What's your claim to fame.......

[Jack]

..............oh and Clarrisa and the Countryman.

[whistlinwolf]

Now you are talking :lol:

 

 

Tim(1)

[polecat paul]

Still waiting for these photos!! :shock:

[Jack]

Got through to the Blind Date finals :oops:

[Mark]

I work for Coca Cola

[paul connor]

errm, well im not sure its a target reference

 

but i was a semi pro Rave dj, used to tour the uk playing at raves and club venues:)

 

used to pay very well. most i played to was over 600 in london, to give an idea you would play one hour and then go to the next venue, so could play about 3/4 a night, and i was getting from £80-200 for an hour set!

 

but at the time girlfriend did not like the lifestyle and i quit, now its so hard to get back to where i was , as once your dj name is forgotten you have to start from scratch!

 

standing about outside clubs/raves handing out CD demo's and hoping for a break..... oh well, was fun:)

[Jessie The Jeep]

My team provided the fighter aircraft for Spielbergs "Band of Brothers" series and the Norseman for "Glenn Miller's Last Flight" Documentary.

 

 

Steve

[Jack]

I provided the fighter aircraft for Spielbergs "Band of Brothers" series and the Norseman for "Glenn Miller's Last Flight" Documentary.

 

 

 

OK Steve.........more information is required!

 

 

8)

[Jessie The Jeep]

OK Steve.........more information is required!

 

8)

 

Filming "Band of Brothers"

 

The "Band of Brothers," story follows the 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment. Parachuting behind enemy lines, getting spread over the region northwest of Carentan. The new ten part film from Spielberg's DreamWorks, re-creates some of the most critical moments of WWII and offers insights into the commanders and regular soldiers--the heroes who manned the battlefields.

 

One scene in episode 6 of this production, required some sequences of 2 P-47 thunderbolts flying in formation. The film company contacted the Large Model Association who put them in contact with me, knowing that my model team specialised in US Army Air Force aircraft. The filming was to take place at North Weald airfield, so I contacted two of the team members, Phil, Pete and John, who lived in Cambridge, Essex and Aylesham, as they were the nearest to the location.

 

Peter, flying "Ugly Duckling" and Phil flying "Rat a Dat" were to be the main pilots, with John Deacon as a reserve with his new but untested P-47 "Arizona Pete". We were a little surprised to be asked, because of the quality of modern computer graphics. However, we were told that Spielberg prefers real footage, even if it is of 1/6 scale models!

 

 

The filming took place on at one end of the airfield, near to the "Aces High" hangars. The film company had hired out a section of the main runway for one day. Although there was still fullsize air traffic from time to time, we were not really hindered, and our ground crew kept a careful watch for any real aircraft getting too close.

 

Before the flying took place, the camera operators took all round pictures of the models for additional information to help the computer animators when they "Enhanced" the aircraft for on screen. For example, the different aircraft group markings were dulled down and four blade propellers added.

 

 

The flying involved circuits in close formation, making diving passes at the camera men on each pass. Having a 20 pound aircraft flying straight at you at 70 mph was a little worrying, but the director told us not to worry - they had plenty of insurance!!!

 

 

After arriving at the airfield at 08:00hrs, we worked up until early afternoon, and I am told that we only shot 12 minutes of film! when edited the scene lasted only a few seconds, but looked highly realistic. It was well worth the effort, though I think they added a RR Merlin sound track instead of a Pratt & Whitney R-2800!!!

 

 

Filming "Glenn Millers Last Flight"

 

Being one of the first three aircraft that started the USAAF team, and a transport aircraft, rather than a fighter or bomber, the UC-64 Norseman has long since been subject to ridicule, as being the team hack. "Anyone breaking his own plane had to fly the Norseman as punishment!". The model was never intended to be true scale, but mearly a look-a-like, built as a trainer for my dad, but that wouldn't look out of place with the other team aircraft.

 

The Norseman was built to represent the aircraft which Glenn Miller disappeared in during the second world war. Originally built back in 1993, in Olive Drab green, a couple of years later it was refurbished to a silver scheme. The Norseman flew for many more years until the middle of 2001 when Stone City Films approached the team to use the aircraft in the filming of a documentary about the life of Glen Miller.

 

 

The aircraft built by myself, was borrowed by Pete. He made certain other slight modifications to make her more true to scale, and returned the model to the original Green colour scheme to match a fullsize Brussard aircraft they were using for door way shots of the cast entering the plane.

 

 

Various shots were required, which included air to air shots and ground to air shots. Headcorn airfield was used for the filming, many thanks must go to the local model flying club for their co-operation. Ground to air filming was done with the model actually flying, while the air to air shots were courtesy of clever camera work as depicted in the photographs.

 

Above you can see the aircraft hanging on the rig for the blue screen air to air shots. (engine running!)

 

The Documentary 'Glenn Miller' was shown on Channel 4, New Years eve, December the 31st 2001.

 

 

US Army Air Force Model Display Team

 

Steve

[Jack]

Wonderful experience Steve.

 

Bastoqne is episode six I think.........now I am going to have to watch that tonight, rude not to!

