Post by raymic1 on Jan 28, 2011 22:54:07 GMT 12
Hello All
This is my first post on this forum.
A lot has been said and written ref John Smith and his Mossie in the shed, so I just had to share that after holidaying in Mapua for the last few years I finally got a chance to visit John and sit in the Mossie cockpit a few days ago.
A friend and acquaintance of Johns in Mapua shared with me "Mapua's worst kept secret" Johns address, he gave me the dos and don'ts run down, which is basically common sense, respect Johns private property and wishes, don't be an 'idiot' and be patient amongst others
And so along with a fellow aviation enthusiast we went visiting.
John property is very private and once parked up we followed our instruction to wait ( not nose around his on show Kittyhawk wings laying next to the car in the grass...) you just need to wait to see if John is home and if he will come out of his back door.
After a few minutes John showed up, we introduced ourselves and why we were visiting ie we love aviation and have read all about his collection.
We found John to be very pleasant and accommodating but got the feeling he wouldn't suffer fools easily which I think is fair enough given some of the idiots that have visited over the years and apparently stolen some of his stuff like badges etc.
As it seemed he slowly warmed up to us we had fantastic conversations on all sorts of aviation subjects for approx 1 hour, (and we NEVER asked him to open his shed, we just felt that was impolite)
Suddenly after an hour he offered to open up and show us the Mossie and we could hardly contain our excitement.
The doors opened and there she stood, you have all seen the photos....
Our surprise also was the vast amount of other planes and bits too, especially the P51 fuselage (sic John "Oh the merlin engines around here too") and Kittyhawk.
Same again as we stood in awe and talked for another hour ( 2 hours on site now) John stepped forward and unlocked the cockpit, placed the inspection ladder and said 'there you go'................
Unbelievable although I have sat in the Wigram simulator, sitting in the real thing and viewing over the nose across each wing to each awesome Merlin and over the shoulder to the rear you could imagine the Merlins roaring.
John allowed us to sit in the cockpit for close to an hour so all up it was a 3 hour trip, talking and especially listening (to John) aviation all the while.
My friend an I left there ( dragged ourselves away) on cloud nine.
I also returned and left a small gift for John as a thank you.
PS
I'm not even going to get into all the pros and con arguments that have been over the years ref 'what John should and shouldn't do' this is his property, he can do whatever he likes, and if you respect him without judging from first hand experience he will let any true enthusiast a once in a lifetime opportunity........
Thank you again John for a very memorable experience.
This is my first post on this forum.
A lot has been said and written ref John Smith and his Mossie in the shed, so I just had to share that after holidaying in Mapua for the last few years I finally got a chance to visit John and sit in the Mossie cockpit a few days ago.
A friend and acquaintance of Johns in Mapua shared with me "Mapua's worst kept secret" Johns address, he gave me the dos and don'ts run down, which is basically common sense, respect Johns private property and wishes, don't be an 'idiot' and be patient amongst others
And so along with a fellow aviation enthusiast we went visiting.
John property is very private and once parked up we followed our instruction to wait ( not nose around his on show Kittyhawk wings laying next to the car in the grass...) you just need to wait to see if John is home and if he will come out of his back door.
After a few minutes John showed up, we introduced ourselves and why we were visiting ie we love aviation and have read all about his collection.
We found John to be very pleasant and accommodating but got the feeling he wouldn't suffer fools easily which I think is fair enough given some of the idiots that have visited over the years and apparently stolen some of his stuff like badges etc.
As it seemed he slowly warmed up to us we had fantastic conversations on all sorts of aviation subjects for approx 1 hour, (and we NEVER asked him to open his shed, we just felt that was impolite)
Suddenly after an hour he offered to open up and show us the Mossie and we could hardly contain our excitement.
The doors opened and there she stood, you have all seen the photos....
Our surprise also was the vast amount of other planes and bits too, especially the P51 fuselage (sic John "Oh the merlin engines around here too") and Kittyhawk.
Same again as we stood in awe and talked for another hour ( 2 hours on site now) John stepped forward and unlocked the cockpit, placed the inspection ladder and said 'there you go'................
Unbelievable although I have sat in the Wigram simulator, sitting in the real thing and viewing over the nose across each wing to each awesome Merlin and over the shoulder to the rear you could imagine the Merlins roaring.
John allowed us to sit in the cockpit for close to an hour so all up it was a 3 hour trip, talking and especially listening (to John) aviation all the while.
My friend an I left there ( dragged ourselves away) on cloud nine.
I also returned and left a small gift for John as a thank you.
PS
I'm not even going to get into all the pros and con arguments that have been over the years ref 'what John should and shouldn't do' this is his property, he can do whatever he likes, and if you respect him without judging from first hand experience he will let any true enthusiast a once in a lifetime opportunity........
Thank you again John for a very memorable experience.
