South Cerney Typhoon parts recovery…

Why would there be lots of firewalls in particular – or were they just part of a cache of general parts?

I would guess probably that once all of the easy to remove aluminium was taken from the Typhoon, leaving a time consuming to dissassemble mixed steel centre section, it was easier to bury or leave these for another day?

I met Ron Murphy in the early 2000’s as he had some Hornet parts for me. Ron was a key person behind this recovery of all of these Typhoon parts, and we talked about this over the day. As I recall, the majority of the remains centred around quite a few engine firewall assemblies, and to a greater/lesser extent on each, surounding tubular metal work that included a lot of the items mentioned earlier in this thread.

A few of these have been restored/rebuilt into cockpits now on public display:

– Roger Marley’s fuselage was built up from the best of the remains.
– The Shoreham by the sea museum of D-Day aviation made a cockpit (now in France?).

– Another is/was stored with the museum at Coventry.
– The Gloucester Aviation Museum had another.
– Mark Evans has another.
– One in Canada.
– One in Yorkshire.

There are others.

Why would there be lots of firewalls in particular – or were they just part of a cache of general parts?

What happened to the dozens of Typhoon firewalls that were dug up?
Cees

Hi Cees,
They are now with lots of people, who to varying extents are rebuilding them into cockpit sections. I think the furthest afield ended up in Canada.
I don’t know if anyone has ever made a difinitive list, but a couple of forum members are in posession of some.

What happened to the dozens of Typhoon firewalls that were dug up?
Cees

Yes, that the chaps name, Ron Murphy!
It was Peter Wood who I whent with and yes he was involved, as far as I can remember, although there was a thought that there might be Spit stuff, nothing was found.
I remember being stood on the mound of earth, looking down into a deep hole at all this aeroplane wreakage, then turning round and within 20 foot, a vast lake that was at my level!

Jules

Any pics of the recovered remains?

Cees

I am looking for a Typhoon identity right now, and the problem with the firewall stencil is that it doesn’t carry the same weight as a data plate would when viewed by Transport for restoration purposes. I have discovered a firewall with such a stencil, but the work required to get it to airworthy state will be too extensive to save, and it’s pretty hard to transfer the paint from old to new! Aside from that I believe the only other identifier was the serial number on the tail. DaveR didn’t you once mention an occasional serial number on armor plate? Was this a stencil or a stamp?

When will someone discover a huge pile of Sabres????…in cans would be nice too!

The firewall that I picked up from Peter Woods had an identification…whenever a Typhoon went back for mods the serial number was stencilled on the firewall. The last number was faded when I first went to see it, R882…, but when I went back to pick it up Peter had ‘cleaned it up’ for me (with wire wool). No longer identifiable!!!

Not sure if any other firewalls were identified but the Typhoons scrapped at South Cernery could be identified from publications & RAF records.

“Great Piles of Typhoon stuff”
Now that is something you just don’t hear enough of these days! Whatever happened to it all? Were any aircraft identified specifically?

Ian

I was in touch with Ron Murphy a few years ago and he seemed to drop off the radar all of a sudden. I have tried to get hold of him on and off since then but with no luck…trying to trawl my memory with some of the details he gave me at the time but wanted to chat with someone who was actually there.

I thought there was some spit stuff there because if I remember correctly Peter Wood (seafire & hornet engines!!!) was involved with Ron in getting the project up and running.

Ron Murphy purchased from the MOD, rights to recovery dumped A/C parts from former Gov Airfields. As far as I known he explored sites at South Cerney, Kemble, Aston Down, and Little Riss with very varied results.

Yes, I was there, certainly on one occasion, a good friend invited me and my mate, but I cant remember the name of the chap organising it…………….it will come to me !
I remember piles of Typhoon stuff, bulkheads, rudder pedal assys, control columns……………………….don’t remember any Spit stuff though.
must have been in the late 1980’s

I had a very nice complete column from it.

There are some photos from the dig next to the Mosquito at the Yorkshire Air Museum, it mentions ‘Tony’, Lee Norgate and steve Hague (hoping i’m not spoiling anyone’s privacy). The vast quantities of stuff coming from East Anglia got me thinking to…