Saving Old Seagulls

A Rolls Royce Merlin, that is. To most of us Brits it sounds, well, like no other. Much better than a Seagull, even to nutters like me.

Well at this year's Bygone Days at Ibsley Aerodrome (you've been wondering when I'll start going on about that, haven't you?) there will be a few of these beauties - not just static, but flying.

Four of them will be in formation pushing an Avro Lancaster around the sky, with two others powering it's escort of a Hawker Hurricane and a Supermarine Spitfire. That's right, the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight plan to appear! (That's just about the best value for money that the British Tax Payer gets, in my humble view.)

Each one is a V12 27 Litre monster, and together with the Spitfire Mk IX that'll be there as well that makes seven of the things. For Andy and myself to compete either in number of cylinders or litres of swept volume he would have to get a bigger pickup, we would need a bigger pitch, and we would need, well, hundreds of Seagulls...

As ever, the weekend event will be at Brooklands Fram, South Gorley, Fordingbridge. It's on Saturday the 7th and Sunday the 8th of August, and it's a terrific day (or two) out.

We will be bringing several Marstons, and running them. There will be a variety of other Seagulls. We will doubtless be taking things to bits and putting them back together. We will have cutaways, tools, spark plugs, bits & bobs, and a cuppa for our friends.

Others will bring stationary engines, military vehicles, blowlamps, pumps, classic cars, vintage cars and agricultural vehicles. There will be cider and cakes and ice cream and a dog show and a band, and there will be astonishingly accomplished performances by some very clever people with model aeroplanes, some of which are huge.

There will be other aeroplanes, too. Last year there the diplay included a P51D Mustang, Tiger Moth, and the quite stunning Sea Vixen which is very good at making huge amounts of noise.

You can buy very reasonably priced food and the like, or you can take home very high quality jam, chutney etc which makes the stuff from Harrods or Waitrose look poor in comparison. There are very potent pickled onions for sale, books, Celtic and Roman finds, odds 'n ends at the jumble sale, the list is endless.

Do come.

highly jealous
australia is a little bit to far away sometimes

Charles , are any other makes of outboard welcome , or is it strictly Gulls.

Andy.

We take a fairly standard size pitch, and over the past few years I don't think we've ever had a purely Seagull exhibit. It's mainly the local interest that keeps the Seagull contingent prominent.

Andy sometimes brings all manner of stuff, Atco, Elto, Johnson, etc. And Ray brought a cracking Volvo last year, seemed to be made of bronze...

Would a Ferrier be welcome , if so I may pop down and have a look.

Andy.

The parent website has a page for other outboards including a Bruce Ferrier.

http://www.saving-old-seagulls.co.uk/no ... agulls.htm

The title does say Non-British Seagull Outboards. You would think that the Oz Olympic Seagull would be the only one there...

twostrokenut wrote:Would a Ferrier be welcome , if so I may pop down and have a look.

Andy.

I'll take that as a NO then .

Andy.

That's not a 'No' at all, it's just me being under petticoat governance at the moment. She Who Must Be Obeyed is at her most active this week, shopping for dresses, running around doing stuff and generally causing mayhem. Ribbons, flowers, all manner of weird stuff going on; clucking and twittering women wherever you look. Nightmare. This morning is the 'Day of Hair' which apparently lasts hours. These females seem to do everything mob handed - the simplest of procedures requires a support group.

Still it'll all be over soon, on Monday we're heading off to the Loire Valley. That's an argument I lost, too. No we're not taking my capacious and frugal diesel - we're taking her tiny Peugeot cabriolet. The normal 'bringing back several hundred bottles of wine' business is going to be very sparse I suspect. The thing drinks petrol at an alarming rate.

I personally would welcome a sight of your Ferrier, especially if we can run it!

charlesp wrote:That's not a 'No' at all, it's just me being under petticoat governance at the moment. She Who Must Be Obeyed is at her most active this week, shopping for dresses, running around doing stuff and generally causing mayhem. Ribbons, flowers, all manner of weird stuff going on; clucking and twittering women wherever you look. Nightmare. This morning is the 'Day of Hair' which apparently lasts hours. These females seem to do everything mob handed - the simplest of procedures requires a support group.

Still it'll all be over soon, on Monday we're heading off to the Loire Valley. That's an argument I lost, too. No we're not taking my capacious and frugal diesel - we're taking her tiny Peugeot cabriolet. The normal 'bringing back several hundred bottles of wine' business is going to be very sparse I suspect. The thing drinks petrol at an alarming rate.

I personally would welcome a sight of your Ferrier, especially if we can run it!

Charles , I would love to come down and have a look at the Marstons , I'll chuck the Ferrier in the back of the car........ and yes it does and can be run.
Would you be kind enough to send me details.

Thanks Andy.

Charles , any further details.

Andy.

I have PM'd you Andy.

The event is at Brooklands Farm, South Gorley, Fordingbridge.

We would like to see you and your Ferrier, and we welcome all visitors. No way is this exclusive to Seagulls, the accent is on them because both the other Andy and myself collect them and many components were made nearby in Verwood during the war and immediately after.

I particularly want to go complete with camera this year because tucked away behind the bookstalls in the larger shed is a Slingsby gliser in disassembled form. I want lots of photographs becvause I'm building a model of the same. It's the type of aircraft in which I did my first solo back in, well back in the days when wood and fabric were not seen as antique rarities and silver dope was common in RAF service.

That and the Lancaster/Spitfire/Hurricane combination, the jam and pickled onions, the popping and spitting of the sttionary engines, and all the weird stuff you see there, are all additional to the chance to talk old outboards, fire them up, watch Andy coaxing life out of a magneto that has defied all my efforts, meet old friends, and just see what comes along.