Hi all
Just back from a great visit this week to the Irish Air Corps base at Baldonnel in Dublin. Fred and I along with the members from the Ulster Avaition Soc, managed to organise a trip to the base last Thursday, to have a look around the museum and also visit the other hangers on the base which house various types of fixed wing aircraft and helicopters.
The visit began with a meet and greet in the front car park with pilot Officer Stephen Morrison, who acted as our guide through out the day. First stop was the air Museum which displays various types of aircraft, engines, uniforms, weapons, aircraft parts and of course model aircraft. A guide showed us around the various displays and answered many questions from the members, I must say at this point, that this guy was the most knowledgeable person I have ever talked to, when It came to aircraft.
After a most interesting talk on the history of the Fouga Magister and the Silver Swallows, I asked, if it would be possible to take a few photos of the magister with the Islandmodels PSS version of the aircraft, which I had brought along with the hope of getting a few shots. I must say that the staff could not have been more helpful, and give Fred and I full excess the the fouga aircraft inside and out, so we got a lot of good close up photos of the aircraft and it's markings, we even got offered a copy of the full set of original plans for the Fouga magister showing all the markings of the Silver Swallows, if we would donate the PSS Fouga Magister number 220 silver swallows to the museum to hang over the full size CM-170 display, my words 'DEAL SIR'
Some photos of the Museum:
Fred looking at some of the many displays of aircraft.
Various engines and a 1:1 scale model of vintage aircraft
Various Irish air corps aircraft from history.
Fouga cm-170
A fouga with front gun pods
Photo of rear cockpit on the Magister
Fred and I with the model PSS Magister
A photo with the full size silver swallow's magister
Fred with the model fouga Magister beside the full size aircraft.
I will update this post tomorrow with some more text and photos.
JohnP
