Hi Dave, I haven't been down to East Fortune for a year or two, so am not sure what they have done for the centenary. I will be going again shortly though and will report back.
I took the seat pictures back in the 90s, with an SLR, just before I went digital. So the prints had to be scanned in. I did have some shots of the fuselage section but there was a lot of reflection from the glass case, so I didn't scan them. I may have the prints in a box somewhere but there have been two house moves since! If I can find I will upload but I will try to take better in future.
I remember the fuselage section very clearly. The green paint was applied quite thinly and you could see how the circles had been marked out with a (wooden?) compass - a centre mark and a faint chalk outline - then brushed in in a circular action.
When we dug the seat out of storage some horsehair stuffing fell out - you can see the damaged section. Adam Smith, the then curator handed me a few tufts and I had intended to make a model of 796/17 to present to the museum incorporating some of the hair as rigging or control cables.
Unfortunately some major changes - divorce, house moves etc - caused me to forget the hobby for a decade. Adam also left and the connection was broken.
Now I am fully hooked again though and just wish I hadn't sold of all my vast library of Windsocks, FMPs, etc, etc, etc!
I live in Crieff, Perthshire - glorious highland country, near Gleneagles Hotel. (Where they occasionally host EU and NATO conferences. Sometimes we are lucky enough to get flypasts - Spitfires etc.)
Local worthies include Ewan McGregor and Gerald Butler. Most significant here was Bill Reid VC, one of the Dambusters, whom I had the great good fortune to have as a neighbour. He died a few years back and the RAF did him proud with a full ceremonial funeral including a flypast from a Tornado from the current 617 Squadron.
Oh dear, I am rambling on. Nurse, Nurse my visitors are leaving....
Sandy
