Vic Hought from Beverley had just emailed me regarding RAF Driffield – circa 1940. He wrote:
“…but one relatively small aspect has never been mentioned by you or anyone else with Driffield connections.
“The fact is, I clearly recall sitting on the perimeter fence with a school-friend, almost opposite the Four Winds Cafe, quite close to the most westerly hangar, in the early days of the war (poss.1940)
“In and around this hanger were a number of individually painted Auto-Giros – in red, green,blue and yellow if memory serves! I expect these machines were used for flight training purposes, but I have never since heard reference to them from any quarter. I wonder if you can shed any light on the subject.”
Am I right in saying these were probably Avro Rota a/c? Why the colourful colour schemes? Were they used in radar calibration work? Any help in this matter would be appreciated.
Best Wishes
Phil Rhodes
By: JDK - 1st February 2008 at 11:10
Mainly radar calibration, yes. Impressed ones went into RAF camouflaged colours, IIRC, with yellow undersides. There’s a famous, good shot of one at Duxford during the war with the radio aerial fitted, and an example on show there now, without. I could imagine civilian examples turning up in pre-war schemes until camouflaged (1938/9, prob not 1940, though). Civilian examples were painted in cream, red, and blue among other schemes, but always with big G-xxxx and usually cheatlines in contrast.
Hope that helps, I’ll have a dig about for further gen…
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February 1, 2008 at 10:55 am