Newark Air Museum Swift – But where ???

While at the museum this morning I asked about getting some more Tasker’s pictures from the NAM Archive and four have been added to the album in here http://www.newarkairmuseum.org/gallery.php

It is my understanding that 01 to 03 were taken at Winthorpe, while 04 was at Hemswell – I’m also advised that when the Queen Mary trailer returned from Hemswell it contained the remains of Proctor II G-AHMP.

The last time that I saw that photograph was in the “Modelling a Tasker’s Queen Mary Semi- Trailer” article by Gerald Scarborough in Airfix magazine – one that got away! 🙂

…the topic of the Anson wings on the Queen Mary trailer came up

Ah! The Queen Mary trailer…with the Spitfire replica. 😉

Mark

I didn’t think for one minute that you were.

Whilst sharing the sad news about Peter Green’s passing with another ‘original’ museum member the topic of the Anson wings on the Queen Mary trailer came up; that person reckons that they were located alongside the original hangar / workshop for less than 6 months in 1976/7.

If you look at images 9 and 10 in the gallery you can see that the original hangar (large building) is alongside the poplar trees ¨C the building was always in the same position and the site moved around it i.e. off the grass and onto the old runway.

In image 9 you can see the Queen Mary trailer at the edge of the site boundary and you can almost make out a set of wings on there, IIRC these were the Anson spares post-fire.

So the brain isn’t going lar lar! Thanks howard,the memory ain’t going yet!

The Prentice’s flying days at RAF Laarbruch are fairly well covered in the NAM Archive, with several good quality black and white prints being available; that said it is still nice to hear that it is remembered by other people. 🙂

My Dad flew this particular Prentice, while it was used by RAF Laarbruch flying club, in 1965. I have copy of a colour picture taken of it, outside its hangar, parked alongside our car at the time, a Ford Taunus estate, also painted blue and white.

If you look at images 9 and 10 in the gallery you can see that the original hangar (large building) is alongside the poplar trees – the building was always in the same position and the site moved around it i.e. off the grass and onto the old runway.

In image 9 you can see the Queen Mary trailer at the edge of the site boundary and you can almost make out a set of wings on there, IIRC these were the Anson spares post-fire.

This was a long time ago so bare with me! There was a building next to some tall trees and i guess a high wire fence.The wings were down the side of the building.Did a building ever exist show ground side but next to the north/south runway.I remember seeing tall poplar trees as well.

A Site Progress album can now be found in here http://www.newarkairmuseum.org/gallery.php and there are three aerial views of the original site(s) in 1973, 1975 (repeat of #6) and 1977 – also captured amongst them is a teenage TO23! 😮

Just another thought spit1940, were the wings that you can remember perhaps on a Queen Mary trailer; maybe a second Anson set?

I almost forgot, there’s a colour shot of the Prentice from 1967 and John Penny’s home-built ‘Eindecker’ in 1973!

spit1940,

That doesn’t ring any specific bells with me I’m afraid.

I became a member in spring 1973 and they were just starting to reassemble the Vampire, I wonder whether its wings had been stored in such a way – if it they were it would be only briefly.

I don’t even recall the duplicate Anson wings being stored in such a way, but of course I may be wrong!

Perhaps it may come out in the next NAM book that is already being researched, which will chart the history of the museum!

Phew Robert, you haven’t captured a teenage TO23 in those images!!

The second photograph of the ‘low-pass’ above the Auster (?), reminds me of a similar flypast from Ormond Haydon-Baillie in his Sea Fury. IIRC that was in 1974 and in my memory it was even lower – one of the most stunning pieces of flying that I can recall at Winthorpe.

Finally for now – I’m trying to arrange for some ‘site progress’ photos to be added to the Gallery on the NAM website, which might she some more light on the development process around the original museum site.

Here is G-APIY at Newark 14th April 1973. There was also a fly-in.

Can’t say for sure that it was the early NAM we came to all those years ago but it sounds like it might have been.I remember seeing a wing or wings in the then RAF Training scheme down the side of a green building at the site we came to if that rings any bells howard.

Having posted the aerial view of the 1975 site in #6 I have pondered on the ‘airframes’ pictured – of the 11 in that particular image 4 have moved on from NAM.

The 3 BoB film replicas moved out quite quickly as did the Magister, which is now flying out of Breighton.

The other 7 airframes (including the Prentice, now in RAF markings) are either displayed under cover at NAM, or the Monospar that is being restored inside Hangar 1 and the NAM Workshop, (this is itself the building that is pictured in the photograph, having been moved to the current site in the early 1980s).

Winthorpe I guess early 70s…is that the Prentice on the left ?

Ah, the Newark Prentice VR249…my first ever flight, in September 1959 at Ramsgate and then wearing its civilian guise.

Mark

The move to the current site took place during the winter of 1977 / 78.

Prior to that site location chronology was as follows:

1967 – Prentice lands at Winthorpe (stored on old runway, joined by Swift in 1969 and Meteor FR9 in 1970)

1970 – Aircraft moved onto grassed area (OP’s photograph)

1973 – Officially opened to public in fenced area that is shown on the attached picture taken in 1975

1976 – Move off grass to runway that is parallel to A46, where cars are parked in the picture (mainly to accommodate the arrival of the Varsity)

TO- When did the museum move to its current site,the reason i ask is i remember going to an aviation museum way back and we parked the car on a runway which had concrete blocks on it very similar to the dis used one on the A46 side of the show ground.This must have been in the 1970s.

Looking at the layout of the aircraft (yes I think it’s the Prentice to the left) I would suspect May 1970 during the County Show on the museum’s original site on the Winthorpe Showground, over by the A46.

The following year just after the County Show was when the original Anson was lost to the arson attack; at that time the aircraft were parked closer together and the Swift and Meteor FR9 were moved away by showground workers to stop them catching fire as well.

I don’t think it was 1969 as I don’t believe the Swift had an undercarriage then.

I certainly recognise the caravan (owned by David Westacott’s brother) and I believe that I sold tickets from the van in the top right during 1973, when it formed the admission kiosk at that year’s County Show.

I think I need to get out more!! 😀

Winthorpe I guess early 70s…is that the Prentice on the left ?

If anybody can spot TO in the photo, we could date it from the length and shade of his beard.