I am about to publish the memoirs of the late RNZAF pilot Ross Sayers (formerly of Cambridge, NZ) on my website. He leadan incredible career in the war as a Coastal Command bomber pilot on Wellingtons in the Meditteranean, Africa, the Atlantic, and the North Sea and later he flew Warwick V’s with 179 Sqn. Sadly he passed away a few months ago and I only tracked down where he’d lived – hoping to speak to him for my website project – by finding his death notice in the RSA magazine’s Last Post.
But his wife has kindly leant me his memoirs and is allowing me to publish the first half of the book on my website (18 chapters, superbly written as he was a journalist in his other life).
Anyway, he talks of the Warwick and how good it was. I never knew till reading his book that the Warwick was designed first but was too big for the powerplants available so the designers scaled it down to create the Wellington.
He tells of a story where he was on patrol and was buzzed by a FAA fighter. It was illegal to do so – so he decided to get the plane’s number and persued it. He reckons no matter what the fighter did in terms of speed and manouvring it couldn’t shake the Warwick from its tail and he eventually caught the fighter. Bloody amazing. They should have had Warwick gunships in the bomber formations to chase the fighters away. He didn’t say what the fighter he chased was, but this was 1944 so it was probably a pretty nifty thing in its own right.
Anyway, you’ll be able to read the whole story soon when it’s up online. I’ll let the forum know.
In the meantime, does anyone have a photo of the Warwick and Wellington sitting together? I’d love to see the comparison in size.
Cheers
Dave
By: HP57 - 29th September 2004 at 16:03
Wow – that’s great Cees. What was the history behind it? Sounds like the RNethAF are good friends to have!
Hi Elliott,
Well this particular aircraft was under investigation by us two years ago. The then owner had just sold it to a third party under the provision that any wreckage of the Wellington was to be recovered by the Air Force for fear of any pollution or UXB on site. There weren’t any (we did our investigation thoroughly) but it was part of the contractual agreement so we couldn’t do anything. A few weeks ago the wreckage was recovered and as we have a very good mutual relationship witht the Air Force (we provide them with the necessary information about a certain aircraft they have to recover) and they let us have the wreckage. Not a bad agreement.
A few years ago we would have bashed in each others heads, but after we had proved to be a serious bunch and having access to a lot of information they approached us to ask for help. Great guys they are.
Cees
By: Whitley_Project - 29th September 2004 at 11:16
Great thread!
Thanks for this learning moment.
Last week we got some prefixed 285 wreckage 😉 care of the RNethAF including one very complete Pegasus engine.
Cheers
Cees
Wow – that’s great Cees. What was the history behind it? Sounds like the RNethAF are good friends to have!
By: Dave Homewood - 29th September 2004 at 10:49
The book is now online by the way. Go here
http://www.cambridgeairforce.org.nz/Ross%20Sayers.htm
By: HP57 - 28th September 2004 at 18:53
Great thread!
Thanks for this learning moment.
Last week we got some prefixed 285 wreckage 😉 care of the RNethAF including one very complete Pegasus engine.
Cheers
Cees
By: Dave Homewood - 27th September 2004 at 08:59
Thanks Peter and dhfan, that pretty much supports what Ross Sayers wrote in a round about way I guess.
Dave
By: dhfan - 27th September 2004 at 03:15
The only reference I have is the Putnam book. According to that, although not entirely accurate, there is some similarity to the above remarks.
The two aircraft were designed virtually simultaneously and intended to be complementary. The higher power engines for which the Warwick was designed included the Vulture, Sabre and Centaurus which suggests it was intended to be equivalent to the Manchester. By the time anything in that class was available, the four-engined bombers were already doing the job.
The Vickers type numbers are 284 for the Warwick and 285 for the Wellington. The book states that the prototype Wellington Mk 1 was effectively a cut down Warwick.
This proves that I hadn’t read as much of the book as I thought I had!
By: Papa Lima - 27th September 2004 at 02:36
According to “The British Bomber since 1914” by Francis K Mason, “the Warwick was originally conceived as a heavy bomber to complement the smaller Wellington bomber, with which it had much in common.”
My interpretation of this is that the Wellington was designed first and the Warwick immediately afterwards, although its design was later revised to meet the later B.1/35 Spec.
By: Dave Homewood - 27th September 2004 at 01:01
Hi Cees,
Looking into this I cannot find which was physically designed first, but the Wellington seems to have been designed to meet specification B.9/32, and the Warwick to meet B1/35. I assume the latter two letters refer to the year that the tender was released, but this doesn’t really mean that the aircraft were designed that year. The Warwick may have been designed first for B9/32 and shelved until a more suitable powerplant and tender specification came along I guess. I was only going by what Ross Sayers wrote that they as aircrew were told.
I – like you – had always though the Warwick was designed later too. Perhaps Mr Sayers was misinformed.
By: HP57 - 26th September 2004 at 16:47
Dave Homewood posted:
Quote:
Anyway, he talks of the Warwick and how good it was. I never knew till reading his book that the Warwick was designed first but was too big for the powerplants available so the designers scaled it down to create the Wellington.
unquote
I seem to think it was the other way round, the Warwick was an upscaled Wellington.
Cees
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September 25, 2004 at 2:43 am