The late Mike Russell – old thread from 2007

Dragon Rapide,Trust me not to put the Rapide on the list.Thats right i remember now Chipmunk G-BCIW was written off at Hulctoe farm strip. Just to the south of Cranfield. I saw the fuselage being taken away on a lorry after accident.

Dave 🙂

Hey, Tango-Mike’s not on the list! (DH89a Dragon Rapide G-AGTM)

As she is still very high-profile with Air Atlantique’s Classic Flight (bless them for looking after the old girl) maybe it didn’t need saying!

I do like her current blue and silver scheme; I think Mike would have loved to put her into a smart civilian scheme, but her existing RN colours were more acceptable to the IWM at the time.

Every time I see G-AIYR at Duxford in her new all-silver scheme, I do a double-take!

Chipmunk BCIW was owned by a syndicate that included one of our regular Rapide pilots, and a number of people with Russavia or Britannia connections. She was operated commercially by Russavia at weekends and flown by syndicate members during the week. I believe the aircraft was written off on a farm strip in Bedfordshire in the very early 1990s and was de-registered by the CAA in March 1992.
A replacement Chipmunk was later operated by the syndicate, which looked the same as BCIW but had a G-AR– registration. I can’t find this on the G-INFO database now, and I don’t know if it was a rebuild using parts from IW, or a fresh aircraft.

G-ASEA, what a fantastic list! I had forgotten there were quite so many gliders!

Good to see this interest in Russavia!

A few more Russavia aircraft i missed of the list.
Slingsby T1 Falcon replica BGA3166 Halton
Manuel Willow Wren BGA162 Brooklands
DHC1 Chipmunk G-BCIW unkown to me

Dave

I must apologize for my son getting Mike’s surname wrong at the time of Mike’s funeral my son PU-597 was in the United States looking at old aeroplanes. Some of you may remeber a small boy in or around the Rapide and other Russavia plane’s. At the time of the Rapide crash he was 5 and has a love of aircraft still now, Thanks to Mike and his grandad.

What happend to the Russavia Collection?

EoN Eaton BGA2493 unkown to me
Hawkridge Nacelled Dagling BGA493 at Eaton Bray, my fathers workshop
Slingsby T7 Cadet BGA731 unkown to me
Slingsby T6 kite 1 BGA400 Upward bound trust, Haddenhan Bucks
Grunau Baby 11b BGA 2362 Believed to be in Denmark
Grunau Baby 11b BGA2400 unkown to me
Slingsby T13 Petrel BGA651 Booker
EoN Olympia BGA618 unkown to me
Moswey 111 BGA2474 unkown to me
Fauvel Av36 BGA2500 unkown to me
DFS Weihe BGA 1093 unkown to me
Torva Sprite BGA1701 unkown to me
DFS Kranich 11 BGA1147 Achmer Germany
AB Kranich 1 BGA907 Germany
Short Nimbus BGA470 Ulster Folk and Transport Museum
Spalinger S.21h HB-357 near Hitchin
BAC Drone 2 G-AEDB Hucknall
DH53 Hummingbird G-EBQP DH Aircraft Heritage Centre, London Colney
Martin Monoplane G-AEYY near Hitchin
DH 82a Tiger Moth G-APMM unkown to me
DH 82 Tiger Moth G-Moth Audley End
DH83 Fox Moth G-BFOX Not Built project only
Auster J/1 Autocrat G-AGTT unkown to me
Miles Gemini G-AKKH Bicester
DH2 replica G-BFVH Gainsborough
DH 84 Dragon project Aero Antiques Southampton
Grunau Baby 111 BGA1754 this was my glider listed under Russavia. Achmer Germany.
Some of the above aircraft where privately owned.
I never saw all of the above, some where just a collecton of parts. Also a large collection of BAC Drone parts where stored at Henham for somebody.

Dave Underwood

Spelling !

Please Mods – can you correct Mike’s surname in this thread title?

I first came across Mike when I kept my Airtourer at Nuthampstead. Mike arrived with his Gemini (Jemima?) and parked in the same hangar. One Sunday all the residents in the hangar were summoned and we spent several hours shoving aircraft about to see if we could come to an arrangement for Mike to get the Gemini out without moving other aircraft. In the end we couldn’t so it was back to the status quo. I moved to a different strip some years later when who should arrive plus Gemini? You guessed it. Whereupon we went through the same performance of “musical aeroplanes” with the same result. It was his proud boast thet the Gemini had never been wet and so the glue must be alright and “I’ll loop it if it makes you feel better” as a response to one picky CAA inspector.
I’m not 100% sure but I think his Tiger Moth is still at Audley End and the BAC Drone was being rebuilt up in the Midlands.

There are others far better placed to answer the finer details than myself Jenna, but when we (that is a group of enthusiasts – too many to mention here – who formed themselves into the East Anglian Aviation Society, the Cambridgeshire County Council and the Imperial War Museum – and please note, despite what a lot of publications say this pre-dates the Duxford Aviation Society by a good number of years!) started the outstation at Duxford back in the very early 1970s, one of the members was Captain Mike Russell, who used to fly with Tradair, Channel Airways and at the time was a pilot for Brittannia Airways.

Mike’s aviation connections went back a long way – his father used to own Harliford Publications which created (or ran) a number of aviation-related publications. Mike himself was into gliders and also owned a number of De Havilland products, including DH Rapide G-AGTM which he bought from Martin Barraclough to use on what I believe was the first pleasure-flying contract at Duxford. All Mike’s aircraft were operated under the AOC and trading banner of Russavia Ltd. He was one of the pioneer historic aircraft collectors – at a time when very few were really interested in anything other than Spitfires, Hurricans and Mustangs. In some ways Mike was a latter-day Richard Shuttleworth!

Over to the others!

I keep finding references to Mike Russel, and every one reads as a shining testament to the man and what he stood for which is nice but there seams to very little information(or virtually none!) of what the Russaiva Collection was, what happened to it and the people he worked with on it…. any reason for this??

I know the Willow Wren the collection was ‘linked’ to is now at Brooklands what happened to the other aircraft?

Many thanks for posting the photo. We Russavia team had a great time with Mike. It made me look out a few old photo’s to. But with out my son, i dont know how to post them. (this PC is like magic machine to me, some time it works some time it dos’nt). I still live in the straw age, so thatching is easy! Thanks again Graham, long time no see. Happy Christmas to all. Nice to hear Dragon Rapide is still watching the forum.

Dave 🙂

I remember Mike being very pleased with that photoshoot; I believe it was pretty early days for the Britannia 767 operation and he was very proud to be current on such diverse airliners!

Thanks for posting the photo, Graham; brings back more memories of happy days with the Russavia team!

Sad news, I met Mike some years ago when I bought a Gipsy Six engine off him to go in the replica Percival Mew Gull I was working on, he was very interesting to talk to a great enthusiast.

Remember him from Britannia days known as “Daisy” Russell, he also got permission to take a new Boeing 737-204 G-BADP to the Duxford Airshow around 1973.
Grew up on a diet of Harleyford publications from his father ,the Lancaster ,Spitfire and Me109 books in the sixties.
He started the joy riding scene at Duxford and was a big influence in it’s formulative years.

opps…. photo never loaded!

Today I was getting caught up with some scanning and came across this picture. It pretty much shows Mike with two of his loves – Tango Mike and a Brittannia 76!

I got to know Mike pretty well when he was running Russavia and I was doing the restoration of ‘JHO – we both shared a common interest – that of the life and times of Captain Ernest Edmund ‘Ted’ Fresson OBE, the Scottish aviation pioneer. Through working with Peter Clegg we produced a number of early Scottish aviation books, and, in conjunction with the Royal Aero Club, we produced one of the annual Sir Frederick Tyms Memorial Lectures. This resulted in Mike and myself going up and down to Scotland a number of times to present the lecture at Inverness and around the islands – of course I was VERY much the assistant and taxi driver!

All of these ‘lectures trips’ seemed to start at STN in the wee small hours when I had to meet him up to go to either LHR or LGW. On one memorable occasion we was flying into Sumburgh aboard a BA ATP in what could only be called a blizzard above 500 feet. Mike of course had talked his way onto the flight deck and jump-seat rode it down – Sumburgh Head seemed VERY close as it passed underneath that morning!

A similar thing happened when we went to Inverness aboard a Dan-Air 737 – the moment we got on board Mike turned left instead of right, but at least I got to chat to Senior Hostess Mo Perera!

When we launched our book on Pauline Gower, Mike loaned us his Tiggie to re-create Paulines flour-bombing escapades when she used to ‘attack’ the Searles speedboat at Hunstantion in 1934 using her Spartan. Fun times!

Russavia Memories

I had the great pleasure of working with Mike on the Russavia collection at Duxford in the 80s – myself and Terry Pankhurst were asked to lead the project to get a DH2 replica in the air. My association with Russavia then continued for some time, and Mike taught me to fly in his Tiger in return for engineering work on his collection. Many good memories of such an enthusiastic (and sometimes eccentric) man who shared his passion for DeHavilland aircraft with me.

He was a great man and is a great loss to the historic scene.

Charles Thody

It was a good send off for an old friend. Lovely to see Mike,s family again and many old friends. Nice flypast, he would have loved it.

David Underwood

Mike Russell received a moving post-funeral fly past today at Audley End. Led by Mark Miller in his Rapide was former Russavia Miles Gemini G-AKKH, Tiger Moth G-APLU and Chipmunk G-BWTO.

God rest his soul

Very sad indeed.

I remember Mike Russell when he was a training captain on Vikings with Channel Airways in the mid-1960’s. He was with Tradair before then.

Sad news indeed. Mike was a great aviation enthusiast who did much to preserve some fine aeroplanes over many years.

Trapper 69