Short Stirling Replica

Hi Cestrian

Thanks for your reply. I’m a bit young to have been to the US Armed Forces days but I wish my dad could have taken me up in the hills in the 70s!

I’ve never been to the B-29 but would like to one day, when I have a spare five minutes.

The Botha is interesting as I visited the wreck in Snowdonia – also some large chunks, but I think post Whitley i’ll give myself an easy life and concentrate on singe seat types 😉

Cheers

Elliott

I worked with Dave Smith at Preston Centre and Preston Radar in 1967/68.He introduced me both to hill wrecks and U.S Armed Forces days(Remember those?).Dave has been a controller at Liverpool Airport for many years.I am still requested by recent arrivals at Manchester ATC to show them the local wrecks around the Peak District,including the B-29,B-24,F-86s Meteors etc that came to grief in the 1940s and 50s.The B-29 still has an amazing amount of wreckage still remaining.
Sorry,I have never visited a Whitley crash site,but there are still large chunks of Botha wing still up here in the Peak District if you fancy rebuilding one of those!

I find Manchester Air Traffic Control’s trips to find find aircraft wreckage on the hills quite a strange concept!

Lol – I think it’s the kind of thing the tabloids would love to get hold of. Hopefully it’s old news now 😀

I find Manchester Air Traffic Control’s trips to find find aircraft wreckage on the hills quite a strange concept!

And here are the pics!

Thanks Cestrian

They are wonderful pictures. Do you have any Whitley ones?

I’d be interested in knowing who your contemporaries were. Did you ever go up with David J Smith? (or are you David J Smith!!?). It is a VERY small world sometimes 😉

Peter,

I have four photographs given to me by Giuseppe Lombardi (Pino) showing the sections in store (taken I think at Henlow). They show the tail in less condition than as shown by Cestrian and the centre fuselage section lying alongside together with some control surfaces. Strange to see that the black paint was still bright after decades outside and then flaked off in store, makes you wonder about making plans for restoration first before recovering a wreck (W1048, the Skua, you name them).

The tail is complete with fin (and stabilizer, not sure about that one) so would make a very striking exhibit in it’s own right at Hendon………..

Ahh, the Stirling, a classic bomber, a large gap to be filled in any museum.

If only…….

Cees(dreaming)

more…. more……

And here are the pics!

A couple more pics of the Stirling on Mickle Fell taken in 1972 on one of Manchester Air Traffic Controls’ expeditions to find hill wrecks.

Pino and his crew are doing a GREAT job at Wyton – they have a cracking facility and an enormous collection of spares – they have just about finished the front turret which is one of the finest restorations I have ever seen – I think their plan is to make a complete cockpit section only, the rest of the airframe being just about impossible to reproduce without a friendly oil billionaire sponsoring them – but no doubt their members will put me right!

They are truly princes among men and deserve our full support!

Committed Stirling Fan.

Thanks Elliot

What A relief. That is a large section and would make a very interesting display if restored and fitted with a gun turrett!

Hi Steve

Yes, you are right – the large chunk of fuselage in the picture is alive and well and in store at RAF Stafford.

I think the large chunk in the photograph survived. Why? Because I once bought a copy of the RAF Museums souvenir video (WH Smiths for £1 🙂 ) and they take you on a tour of the reserve collection. It appears then. Now, this footage was shot in the 1990s. I doubt it would have been scrapped since then.

best regards, steve

Thanks guys,

Thanks for the correction on the burial Cees, I missed part of the news item and made an assumption.

Great to hear the wreckage is possibly going into the project. Good to hear it wasn’t corroded too. Amazing, Al Campbell said it was a metre under the water table.

Wow, there was a substantial amount of Stirling in that Mickle Fell wreckage. I hope you are misinformed peter. If that went to the tip, the RAF Museum should be shot. Perhaps it is simply hidden in a dark corner of the Bomber Command hall?

Dave

they should have left that stirling alone until the stirling group got formed. I understand that it all went to the tip eventually??

Stirling LK488 on Mickle Fell before removal by the ATC for the RAFM

Correction

Dave said:

I was rewatching a piece I taped some months ago from NZ news show ‘Holmes’ where a NZ policeman was interviewed live about how he helped in the recovery of a Stirling that crashed in Holland. His uncle was one of the crew. The recovery made some news again later because the crew were later buried in Britain a month or so back. Anyway, he mentioned that most of the metal they recovered was in excellent condition, “like new”. I wondered, could pieces from this recovery and others be used to help build a complete ‘replica’. I hope so.

Answer:
The six crewmembers were not buried in the UK but in Holland,in fact at the same cemetery as where the pilot had been laid to rest after having been found at the crashsite. Sorry, had to put that right (see also earlier thread about this topic).

Dave said:
what happened to the aircraft bits? Can they be used in a restoration?

Answer:

Dave, the remains of N3654 are still with us after having been released by the RNethAF. Although there are no substantial sections, there is a wealth of small fittings, brackets and castings etc. that can be used in the Stirling Project. I have been in contact with Giuseppe Lombardi some weeks ago and if all goes well a party will come over to Holland to have a look for themselves to see what can be recovered for the Stirling reconstruction. As Al Campbell stated (the New-Zealander you mentioned) the preservation is excellent and there is no corrosion whatsoever. I for one would be very happy to use recovered castings and brackets as the cost to make these from scrath would be very high indeed. For my Halifax cockpit project I also use parts from crashsites.

Hope this clears things up

BW the Stirling section mentioned earlier is probably from LK488 which was recovered from Mickle Fell, and which is in store at Wyton I think. Flypast did an article on that recovery fairly recentley.

Cheerio

Cees

Hi Dave,
Try the following link…

http://homepages.tesco.net/~stirling.project/

HTH

Tony C

There was a chunk of Stirling at Wyton when I visited there in July ’01. It’s in very poor condition, being about (relying on poor memory here) 15 feet of centre fuselage only, and with severe corrosion. Might be the basis of a project. Don’t have my W & R to hand but I’m guessing it’s gone on to Cosford with everything else from Wyton.