Random Stuff!

[Jon Dempsey]

Not going to comment about Villa but for as long as I can remember Birmingham City have pretty much been a total shambles. Sure, we've had some good years (we are the only Midlands club to win a major trophy this century ) but you always know that a fall is on the horizon. Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory is a phrase I've heard one too many times

Still, it's given Jasper Carrott many hours of material, every cloud.......

All 3 Birmingham clubs have Chinese owners and I did hear that China has put a block on exporting money. If this is true, I don’t see a too rosy future.

 

[rollo]

All 3 Birmingham clubs have Chinese owners and I did hear that China has put a block on exporting money. If this is true, I don’t see a too rosy future.

As a bluenose who's gone down there from the 1960s (I actually saw the 1963 league cup final as an 11yearold at St Andrews, won3-1 against the B6 lot) we could actually have the owners of Man City or Chelsea with limitless money and we would still find a way to ***Please Read Forum Terms of Service*** it up.

We know our place but as they say it's in the blood.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

I heard an interview with Steve Cotterill after last Saturday's match. He seemed a bit uptight about the fans. Are they giving him stick already?

 

[Jon Dempsey]

As a bluenose who's gone down there from the 1960s (I actually saw the 1963 league cup final as an 11yearold at St Andrews, won3-1 against the B6 lot) we could actually have the owners of Man City or Chelsea with limitless money and we would still find a way to ***Please Read Forum Terms of Service*** it up.

We know our place but as they say it's in the blood.

 

[MJH]

Great to see that the Bear Grylls adventure park is going to be built permanently at the NEC next year. Merlin entertainments also opening up Legoland discovery zone at arena Birmingham. There seems to be momentum building in Brum....

 

[jfy1999]

More and more high rise residential developments are being planned for Brum as well - I think I'll have to update my list on the Greater Birmingham thread very soon as there have been several new proposals since I posted it!

 

[richard winterbourn]

While in Javea in Spain last week i met two old friends and what they told me i found very intriguing. Visiting their local waste tip, one of them saw what looked like a painting thrown into the skip, he took it out thinking it seems too nice a picture just to be thrown away.

Now here's the interesting thing. When he showed me the very same painting, i really could not believe that anyone would throw it away. It was an original watercolour of an Orion Boeing 737 200 or 300, dated 1981 and painted by the famous aviation artist Eric H Day. It is an exquisite painting of the plane in flight, fully genuine and showing every detail, even including the plane's registration (which unfortunately i cannot find at the moment but can get it very quickly). Now, from my own memory i believe Orion were the airline operating for Horizon Holidays which i believe had its headquarters at Five Ways, Birmingham. So i would assume this very same plane would have been a frequent visitor to what was then Elmdon taking Brummies on their holidays to the Mediterranean.

Clearly my friend had no idea that the painting could either be of interest to aviation enthusiasts or indeed have a value. Therefore my posting this on Random is to ask if anyone has any personal knowledge of this plane and is there an interest in enthusiasts collecting this sort of painting.

In fairness i have to say that at this stage my friend is very happy to have the painting re-framed and to keep it.

 

[Matt995]

wow that's really interesting Richard, as you can tell by my avatar I am a big fan of the old Orion Airways, they were the first airline I flew out on from BHX, and that was the 737th 737 ever built too!!! If the picture was dated 1981, it would have been a boeing 737-200, perhaps the picture was celebrating the 737th 737 built? G-BHVI was its registration!

would love to know more about the picture!!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orion_Airways

 

[rollo]

Orion were a substantial presence at BHX back then and also at EMA which was their engineering base, they also had a couple of ex Lufthansa A300s before being swollowed up by Thomson and join the ever growing group of past airlines.

 

[flymetothemoon]

Orion were a substantial presence at BHX back then and also at EMA which was their engineering base, they also had a couple of ex Lufthansa A300s before being swollowed up by Thomson and join the ever growing group of past airlines.

