October 1, 2009 at 8:42 am
Recently sent a picture of this seat to the RAF Museam they came back with this.
“I have had a look at your seat and believe that it is a front gunners seat from a Wellington Mk 1. The tubular seat runners are classic and in this type of aircraft the seat was fixed which made things a little difficult for the gunner. It was used in conjunction with the Vickers Armstrong Turret powered by a Frazer Nash Power Unit.
For a 100% confirmation the people at Brooklands would probably confirm.”
I then contacted Brooklands who were very helpful and said
“
We have compared the seat with our Wellington Gunners’ seats (rear and front turret are the same) and they are a completely different structure. The Wellington volunteer who helped with this believes that it is more likely a pilot’s seat and suggests investigating Armstrong Whitworth Whitley or Hamden bomber”
I thought maybe the Brooklands Wellington had the later Frazer Nash turrets fitted not the original Vickers Barnes Wallis designed unit and therefore had a different seat arrangement. :confused: