Abandoned Horsa at Farnborough

On the subject of Horsas in use as other things …in the early 50s a Horsa fuselage was on the south side of Christchurch airfield .Possibly RN371, the intention was for the newly constituted Christchurch Aero Club to use it as a club house…but the aircraft was vandalised and not used .
What happened to this one?
Are there any photos of it on the site?

@John Aerocub – Your picture is Horsa Mk.II RZ155 at Hendon Airshow in 1951.

I know Horsa’s were used for trials work at Farnborough but would need to trawls through my records for which ones. As Aeronut says, there were some used for loading and equipment trials but usually these were just the centre section on stands. Your picture looks to fit the bill but with a bit more bits left on it.

@Steve Bond – I think may have a picture of that fuselage section on the farm just before it was recovered.

We recovered a substantial Horsa fuselage section from a back garden in Carterton (Brize Norton) in the mid ’70s, and when we lifted it out of the undergrowth, we were amazed to find the landing skid was also still present. If my memory serves me correctly, it all went to the RAF Museum.

Don’t forget that numerous Horsas were sold off for civilian use – many on farms and the like – as is evident from a perusal of the early editions of Wrecks & Relics.

Looks like it to me Aeronut. The C-123 certainly originated as an assault glider.

Don’t forget that the gliders remained in service until 1950 and they were even planning a replacement for the Horsa.
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Does anyone else think that all General Aircraft Ltd did when the glider unit were disbanded was to scale this up, add four engines and call it the Universal Freighter?

Meddle – yes you are right. Just looked on Google Maps. They would have stopped off for the children to play and rest. Remember it was nearly forty years ago! There are certainly scrub/woodland at each end of the village though 🙂

There isn’t even woodland in Edington by the looks of it! :applause:

It would be great if there was an undiscovered Horsa fuselage there, however!

I believe the gliding club at RAF Lyneham used a Hamilcar or two as store/workshop/club house in the 50s and probably into the 60s.

There was a Horsa Glider fuselage in the woods for years at Edington in Somerset. I remember the family that used to play in it during their trips to the west Country during the 70’s. Long gone by now I expect.

Thanks Aeronut, never seen that photo before. I am guessing they must have been quite a few around army caps in Berkshire, Hampshire and other areas after the war?

That looks very complete for a training hulk.
This is what they ended up looking like.
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Other than it was a Horsa Mk1 I have no other information about this one.

Thanks, may well have been that one, shame we don’t know when it was taken. The site would be about 1.5 miles from the nearest part of the RAE.

I believe that it might be this one. The original was a poor small contact print which was amongst a number of photos I bought a little while ago. Another photo was of a Hamilcar which was at Farnborough.

John