Whitley recovery or salvage

Elliott,

We would all be very interesting in a pic of that centre section, being 90% complete, that would be a hefty component.
Keep up the great work.

Cheers

Cees

The RAFM tail section is serving a valuable purpose as it is – being displayed across the airfield from where it was built, at Baginton (now Coventry Airport), as part of the AWA story, within the Midland Air Museum.

That said I wouldn’t mind if it was replaced with an entirely complete Whitley at some point !;)

It’s worth a visit to the Midland Air Museum anyway, fantastic bunch of people there who can never do enough to help you – but the Whitley tail section looks so small when compared to the Lancaster that we all see and are familiar with, and even IMO the Welington, I found it a very sobering exhibit.

The RAFM tail section is serving a valuable purpose as it is – being displayed across the airfield from where it was built, at Baginton (now Coventry Airport), as part of the AWA story, within the Midland Air Museum.

That said I wouldn’t mind if it was replaced with an entirely complete Whitley at some point !;)

I agree but it would look much better if rebuilt to display standards. Especially as the tail was one of the things you could readily identify a Whitley by.

Cheers

Cees

Elliott,

If you are planning any digs id still love to come along to help, seems you have already visited every Whitley crash site in the U.K though!

Seems a shame if the original RAFM tail cannot be amalgamated with your project to create a whole in due course.

Hopefully common sense might prevail if the result of your work was a complete front 2/3rds completed to museum standard.

The RAFM tail section is serving a valuable purpose as it is – being displayed across the airfield from where it was built, at Baginton (now Coventry Airport), as part of the AWA story, within the Midland Air Museum.

That said I wouldn’t mind if it was replaced with an entirely complete Whitley at some point !;)

Well done Elliott

Seems a shame if the original RAFM tail cannot be amalgamated with your project to create a whole in due course.

Hopefully common sense might prevail if the result of your work was a complete front 2/3rds completed to museum standard.

Didn`t make Popham Elliot,spent all my hard earned rubles on Stirling stuff on Thursday.

Thanks Dave

That’s a great early pic.

Thanks for posting.

Here’s an early Whitley taken at RAF Harwell pre war by my uncle during the visit Kings there.

Dave

Thanks Cees

We have a lot of parts to work with – now it just comes down to money and time! We have enough parts to rebuild the wings, but some of the panels will be new material – all these parts came from crashed aircraft so missing or badly damaged parts will have to be replaced.

I don’t think we need Marks fuselage remnant as we have so much fuselage material anyway.

Great news about N1521 – sounds very interesting – i’m sure some more parts will turn up. Please let me know what happens…

Cheers

Nice collection of Whitley bits Elliott,

I agree, you cannot talk enough about Whitleys. Do you have enough wingbits to reconstruct one complete set? Would be nice if the RAFM bits and Mark Evans’ bits would be combined. But that again would be a pipe dream I think.

If all goes well we have another look at the remains of N1521 during August this year. We already have approaval of the game keeper. The lake was recentely made deeper and the soil was dumped nearby. This will dry out and when sufficiently firm to walk over it we can further investigate, but we think that only small bits are down there. It was also said that a metal concentration was located in the lake but they seem to have dug around it, don’t know if we can do something there. I will keep you posted on that.

Cheers

Cees

Hi Dave

I think the main reasons are the large number of Whitley high ground wrecks and the fact its not a Sptifire or Typhoon!

Smaller aircraft were easier to salvage – steel tube could be cut up easily and wooden airframes burnt. I have seen plenty of Whitley remains with axe marks on them – especially at the longerons. They certainly did their best to salvage them.

Wreckologists carried off most larger remains of the fighters in the 70s and 80s – the flying barn doors were generally bypassed.

The RAFM have been very co-operative in allowing access and staff at Stafford have actually gone out of their way to help – i’m extremely grateful to them. I know they have also been very helpful to the Stirling Project.

Elliott,
It has probably been asked before but why do you think that large sections of whitley at a number of crashes were left by the RAF recovery teams? It seems that they recovered all of other crashed aircraft (because of my interest I am thinking about Typhoons in particular) in what seems like more difficult circumstances…were they really inaccessible at the time and it is only with more modern equipment that they can be recovered? Was it because of the type…or is it basically unknown and it was just lucky for all enthusiasts that the sections survived so that perhaps one day we can see a complete whitley.

