Photo of the V.A. Type 253?

Indeed welcome Michael, very unusual to find a direct link to that period of test-pilots, and would love to hear more.
I’m assuming that this excellent webpage is about your father, https://sites.google.com/site/mickyogden/home
I take it the 253 was trialling the Pegasus through its various developments with Bristol at the time?

Welcome to the forum Michael. Very interesting stuff. I wonder which Britstol engine types they trialed on this airframe.

It’s posts like yours, Michael, that cause me to stay around here! But you might add to the pleasure by scanning and posting extracts from your father’s log book – please!

K2771 G4/31

My father, W/Cdr C V Ogden, was a test pilot at Bristol Aeroplane Company at Filton from 1935 to Nov 1941 and references to G4/31 started to appear in his log book in March 1937. A search on the internet revealed that it was the Vickers 253 prototype, which had been passed to Bristol’s as an test bed http://www.aer.ita.br/~bmattos/mundo/ww2/british/pages/VICKERS%20G4%2031.htm . From March 1937 to April 1939 he recorded 54.25 hours on this aircraft
Michael Ogden

Found it at last.

Mark

Brooklands

These pics are also courtesy of Putnam, this time Francis K Masons’ The British Bomber.

Vickers 253 G.4/31

AM Photo

AM Photo

The H.P.47 G.4/31, with ‘Maj’ Cordes at the controls

The Aeroplane Photo

Apologies for dire image quality, they scanned perfectly, but didn’t compress too well.

Oh for a time machine, I would even settle for a geodetic one!

Here’s a lovely shot of Mutt Summers demonstrating the prettier predecessor, Vildebeest NZ101.

Fantastic looking machine I reckon, I just love some of the British prototypes from the 1920-’30s. I wonder if that is ‘Mutt’ Summers at the helm?
I prefer the Handley Page 47 submission for G.4/31, that was a stressed skin monoplane, amongst a field of skeletal fabric covered has beens!

nowhere near as pretty as the Vildebeest

A phrase rare in literature. 😀

Yes, it’s nowhere near as pretty as the Vildebeest but certainly looks more robust (though the Vilde was a tough old bird in her own right).

That is an interesting looking machine, with a certain amount of lineage passed on from the Vickers Vildebeest and Vincent family by the look of things.

Kind of. Designed to replace those, it won the tender but was itself supplanted (for production) by the Wellesley. If you look at the fuselage, you can see it acts as a ‘missing-link’ between the Vildebeest and Wellesley.

That is an interesting looking machine, with a certain amount of lineage passed on from the Vickers Vildebeest and Vincent family by the look of things.

Really looks like a collection of spare parts cobbled together or a film prop!:p

Found it at last.

Mark

Brooklands

Thank you John! Lovely. Quite the campervan.

From the Putnams Vickers Aircraft since 1908 (Andrews and Morgan).

John