fv1609

Well not quite. But I do get my picture in there, with 75 vets of the Sqn & Gen Sir Mike Jackson sat in front of the Hornet I restored.

The much awaited book on the history the extraordinary & little known unit has just been published. Many have contributed of course but it was nice to get an acknowledgement.

Ian it takes a bit of determination as there is hollow copper ring that is crushed onto the insulator body & this makes it very hard to undo!

If CVRW is much like the CVRT system there is some coverage on pages 16-21 http://www.hmvf.co.uk/pdf/ALL%20CHARGED%20UP%20Part%202.pdf

I shouldn't think so. I have some MERLIN printouts (RP10505) & they are marked UNCLASSIFIED on the top of each page including one that is a COMMENTS page (RP10504). Most MERLIN reports don't have the COMMENTS page so the person providing you with the main report either didn't search for it or maybe thought it was so trivial you would not be interested. I suppose you can make another Freedom of Information Application specifically asking for this page.

Do you an additional screen shot? I can see the entry "Comments: Y" indicating there should also be another page headed "COMMENTS FOR A SPECIFIC ERM"

Terry I have no idea if I have or not. Can you be a bit more specific by quoting the designation of the item in question please. I suspect it will be an in AESPs but even if I don't have it I can tell you the document titles you need.

Oli yes they are useful & this is just the parts catalogue that lists 32 variants. There were 97 variants the last time I counted!

Here you go

Andy much as disliked this weather it certainly put paid to any worries about hay fever & the rustic smell of wood chips I found quite enchanting & almost therapeutic. I dread to think how much two large lorry loads of wood chips delivered at short notice would have cost. So well done to someone for organising that because without those deliveries it would have just wiped out the show. I stayed last night because I felt I had committed myself for 3 days I should try to stay for 3 days, but cold wetness I'm afraid got the better of me this morning. Still trying to figure out why I took the fridge with me :-D

It's got hurled off the wheels ok on the wet journey back but some of it has baked on in places but not to worry. The hairy part of the journey was getting to the show because I decided rain or not I was going. The spray from traffic on the M27 wiped out both mirrors & the spray came in because of the open hatches. This caused a lot of wetness over me & my kit, but the condensation on the inside of the windscreens was a problem & the vacuum wipers rather limp as I struggled up hill trying to get from lane 1 to lane 3. The only thing that prevented a major accident was the rear view camera. Quite cheap now you ought to have one. Also have a forward facing camcorder (only £18 from China) for those occasions when an HGV cuts in just it a bit too fine as a punishment me for being too slow

Andy the choice of route across the field was not of my making! When I arrived to turn into the exhibitor's entrance I was told it was ill advised to enter as I would get stuck. But even though I said I wasn't a re-enactor I was instructed to enter via the exit two fields up. Seeing another official at that point I continued my journey as instructed. As I drove through the second field heading for the tyre marks you can see on the top photo, I was confronted by a rope over the access to join the lower part of the normal entrance yet there were other vehicles entering by that route from the road with no problems. I lost speed in my sudden detour to a lower access point then flopped in the mud. I have a picture somewhere of a muddy field in BAOR. It shows a Ferret stuck in mud & a little behind it a Pig similarly stuck. The driver of the Pig told me he knew he would get stuck having seen what happened to the Ferret. I asked why on earth did he make this foolhardy trip across the field when he knew that? The answer was of course "The officer told me to do it!" :-D

Thank you to the organisers & workers, who worked hard under changing & difficult circumstances. Unfortunately I decided to abandon ship this morning, after another wet night in a leaking vehicle. I spent each night in Gortex inside my sleeping bag that got rather wet by rain blown in on the journey down (side hatches have to be open for vision). Sunday seemed to be the star day with lots of visitors & some drying out. Thumbs down to my neighbour who just left his bag of rubbish on the field when the bins were only 50ft away! I made an unglamorous arrival on Friday.

