John Nicholas and Mark Hodgkin over England

A Sunday Jaunt

Mark Hodgkin emailed John Nicholas with a Blast from the Past. We hadn't seen each other for 38 years yet live about 15 minutes apart by Tube. Friendship is weird how you can step back into it over distance and time.

John joined Mark for a couple of pints at his local, then went back to his place for steak and wine. And quite a bit of talk. John remembers stuff Mark doesn't and Mark remembers stuff John doesn't. Somewhere in between we remembered some stuff simultaneously.

Then Mark suggested we go on a jaunt with his old friend Paul, who is a very nice bloke (and also has an original Triumph Bonneville). This photo is Paul with plane.


He is standing at the wrong end of his Beechcraft D17S Staggerwing , the first true business aircraft designed in the U.S. in 1932. Pauls' beautifully maintained specimen was built in 1938. The interior looks like a Pontiac of that era.The windows wind down, and there are 1930s automotive door handles. You can put four men in it plus full fuel and some luggage, and its 450 horse power 9 cylinder Pratt and Whitney radial engine makes it fly. It was a dream of John's to fly in one, and then . . .

Paul and John ran the office:


While Mark managed the main cabin and the photography:


You can tell the cabin is spacious, because Mark isn't very short.

We flew south from Paul's home aerodrome Popham, over Portsmouth on the south coast to the Isle of Wight, then past Osborne House and Cowes and back over the Solent and the yachts to the mainland.Then up the Beaulieu River over Buckler's Hard, where several of the ships in Nelson's fleet were built, including Euralus, Swiftsure and Agamemnon, and into the New Forest towards lunch at Old Sarum, at which low cloud sent us retracing our steps. So we went instead to the famous wartime airfield of White Waltham, west of Maidenhead, for lunch.

After lunch we posed (note the difference in height and stature):


Then headed off westwards at about 2000 feet above sea level over Berkshire (past Andrew Lloyd Webber's house, Highclere Castle etc) and into Wiltshire. We passed the ancient stone circle village of Avebury:


And nearby and even more ancientSilbury Hill, a mound built 4750 years ago and topped off by the Romans:


And then flew past the house of John's Ancient Aunt, whose origin is lost in the mists of time:


Then home to Popham:



It's amazing how much of southern England you can cover in a couple of hours at 140 knots.


John Nicholas is the Founder/President of NovaPangaea Technologies which is active in producing technologies to overcome Peak Oil. More information can be found at their web page at http://novapangaea.com/