Some time ago I asked the Handley Page society if there were any drawings for the Heyford, they said that there were very few left, they seem to have vanished as per the original HP 42 drawings.
Any one know if they are in a seperate archive some where, or are they gone forever ???.
By: Firebex - 13th January 2011 at 19:02
Hi Cees
I believe that it was HFM who told me that the Heyford drawings were missing, they have most of the Handley Page drawings stored at Duxford, but the Heyford & HP42 drawings are not there.
Cheer’s.
Rob.
I know a man who has a loft a bit like mine with some boxes buried in dust and loft insulation I will go up there at week end and see if there is anything helpfull
its so long ago I cant remember what there is .I know there is a lot of Avro stuff and some other manufacturers as well as HP as HP like Hawkers/Avro/British Aerospace swallowed up so many names after the war and inherited a lot of their stuff.
No promises of what there might be but I will have a look if I can I will also try and dig out the contact details for a couple of other guys who like some of us where heartbroken to see stuff just being thrown into skips.I actually took two sets of Lancaster pilots seat arm rest out of a crate(reminds me they are destined ror East Kirby)and upteen binders full of photo’s of ex wartime Lancasters being converted to Lancastrians in Canada the detail etc in the photo’s is amaizing.There are some big biplanes in the drawings but cant rememebr if they are HP I think they are there is also some drawings of a very large single engine torpedo bomber.The drawing s are not your A5 jobs one fully detailed side view is over 20 feet long when unrolled so I think is either 1/4 or 1/3 scale.
Will post what I find next week if I have anything by almeans you are welcome to access to them as any other bona fide organisation or individual is but I would prefer them to remain part of my reference library given the fact the original owners decided to destroy them and did not want to care for them.
Some folks may disagree and that is your privilage but I feel if I have usefull archive material it should be made available to anyone who really needs it not locked away and needed a letter from the prime minister or a fee of lottery proportions to gain access to it.Only proviso the information contained is not for use on a flying aircraft as I am unable to guarantee the content as being current.accurate or to the latest mod standard.
R
Mike
By: earlybird - 12th January 2011 at 20:53
Hi Cees
I believe that it was HFM who told me that the Heyford drawings were missing, they have most of the Handley Page drawings stored at Duxford, but the Heyford & HP42 drawings are not there.
Cheer’s.
Rob.
By: CeBro - 12th January 2011 at 16:14
Harry Fraser Mitchell is the man to talk to about this. I asked him once about the older HP drawings and he mentioned that most of the drawings were saved including those of the HP 0/100 0/400.
IIRC the drawings are in the care of the IWM deparment of books
Cees
By: Firebex - 12th January 2011 at 16:13
I also recall some absolutely weird wonderfull and fantastic wind tunnel models turning up.We already had some good ones to start with.I wonder what happened to them all ?.I think a couple ended up at Manchester Air and Space but only a fraction of what was there.Might be another option see if they managed to rescue any of the Woodford stuff being on the doorstep.
By: Firebex - 12th January 2011 at 16:10
Hi
I dont know if it will be of any help as they may have long passed into oblivion.
When I worked at Woodford many decades ago we suddenly had the place swamped with Victors from Radlett I think for tanker ocnversion as HP had gone **** up.A week or two later some large vans arrived with absolute loads of archive stuff .Drawings,photo’s manuals absolute Mecca of stuff. The Tech library was so swamped a lot of stuff just got Skipped.YES SKIPPED.
Fortunately some kind hearted individuals liberated some of this material,of course I would not have done any such thing. But I do remember the print shop ,as there was a large one transferring tons of stuff onto micro fishe a lot of it was not indexed etc but there was boat loads of it.
Now with the imminent demise of Woodford one has to ask the question does all the library and archive still exists in the bottom end of the main factory gatherinbg tons of dust waiting to get thrown out or used for fire practise or is it still there.
It has to be worth either a phone call to Woodford or a nicely worded begging letter.They can only say no get lost but you never know.
Good luck with you search I will ask around.
Mike
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January 11, 2011 at 10:31 pm