English Electric Lightning.

[cojak]

And let's not forget Harrier viffing...

[Peoplesoft bloke]

Lions. Donkeys. Doomed. Etc.

The Septics mostly - they were up for buying TSR2 until we'd told them enough about how it worked for them to make their own. Shafted us over Concorde too. Thankfully they haven't yet managed to stop Airbus (yet)

[stek]

And let's not forget Harrier viffing...

I had the Airfix 1/24th Scale Harrier kit, still got a scar on my thumb - sliced it with a bread knife hacking a bit off the refuelling probe spigot cos it was too big. I've done my bit - tears in my eyes now looking at my war injuries...

Couldn't afford a modelling knife cos I spent all my saved-up pocket money on the kit.

Ahhh, Airfix..... Never got the Fairey Battle, no shops in the Bolton area ever stocked it, and I scoured Woolworths, Co-op, even Scale Models and Kits on Halliwell Road....

[Churchill]

I had the Airfix 1/24th Scale Harrier kit, still got a scar on my thumb - sliced it with a bread knife hacking a bit off the refuelling probe spigot cos it was too big. I've done my bit - tears in my eyes now looking at my war injuries...

Couldn't afford a modelling knife cos I spent all my saved-up pocket money on the kit.

Ahhh, Airfix..... Never got the Fairey Battle, no shops in the Bolton area ever stocked it, and I scoured Woolworths, Co-op, even Scale Models and Kits on Halliwell Road....

You should've had a trip into Manchester and toddled off to the modelshop on Deansgate.

[Sysman]

Watched Brian Cox's prog last night.

He flew in an English Electric Lightning to 60,000ft to demonstrate the curvature of the Earth and the thin blue line of the atmosphere.

Spectacular aircraft for 1959.

We did good stuff in those days.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Electric_Lightning

Not to mention Blue Streak and Black Arrow.

Lions. Donkeys. Doomed. Etc.

I had an Airfix model of the Lightning. A great looking plane.

[stek]

You should've had a trip into Manchester and toddled off to the modelshop on Deansgate.

I remember Beatties off Market Street! But this was the mid-seventies, Manchester was a far-away place full of funny accents and when MUFC actually had fans that were from Manchester (well, Stretford then) - no, we daren't go there....

Later on in life on receipt of my first wage packet I blew the majority of it in Beatties on a 1/16th Radio Controlled Tamiya Tiger Tank, I remember walking out of the shop with it thinking - "WTF have I done....?"

Actually it was probably two or three wage packets, think that kit is about £900 now!

[stek]

Heres another kit I hankered after but never found, and other piece of cracking Brit-tech that would have made the trip from Leeds to London for that contract easy, fast and cheap (possibly);

The Fairey Rotodyne. Not sure this slightly homophobic Northerner would appreciate 'entering a Fairey' but so long as my hat doesn't blow off...

Wish we could embed YouTube....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9633v6U0wo

[sasguru]

The Septics mostly - they were up for buying TSR2 until we'd told them enough about how it worked for them to make their own. Shafted us over Concorde too. Thankfully they haven't yet managed to stop Airbus (yet)

What a load of codswallop. We shot ourselves in the foot by making a commercial jet that broke apart (Comet). Concorde was not commercially viable.
The reason Airbus is viable is that its a reasonable competitor to Boeing.

I hate "stab in the back" myths, they stop us addressing our weaknesses by looking for scapegoats.

[cojak]

What a load of codswallop. We shot ourselves in the foot by making a commercial jet that broke apart (Comet).

Yep. Square windows on aircraft, not the best idea we've ever come up with...

Still, live and learn*, eh?

(*Apart from the souls admiring said windows from the inside, obv...)

[Churchill]

I had an Airfix model of the Lightning. A great looking plane.

I had the old "Hurricane" and "Spitfire" kits. I then progressed to a "V2", my Dad ballsed that one up!