A restored “flying boat” has taken off on an international voyage to mark its anniversary.
Yesterday one of the only airworthy Catalinas in operation flew out of Prestwick Airport, Ayrshire, Scotland and headed for Iceland where it will be displayed at the Reykjavik Airshow.
The Catalina was an allied multi-role aircraft used during World War II and was deployed in anti-submarine warfare, patrol bombing and cargo transport. The plane, which has a hull at its base allowing it to land in water, was bought from the Royal Canadian Airforce and restored by Plane Sailing, a team of British pilots and engineers.
The aircraft has been named Miss Pick Up in tribute to a US air force Catalina that went missing during a rescue mission during the Second World War.
‘Dying bride’ is a swindler
A New York bride who faked having terminal cancer to swindle well-wishers into funding her dream wedding and honeymoon to the Caribbean was ordered on Wednesday to repay more than $13,000 to her victims, prosecutors said.
Jessica Vega, 25, pleaded guilty last month to fraud and forgery charges for deceiving people in the Hudson Valley area of New York into thinking she had only a few months to live, New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman said.
Moved by her tale, individuals and businesses donated thousands of dollars to pay for her wedding in May 2010 and her honeymoon in Aruba.
Size no longer matters
It won’t be size that matters any more for Italian soldiers and policeman but their strength, according to a draft law soon to be adopted by Parliament.
Sardinian members of Parliament who received letters of complaint from would-be recruits falling short of the current height limit have asked the government to change admission criteria for the security services. At the moment, male recruits have to be at least 165 centimetres while their female colleagues have to be 161 centimetres or taller.
But, while some say that “shorter people can perform some tasks better”, others are worried that the change will mean a loss of face when Italian troops square up to the enemy.
Music of ‘40,000 years ago’
Music was flourishing in Europe many thousands of years before the birth of Mozart, Brahms and Beethoven. The great composers’ earliest ancestors were playing musical instruments more than 40,000 years ago, a study has shown.
Evidence of the musicians was unearthed in Germany in the form of primitive flutes made from bird bones and mammoth ivory. A new system of fossil dating confirmed the age of animal bones excavated in the same rock layers as the instruments and examples of early art.
The bones, probably the remains of meals, bore cuts and marks from hunting and eating. The finds are from Geissenkloesterle Cave in the Swabian Jura region of southern Germany.