"The Heart Of The Gnat"

[Jordangbr]

What is the pipework on the root of the leading edge of the tail fin?
Is it something to do with the pitot?

[Renegadenemo]

The grey is a primer that stayed firmly in place when the blue lifted. You can see the outline of features on the underlying paintwork when you get up close. The orange was under a pair of closing strips that ran along the root of the fin. The yellow, plastic piping is indeed for the pitot system.

[bluebirdsback]

Thats the bit i was talking about. The bottom of the tail fin has a definite red strip which looks like a red fin was atached and painted blue after the closing strips were fitted. Just wondering if this plane ended its flying days with the red arrows.

[Mike Bull]

Not a chance Roberto- XM691 was a prototype aircraft, and was put out to seed fairly quickly for a jet aircraft. Plus, remember that you can see it's wings in the background of shots of K7 as she was rolled out, and the wings are still in the silver paint scheme.

[klingon]

Not a chance Roberto- XM691 was a prototype aircraft, and was put out to seed fairly quickly for a jet aircraft. Plus, remember that you can see it's wings in the background of shots of K7 as she was rolled out, and the wings are still in the silver paint scheme.

Might be wrong but at the time of 691's disposal were the Arrows not called the Yellowjacks anyway?-seem to remember seeing a pic of 691 somewhere with an orange stripe on the tail end-will check my archive and try to find it

[Mike Bull]

Just resurrecting this thread as I was having a little read online about Gnats etc, and saw a mention that XM691 was 'blown up at Shepperton Studios in July 1969'!?

We know it was minus it's engine and that the wings were off by the time Donald had finished with it in 1966, so if the above is correct then I guess the remains were perhaps sold to a film company? Anyone?

[sheppane]

Just resurrecting this thread as I was having a little read online about Gnats etc, and saw a mention that XM691 was 'blown up at Shepperton Studios in July 1969'!?

We know it was minus it's engine and that the wings were off by the time Donald had finished with it in 1966, so if the above is correct then I guess the remains were perhaps sold to a film company? Anyone?

This site lists all the films made at Shepperton. Non stand out immediately. Were any planes blown up in 2001-A Space Odyssey?

http://www.britmovie.co.uk/studios/Shepperton-Studios

[klingon]

Could be "The Body Stealers" 1969-plenty flying sequences and Wizzbangs-only other aeroplanes movies that year were "Battle of Britain and The last Grenade-the Gnats a bit modern for both!

[Mike Bull]

Pulling up this old thread again to point out a nice close up picture of XM691 that's currently for sale on ebay-

1238.jpg

My inner geek enjoys seeing Bluebird's tail fin in it's original taller form, still attached to the Gnat!

[Stuart Baker]

OK, so XM691 might or might not have played a part in an film we don't know the name of.

By comparision, the relevance of this post to Bluebird is only marginally less tenuous. Below is a picture of a frame from the Bond film "Moonraker". The evil villain (whose name escapes me) has his hand on the speed controller for the centrifuge, ready to wind up the speed to 20g which is enough to leave any mere mortal waiting for someone to scrape their remains off the inside of the cockpit.

Picture1.jpg

Compare this with the images of the Orpheus fuel pump parts in the May diary... The only thing I can guarantee for sure is that the part in the film didn't come from DMC's Bluebird, as this was under a few feet of water when the film was made, but it has always amused me to imagine some poor soul tearing apart an engine recovered from a scrap heap to find interesting parts for the film set.

The other thing to remember is that there is always some sad individual out there with their eyes open who will spot a detail in the strangest of places.

S