, and a P51 Mustang. _______________________________________________________________________________________ XM655MaPS Newsletter Winter 2018 Page 6 Visits from interesting and unusual aircraft are a treat for volunteers and visitors alike and can cause work to stop, visits to be temporarily abandoned and cameras to suddenly appear from every angle! July is always a quiet month for organised visits, as our volunteers love of aviation tends to mean a large MaPS attendance at the Royal International Air Tattoo! However, we remained open to visitors throughout and were very happy to show around anyone who dropped by the pan. We did have some groups visit us towards the end of the month, though, including the Classics Corvette Owners' Club, _______________________________________________________________________________________ XM655MaPS Newsletter Winter 2018 Page 7 And the Northampton Industrial Archaeology Group who, although not a car club, brought some lovely cars that they allowed our volunteers to get rather closer to than is normally the case! Rather more exciting than the usual MaPS transport! _______________________________________________________________________________________ XM655MaPS Newsletter Winter 2018 Page 8 Many of our visits are organised by MaPS members and this has included the Royston and District Motorcycle club And some Gordon Gilder trucks, definitely our largest visitors of the year! The summer weather continued for visits from the North Cotswolds Vintage Motor Cycle Club, and, on a particularly lovely day, a group organised by MaPS friend and supporter, Neil Grant. _______________________________________________________________________________________ XM655MaPS Newsletter Winter 2018 Page 9 The focus for September was getting the aircraft ready for Members' Day, but we still managed to fit in a good number of pre-booked cockpit tours as well as a few Group visits, the largest of which was a classic car club, all the way from the Usk Valley. _______________________________________________________________________________________ XM655MaPS Newsletter Winter 2018 Page 10 This was one of the last sunny days of the summer and they took the opportunity to picnic in the car park prior to the visit and what a picnic! Not only bacon butties, but some lovely cake, too. They were definitely a popular group with our volunteers! By October the weather was turning distinctly autumnal, with the busiest 'visit' to the pan being the Night Shoot, organised by Timeline Events, which this year featured three of our volunteers as re-enactors. Finally, our last large visit of the report was from our old friends the Bugatti Owners Club.