I think one of the A300's stayed in basic LH colour scheme minus the tail markings pretty well
for it's whole Orion life

 

[Kevin Farnell]

I think one of the A300's stayed in basic LH colour scheme minus the tail markings pretty well
for it's whole Orion life

It certainly did -

Kevin

 

[richard winterbourn]

Hi Matt995 and the other people who were interested in my post regarding the watercolour painting of an Orion jet airliner painted in 1981 by the celebrated aviation artist Eric H Day. It is a superb painting of the plane in flight crossing over a coastline i know not where....

I have now been able to find the registration of the plane, it being G-BGTW. From my earlier post i suggested it was either a Boeing 737 200 or 300. Was this correct or was it an A300?

Unfortunately Matt995 it is not a painting of G-BHVI the 737th Boeing 737 built which you flew on from Birmingham. But no doubt posters might be able to come up with some information about THIS plane and its association with BHX. As and when i can, i will try and post a photograph of the painting, but that might have to wait until i return to Javea....

 

[flymetothemoon]

Hi Richard,Your Orion 737 G-BGTW was a 737-2T5 and became PH-TVX for Transavia/KLM,
OE-ILE for Lauda Air and latterly EI-CKS for Ryanair. It was scrapped in April 2005. It
flew for Orion between 11/02/1980 when it was delivered new to 07/03/1985 when it
joined Transavia.

 

[wolfheze]

I always liked the Orion livery, like the old Monarch yellow and black colour scheme it was a departure from the normal reds and blues. Whoever thought you could incorporate brown into an aircraft livery and make it attractive.

 

[richard winterbourn]

Thank you to all those who have expressed interest or who have provided snippets of information about the Orion 737-2T5. I will now pass everything on to the lucky person who rescued this valuable painting from a rubbish skip in Javea, Spain.

Incidentally, the person who found it is a former hairdresser from Stourbridge and, almost certainly, the painting will be brought back to the Midlands before too long. He has no real interest in art but thought the painting was 'too good' to end up in a skip. How right he was....

Perhaps what is more difficult to understand is was there someone who had no idea of its value, either intrinsically or from an aviation aspect, and just slung it, thinking it was worthless? We will never know the answer to that question.

 

[Matt995]

G-BHVI picture I have come across showing on the nose 'Boeing 737th 737'

Boeing 737-2T5
cn/serial number: 22397/737
delivered to Orion Airways in March 1981 as G-BHVI
to America West Airlines in November 1986 as G-BHVI, leased from Orion Airways
returned to Orion Airways in April 1987 as G-BHVI
to LAN Chile in April 1987 as CC-CJW, leased from GPA
to Ladeco in March 2001 as CC-CJW, leased from GECAS
to Wells Fargo Bank Northwest (WFBN) in May 2002 as N31AU
to Batavia Air in August 2002 as PK-YTF stored

 

[TheLocalYokel]

I flew on it from Faro to Bristol in 1985. I'm not an aircraft registration collector but I remembered the 737th 737 thing. I think there was also a notice over the inside of the door.

 

[Kevin Farnell]

It never rains....

As I mentioned in another BHX thread, I have been having problems with my PC. It had been unstable for a little while, but then seemed to return to normal. Suddnely, it would not boot!
As a temporary measure, I went back to an old WinXP machine. This also didn't seem very stable, but following Avast saying it needed to restart the PC, ran wonderfully for a day. On trying to start it, nothing! There was not even the BIOS 'beep' to say everything was OK.
Prior to this, I had taken the hard drive out of my usual PC and plugged it into the Win XP machine in order to save any date and files. This took about 5 hours.
Reading online, I found that I should be able to do a 'start up repair' on the original PC, as I have the Win 7 installation disc. This involved going into the BIOS to set it to boot from the CD drive. It failed!
So now, I'm on a third PC (Also a Win XP machine, which I built for my late Father).
I can't believe I'm on my thrid PC in a week

My post may be intermittent for a while, until I get the original PC sorted.

Kevin

 

[Ray Finkle]

Just how many memories does this bring back?

Image posted by @brumpic Twitter with credit to the taker.

https://twitter.com/brumpic/status/933791066960158720

 

[Brum X]

Just how many memories does this bring back?

Image posted by @brumpic Twitter with credit to the taker.

https://twitter.com/brumpic/status/933791066960158720

And in 2017 we cant even light up the top of the rotunda. It makes me wanna cry