Oh you are awful :cool2:

Been trying to leave for the show for the last 3 hours but it keeps on raining here. Getting wet when I'm there is one thing & I can cope with that. Although why I bothered to pack the fridge I don't know. But getting there is the problem. 40mph top speed on the motorway with hatches open getting everything wet & vacuum wipers is not a fun trip. Even with the hatches closed its not exactly watertight

Sometimes I feel I'm flogging a dead horse, but here goes :-D At the show there is my usual offer to test ignition components screened or non-screened. I can test distributor capacitors, rotor arms, screened cables, ignition coils, sparking plugs. I have built a coil testing machine so you can see the output on a spark gap. Although I can measure the inductance, resistance & leakage, the spark test is much more fun. I can now measure resistance up to 200 gigohms & observe insulation breakdown by applying voltages up to 5Kv. Again testing a sparking plug confirms that there is actually a spark at the gap. (Using a neon plug tester on the engine, isn't a great help, it tells you there is HT going into the plug but it may be leaking away to earth or sparking internally or through carbon deposits on the insulator or through a cracked insulator & never producing a spark at the gap!) Also have a DC clamp ammeter so I can measure current up to 400 amps without any direct connection. It just fits over a cable under test & measures the current flow. A very quick & easy way to test the output of a dynamo or alternator or measure the current taken when using the starter motor. There is no catch, no fee or anything like that. I have collected the test equipment it seems a shame not to put it to use. I shall be with my Pig if anyone needs me. :-D

Well last year (or was it the year before) someone brought their cat. It spent most of the time under a K9 (yes really a Wireless Truck)

I'm sorry I can't judge the proportion or location of the top picture. In the lower picture where is this plate in relation to the side lights? Have you got a picture with a wider coverage?

You should look for white lettering on a vertical surface front & rear over to the right sight as far as possible. 27mm high or 51mm in BAOR. Comprising two elements. First number or letter to indicate district or formation Separated by / Second element a number allocated to a specific unit

No that is incorrect. 'FJ' relates to the financial year 1969-70 for 'B' vehicles.

Welcome I used to own 30 FJ 20 which is quite close. Your fog lights in the bumperettes are interesting. Originally there would have been no fog lights & just the standard military bumperettes. But in 1971 Notek fog lights were added & extended bumperettes fitted to envelope them to provide protection. This was not done to RAF ambulances, they retained the original bumperettes as the large foglights were mounted underneath the large brush guard on top of the bumper. Your fog lights look like RAF ones. It may be that replacements of these were easier to obtain & the bumperettes then modified on the top to accommodate these larger lights.

As Terry points outs IRR paints were unstable as can be seen below. This was the life in storage, of course the deterioration accelerates dramatically once painted on a vehicle. If you decide to use modern reproduction NATO Green paint it will not have the specified IRR properties of course. Many people choose to use a satin finish paint on the basis that it looks smarter & stays that way for longer. Indeed it does but the original IRR paints were a matt finish.

So are are you wanting to represent the vehicle as it would be in Jan 1980 or later? This is an old can of worms & people will line up to shoot me down & give their take on this thorny subject. But I strongly believe that IRR NATO Green came into general usage at the end of 1980. The Regulations introducing IRR paints was first issued in Dec 1980 & Def Stan for IRR paints was issued Oct 1980 & indeed NATO Green was adopted into BSC381C in 1980. There is some evidence a few vehicle contracts were fulfilled up to two years earlier than this. Note I have said earlier general usage, before that the colour would have been Olive Drab for camo replacing Deep Bronze Green.

John what particular point in time are you seeking to represent as the vehicle is nearly on the cusp of the general introduction of NATO Green? Is there a 2-character colour code on the vehicle documents?

Yes because what you are gluing to is the cloth substructure of the Trakmark not the shiny vinyl surface. Although that is part of the problem when you get to the edges & have to fold it under :-(