In June 1938 'Al' turned up at Gatwick Airport with his barrel-shaped Grumman G-22 Gulfhawk 2 (based on the U.S. Navy's F3F series). Gulfhawk 1 was a successively modified Curtiss Hawk 1A which in its final state had a metalled fuselage reminiscent of the new Grumman Ag Cat duster biplane; it had, I recall, a Bliss Jupiter radial. No. 3 was a two-seat Grumman G-32; No. 4 was the Gulfhawk Junior (a Stinson Model 105), and the last was the post-war Grumman F8F-1 Bearcat. The F8F-1 was clobbered after landing at New Bern some time in 1948/49, Williams claimed that the right gear did not lock down. [Grumman counter-claimed he ground-looped the Bearcat - ED.] The belly tank scraped the runway and the ensuing fire devoured the F8F until by the time the fire truck got to work there was nothing left but the fin and a lump of metal that was the engine. Which brings us to the 'ersatz' Gulfhawk N7247C. which I shot recently at an out-of-the-way field at Lantana, Florida. No one was around at the time and I didn't stop to get the pilot's autograph. But for the record, while the F8F-1 paint job is a dead ringer (your expression, I think) of the genuine No. 5, it is safe to assume that the owner is one of the current fiends of the restoration cult.

In May Forum Mr. P. H. Green says he's never seen a photograph of the first production Gloster Meteor Mk. 1 (EE210/G). He has now, and complete with U.S. Army Air Force insigne which he queries. This photograph was taken at Muroc (now Edwards A.F. Flight Test Centre) in the spring of 1944. In the background of my photo are (right to left) two Army Air Force Douglas A-24 Dauntless dive-bombers, a Vultee BT-13A Valiant basic trainer and the tail of a P-51 Mustang. Don't ask me for the block numbers.

This is a McCook Field (grand-daddy of Wright, Edwards and all the other test centres) experimental de Havilland D.H.4 fitted with British - Isle of Grain - flotation gear and what we would nowadays call 'hydro-ski' alighting gear. Note also the wing floats and miniature hydrovane on the tail skid. The flotation airbags are shown in the photo as "planks" on each side of the engine cowl. If you check up with May issue, 'What's in the Attic', you will find the selfsame gear in 'blown' state on the Parnall Panther. This particular D.H.4 is a dual-control model, with tandem headrests for the two pilots. Your own Harry Busteed evolved this hydrovane-and-airbag system at the Isle of Grain Experimental Station, R.N.A.S., way back in 1917.

To round off the session, let's close with a real eye-catcher. In 1930 two Bristol Bulldog fighters were purchased by the U.S. Navy for evaluation at the same time as one was supplied to the Imperial Japanese Navy. Both U.S.N. Bulldog Mk. IIAs (Bristol Jupiter VIIF radial) were shipped to Anacostia, D.C., in crates from Filton via Avonmouth Docks. The U.S. Navy markings were applied on reassembly, the Bulldogs being supplied direct from the production line. The first, which left England on 10th October 1929 (c/n. 7358), developed aileron flutter and consequent wing rib failure during the prescribed terminal velocity diving sequence. The second (c/n. 7398). which left England on 24th February 1930, had revised aileron mass balance and strengthened wing ribs. This is the one shown in the photograph with the U.S.N, serial on the fin, A.8607. The flight report on the Bulldog by Navy pilots was favourable. The photograph was taken at Anacostia on 3rd June 1930.

If any of your readers have got a copy of Air Pictorial for August 1955 they might care to compare this rare view of the Handley Page HPS-1, bought in the fall of 1923 by the Navy Department for comparative tests, with the H.P.21 in its original configuration with horn-balanced rudder. This two-gun fighter was intended for shipboard use but somehow never made the grade. Biplanes were still very much a la mode in the 1920s. What can be seen in this view is the starboard full-span, 'safety slat' invented by Dr. Lachmann.

The French have a name for such offspring - 'les monstres'. Perhaps the less said about this 'flying barndoor" the better. Let it suffice that this is the Farman F.3X Jabiru (that's not in my French primer) trimoteur - Salmson experimental commercial transport of the summer of 1924. The wooden, four-blade propellers are described as "acoustique", but I'm not getting involved in that one either. The standard F.3X had only two engines while the Danish version, the F.4X or F.104, had four engines. These were the days when everyone liked to put the horses way up front and not a la Caravelle and D.H.121 et al. There was a place for the pilot - he rode the monster from a seat in the gallery, in the wing leading edge immediately behind the middle Salmson.

Moving on to something much prettier to the eye we come to another rare bird, the Grahame-White Type 21, a single-place 'Scout' produced in the spring of 1917. In Mr. J. M. Bruce's heavyweight opus British Aeroplane 1914-18 (Putnam, London 1957) I see on page 263 a heavily retouched photograph of the Type 21 which has the 80-h.p. Le Rhone driving a four-blade propeller. Maybe Jack Bruce would like to comment?