 

 

Anything else you have been involved in?

[Jessie The Jeep]

Anything else you have been involved in?

 

We've had several "almosts" that fell through for one reason or another.

 

Steve

[Jack]

My goodlady and the kiddies bumped into Martyn Clunes in Dorchester's Waitrose the other day..................

[whistlinwolf]

We once ate meatballs on a table next to John Noakes in Ikea Leeds.

No sign of shep though, probably off bouncing on the beds.

 

OK, not really a claim to fame but we do live in the frozen wastes of the North where nothing exciting ever happens

[bowie]

Me an my son were on time team!

[Jessie The Jeep]

....... we do live in the frozen wastes of the North where nothing exciting ever happens

 

We keep telling the southerners that, so they don't come up here!!!!

 

Steve

[Richard Grosvenor]

Me an my son were on time team!

 

We're not worthy, we're not worthy!

 

Which one so I can keep an eye out,.. mind you I only really watch it for the JCB's! :wink:

 

Regards

Richard

[bowie]

It was a dig Up in sheffield organised by an archaeological group. not many JCB's but plenty of communication vans.

[whistlinwolf]

I once had my arm broken by a swan! :lol: :lol:

[fv1609]

I used to have part(!) of one of Keith Moons drums. :evil:

[bowie]

my sons in a band with philthy animal taylor from motorheads nephew and we have a few of his sticks.

[Jack]

my sons in a band with philthy animal taylor from motorheads nephew and we have a few of his sticks.

 

My wife was in love with him! :shock:

[berni]

i lived in a bedsit in 22 cromwell street back in the 80's, i was there at the time Heather West went missing. I also lived next door but 1 to Ann Marie West when it came out in all the Media about 25 cromwell st. It was a nightmare for a while with all the press trying to get stories. The worst was News of the World, nasty reporters :twisted: We also bought the car Ann Marie crashed after she found out Fred ( her dad) had hung himself. Nobody told her & she saw it on the news then went on a huge bender & ended up crashing the car. When we sold it we didn't tell the buyer who owned it before us as her boyfriend Phil was the last registered owner on the log book. At that time there was loads of paraphanalia going on sale & wierd people buying it so we didn't want to draw any more attention to Ann Marie. She suffered real bad for a long time.

 

ta

Berni

[Degsy]

Our Jimmy was used for most of the pics for the pull out in the recent Military Machines mag.

[Jessie The Jeep]

Anyone remember the BBC TV series "Secret Army" back in the 1970's? I once sat on the tube beside the actor that played the Luftwaffe Officer who was in the series for a while. If I remember correctly, the character was shot by a firing squad for doing something that the SS officer didn't approve of, though I can't remember the complete story of that episode.

 

Steve

[AlienFTM]

Must have been 1982. Must have been about February. Regiment was at firing Camp at Hohne Ranges in West Germany. I commanded a Sultan ACV. German law precluded firing at weekends; it also precluded movements of heavies and tracks on public roads at weekends.

 

Through Sunday we exercised as we always had. When it got dark, because there were no locals to crash into us, we were able to practise movement in the dark, It was decided that among other things we'd do a running replen at NBC red in electronic silence at the centre of the range. (The ranges were arranged in a circle, firing into the middle.) There was no moon and it was blacker than the inside of a black thing. We arrived at the replen easily enough on the back of Two Alpha's convoy light and replenned.

 

We had to be safe behind the firing point by about 0600 so the ranges could be opened for Monday's shoots and time was tight

 

My driver was less than confident about the journey back out. Our destination was actually only about one degree (grid) West of North and we were following a straight, metalled road out, lined with trees. I climbed out of the cupola, down onto the engine decks beside his hatch, still in full Noddy kit and respirator (luckily, being FHQ, we were blessed with Clansman NBC adaptors for our S6 respirators, so speech wasn't unduly muffled). There may have been no moon, but away from civilisation the crisp night air was clear enough to show Polaris in the North. I demonstrated to him how perspective causes trees lining a narrow road to form a V between sky and ground, disappearing to a point on the horizon.

 

The trees notwithstanding, I claim to be the only person ever to have astrogated an armoured vehicle successfully.

 

---ooo0ooo---

 

If you watched Robot Wars, I believe it was the second series was recording at Earls Court the day I took my then young son to the Tomorrow's World Exhibition at Earls Court.

 

They got people out to warm the audience up, explaining how to behave when something ended in the Pit for example and they played the three sides off against one-another to see who could be most enthusiastic and make the most noise. From my years on the terraces and in an effort to demonstrate to my nipper that I am not a boring old fart, I was up and screaming with the best of them.

 

Then the fighting started and everyone sat there, engrossed. there was no shouting and screaming as everyone was watching fascinated. This was why there'd been the warm-up.

 

We took to videoing Robot Wars every Friday night and very week the same clip of me standing and leading the shouting in the warm-up was played as if we were cheering a result. Sometimes I got the same clip two or three times in one night!

 

So if you have any videos of Robot Wars and the crowds scenes are dominated by a bloke of a certain age in a leather coat, dark cap (I fear I had also forgotten to change out of me sunglasses), that's me.