Looking at your list of surviving parts…will the RAF museum be interested in seeing the rear fuseage incorporated into your project or will it be down to allow access to it to enable you to build a new one?

Thanks Tim – your help moving the centre section will never be forgotten! I’m waiting for the jig to be delivered – once it gets on, i’ll send you a picture.

Don’t start me about the goat shed – less said the better.

I agree, the work done by Elliott is amazing, true dedication to the cause!

The piece of fuselage owned by Mark Evans was more like 25 inches long, not 25ft. Still a very impressive piece though.

It came from a remote Scottish island I believe, the Whitley had crash landed and as was too remote to salvage so it was broken up on site, many parts being used by the locals. The fuselage section was used as a goat shed IIRC.

Thanks Martin

Are you back early from Popham? I knew there were enough parts for a project when I started, otherwise I wouldn’t have done so, but it’s been tough all the same. We’re in the rebuild phase now and a much larger workshop is on the cards too. I also want to start developing a volunteer base in London so anyone who wants to help out – even cleaning parts – will be extremely welcome!

Mark Evans fuselage part is made up of part of the centre section and part of the front and rear fuselage at either end. It is a quarter section if you like of the fuselage with some flooring. I recently gave him the remaining missing joints for it which we recovered in 2005 as part of an exchange.

You`ve done really well Elliot, to pool all that stuff together..You were probably told “you`ll never find any Whitley Stuff”.The stuff is out there if you want to put in the mileage and pay through the nose for it.

Here’s an early Whitley taken at RAF Harwell pre war by my uncle during the visit Kings there.

Dave

Nice collection of Whitley bits Elliott,

I agree, you cannot talk enough about Whitleys. Do you have enough wingbits to reconstruct one complete set? Would be nice if the RAFM bits and Mark Evans’ bits would be combined. But that again would be a pipe dream I think.

If all goes well we have another look at the remains of N1521 during August this year. We already have approaval of the game keeper. The lake was recentely made deeper and the soil was dumped nearby. This will dry out and when sufficiently firm to walk over it we can further investigate, but we think that only small bits are down there. It was also said that a metal concentration was located in the lake but they seem to have dug around it, don’t know if we can do something there. I will keep you posted on that.

Cheers

Cees

Elliott,
It has probably been asked before but why do you think that large sections of whitley at a number of crashes were left by the RAF recovery teams? It seems that they recovered all of other crashed aircraft (because of my interest I am thinking about Typhoons in particular) in what seems like more difficult circumstances…were they really inaccessible at the time and it is only with more modern equipment that they can be recovered? Was it because of the type…or is it basically unknown and it was just lucky for all enthusiasts that the sections survived so that perhaps one day we can see a complete whitley.

Looking at your list of surviving parts…will the RAF museum be interested in seeing the rear fuseage incorporated into your project or will it be down to allow access to it to enable you to build a new one?

I agree, the work done by Elliott is amazing, true dedication to the cause!

The piece of fuselage owned by Mark Evans was more like 25 inches long, not 25ft. Still a very impressive piece though.

It came from a remote Scottish island I believe, the Whitley had crash landed and as was too remote to salvage so it was broken up on site, many parts being used by the locals. The fuselage section was used as a goat shed IIRC.

You`ve done really well Elliot, to pool all that stuff together..You were probably told “you`ll never find any Whitley Stuff”.The stuff is out there if you want to put in the mileage and pay through the nose for it.

25 Feet of Fuselage…….!!!!! from where ?

That’s alright – always happy to talk about Whitleys 🙂

The project holds:

Port and starboard outer wings
Large sections of port and starboard inner wings
2 Merlin Xs
A pair of undercarriage legs
Engine bearers – approx 1.5 sets
Completre set of original wooden blades
1 Rotol hub
Centre section – 90% complete
FN16 front turret
Large sections of front fuselage cockpit floor + a multitude of smaller parts including canopy remains
A variety of small-medium sized sections of rear fuselage
Several bomb racks
Pilot and navs seats
Throttlebox

The RAF Museum have the rear end of N1948 which is currently on show at the Midland Air Museum – this is the largest surviving Whitley part on public display and is well worth a visit.

Mark Evans has a section of fuselage from BD232 measuring around 25′ long

I’ll try and put some photos up

You`ve probably been asked this a million times Elliot,but how much Whitley is there surviving? you`ve done some pretty substantial recoveries…Well Done !!