Seafire IAC 153

Thanks Tony for your reply.

I assume they wouldn’t sell because of political reasons. Correct me if I am wrong. Why did the uk gov’t then, approve the sale of T.IX’s by Vickers Supermarine to Ireland? Just curious about the logic of the decision.

The reason given to the Irish Government at the time (1946) was that they wished to distribute the MkIX’s to their former allies. The two seat Spitfires (Tr9’s) which were ordered in 1950 were supplied in 1951 and by that time the situation had changed considerably.
Regards
Tony K

Thanks Tony for your reply.

I assume they wouldn’t sell because of political reasons. Correct me if I am wrong. Why did the uk gov’t then, approve the sale of T.IX’s by Vickers Supermarine to Ireland? Just curious about the logic of the decision.

Evening All,
That’s a nice pic of Seafire 153 (ex PX924). It was delivered on 11 July 1947by Air Corps pilot Lt. Crehan to Baldonnel. It last flew on 3 July 1954 and had 342.50 hrs on the clock.
jeepman.The wings were never folded during service and were only folded when stored following withdrawl from service at Baldonnel prior to ending up on the dump. The attached is from the log book of S147 ex PR315 and explains.
The Seafires were in fact modified to Spitfire MkV standard.

SimonDav. The answer to your question is quite simple, the UK Government would not release the MkIX’s to us even though we requested them.
I remember seeing the Seafires on the dump and only wish that I had the foresight to “take into care the constructors plates”, now there’s a thought!
Regards
Tony K

At the risk of being accused of thread drift, but could anyone answer why the Irish bought old Seafires for land use which they then appeared to denavalise. Why not just buy Spit IX’s which the RAF must have had a surplus of after the war. Better performance and no need to modify.

I always understood that the wing folds on the Irish Seafires were deactivated in some way but that picture seems to show that the wing fold was operational – at least at that particular stage of the airframe’s life

I understand that they were deactivated in service but I have seen a picture of a stored example with the wings folded to save hangar space.

Thanks Mark – lookiong forward to reading it!

Is there a planned publishing date for the new book? Will it be available before Christmas?

Thanks in anticipation.

The boo.

The appendices are just being polished but our co-author who does the layout has a very heavy ‘proper-job’ workload…unlike myself. 🙂

Christmas will be touch and go but like all good Spitfire restorations, ‘it will be ready when it is ready’.

I am personally delighted with the proofs to date. I think we have raised the bar on the image depth, quality and colour content.

Mark

I always understood that the wing folds on the Irish Seafires were deactivated in some way but that picture seems to show that the wing fold was operational – at least at that particular stage of the airframe’s life

Is there a planned publishing date for the new book? Will it be available before Christmas?

Thanks in anticipation.

‘OTGA’ – one that got away.

Last reported March 1964 at Baldonnel.

OTGA’s will be covered in some depth in Vol.II of the boo.

Mark

Now who in their right mind would want to write a book about those things?:diablo:

Nice pic!

Don’t know the answer, but someone will no doubt be along shortly to mumble something about a book….:dev2: